A sad anniversary

[chani]

20 years ago Chernobyl disaster happened. 

I was a student, living on the Riviera, in Nice, then. It was my last year in College (which in France means secondary school, just before High School). I remember the lies our government told us, I remember the fear we felt when the truth came out finally because southeastern France was the area where the radiation levels were the highest (Corsica was the most contaminated) and they didn't take any precautions. 

French television has been showing many programms on several channels about Chernobyl, for a week. I don't know if it's that covered in other countries but here it was big probably because of that unbelievable State Lie that occured then. in 1986 J. Chirac was Prime Minister, it was the first year of "cohabition" between a right-wing government and a left-wing President, F. Mitterrand...and the Presidentials were to happen 2 years later. 

They lied to us to protect the image of French Nuclear Industry and because of vote-catching, for the farmers were so important for the right wing. They hinted that Chernobyl radioactive cloud had stopped at the border (how convenient!), that the precautionary measures that were taken in Germany or Italy (where people were told not to eat fresh vegetables or milk product because they absorbed most radioactivity), were useless in France. They even made  a scientist (who worked for the state-run SCPRI =Central Service for Protection against Radioactive Rays  ) say that everything was fine until a well known physicist made him spill the beans during the news (the journalist was fired afterwards!).

People are still dying in Ukraine and will die in the future. 

There's still a controversy about the effects of Chernobyl on public health, especially  in France where scientists are divided. Whether people may have developped cancers because of Chernobyl or not, there's still one undeniable fact: the authorities deliberately suppressed information about the spread of radioactive fallout from Chernobyl disaster over France. And I lived in the most contaminated area....

Comments

[so-sharlemaine.livejournal.com]

I remember that day. I was in my 2nd year of college, which I guess is what is called university in Europe. I was 20.

It was covered here a lot, and I think the american news agencies were just repeating the information that was being given as "official" announcements around the world. But I remember thinking that there was no way it wasn't going to be tremendously damaging to the environment and dangerous to the health of the entire population of the world. I couldn't believe they would even try to tell us that. After all, throughout the early 80s so much of our science and physics classes were about atomic energy, nuclear energy, the far-reaching effects of radiation, and radio-active fallout. There were even major motion picture movies made about nuclear disasters, because it was such a hot topic, like terrorism is now.

I still find it absurd that it was even attempted to be minimized, and that there are still some who try to say that disaster was avoided.

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

But is it covered a lot today for its anniversary?

Not ony it was absurd but also reckless. When you think of the 6000 people who were sent there to work on the site with their bare hands !

[kazzy-cee.livejournal.com]

The other worrying thing is that they are not certain what is going on under the cement they have buried the site under, and that the Chernobyl reactor design is still in operation elsewhere in Russia.

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

Indeed.

*sigh*

[candlelightfrot.livejournal.com]

I was planning a trip north into Canada and Alaska..... it made me wonder if I should, I still did.

Have you ever visited the Kidd of Speed Website by 'Elena' (http://www.kiddofspeed.com/) - which concerns itself with how the exclusionary zone is 'evolving.' Some of her pics are from as early as 2004. And she has added some new pages such as 'Elena' Revisits Chernobyl (http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chernobyl-revisited) and Land of the Wolves (http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chernobyl-land-of-the-wolves/). She says in her chapter one about radiation:

......the device we use for measuring radiation levels is called a geiger counter . If you flick it on in Kiev, it will measure about 12-16 microroentgen per hour. In a typical city of Russia and America, it will read 10-12 microroentgen per hour. In the center of many European cities are 20 microR per hour, the radioactivity of the stone.

1,000 microroentgens equal one milliroentgen and 1,000 milliroentgens equal 1 roentgen. So one roentgen is 100,000 times the average radiation of a typical city. A dose of 500 roentgens within 5 hours is fatal to humans. Interestingly, it takes about 2 1/2 times that dosage to kill a chicken and over 100 times that to kill a cockroach.

This sort of radiation level can not be found in Chernobyl now. In the first days after explosion, some places around the reactor were emitting 3,000-30,000 roentgens per hour. The firemen who were sent to put out the reactor fire were fried on the spot by gamma radiation. The remains of the reactor were entombed within an enormous steel and concrete sarcophagus, so it is now relatively safe to travel to the area - as long as we do not step off of the roadway.......

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

No I didn't know that site. Thanks for the pointer!