Haven't had Internet access to blog so we will have to get caught up. We spent today in the Dead Zone. What an amazing experience. We went all the way to Pripiat, the company town that had a population of about 50,000 before the nuclear accident at Chernobyl. The radiation levels there varied but if we stayed on the cement it was about 30 millirems on the geiger counter and in the building we were in it was around 60 millirems. In some places, like the old amusement park it was around 100 millirems but we measured a puddle of water at about 800 millirems. For comparison, a normal radiationlevel is around 15. Today, in at the base of the old reactor, we measure about 500 from the road but a little further up the road, radiation rose to 900 millirems. In the days immediately following the nuclear reactor radiation readings were 15,000 times a normal level and no one had been warned or evacuated.
There are still farms and dairies immediately outside the closed zone and we were looking at them as we put on our required masks and shoe covers. One can only imagine what the radiation levels are here in the milk. There are supposed to be controls but they are frequently abused.
The men who put out the reactor fire and cleaned up the nuclear site were called liquidators. There were over 500,000 of them, men between the ages of 20-30, members of the former Soviet Union's version of the national guard, their reserves. Twenty percent of them were dead in the first 10 years. The first responders died within weeks. Had they not succeeded at their job, a second explosion would have occured that would have wiped out all of Europe. The reactor continues to leak and the new steel sarcophagus is 10 years behind schedule. The radiation continues to leak into the ground water, into the Pripiat river and flows toward the Black Sea.
The half life of the Plutonium still remaining (literally tons of it) is 24,000 years. The new steel structure that will cover the sarcophagus is being paid for by the International community as the countries surrounding the plant cannot afford to rebuild it. The original cleanup cost the former Soviet Union 18 billion dollars. They have never recovered from it.
It is fairly quiet near the plant and surround Pripiat. Very few birds, wild animals or even bugs are in the area. We did see a large wild boar. However, hamsters that have been fed the grass growing near the power plant have horrible mutations and this is also reflected in the human populations in Ukraine and Belarus. 70 percent of the radiation clouds went over Belarus due to the way the winds blew and 30 percent went over Ukraine before moving on to the rest of Europe. Cancers, stomach, heart and thyroid problems remain extremely high throughout both countries and other parts of Europe.
One of the 80 abandoned villages was covered with clay and say in an experiment meant to see if they could re-inhabit the area, it failed. Radiation readings we got today were still well over a few hundred millirems and this was not far off the road as it is too dangerous to walk too far into the area. Over 200,000 people were relocated in Ukraine alone. Radiation remains above normal in many regions that are inhabited.
The former Soviet Union had plans for 12 reactors at Chernobyl but only five had been completed when the accident occurred.
There are still hundreds of workers traveling in and out of the power plant with somewhat limited hours, as they need time off to rid themselves of radiation. We were not sure what all the people there were doing but we saw them being bused in and out and we did hear the power plant humming in one location which is confusing as the reactors are all supposed to be moth balled. We also saw smoke rising from a smokestack near the reactor.
We saw no other tourists today in that region and had to go through a few check points as we left, to make sure both ourselves and the vehicle we traveled in did not have elevated levels of radiation. We passed! A doctor in Belarus advised that Linda and I drink red wine after our trip today so we are sharing a lovely tempranillo as we are eager to comply! Cheers!
Now that we have Internet access we will try to catch up on our travels through Belarus where we had limited data and computer access.
Dasvidanya!
Ruth and Linda
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