Spiegel: Chernobyl Remembered, "My Friends Were Dying under my Eyes"
Post
April 26, 2006, Chernobyl Remembered, "My Friends Were Dying under my Eyes"
Mourners gathered early Wednesday morning to commemorate the worst civilian nuclear disaster ever. Exactly two decades ago, Reactor no. 4 exploded, sending a radioactive cloud around the world.
Bells tolled, sirens blared and mourners bearing candles commemorated the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster early on Wednesday morning in the small town of Slavutych, some 50 kilometers east of the stricken reactor. Hundreds of people, many carrying a single red carnation, filed through the streets before observing a minute of silence at exactly 1:23 a.m. Moscow time -- the time on April 26, 1986 when Reactor no. 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, sending a cloud of radiation billowing out over the Soviet Union, Europe and beyond.
At the same time in Kiev, mourners -- joined by Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko -- attended a solemn, wee-hour ceremony in the Ukrainian capital with bells tolling 20 times starting at 1:23 a.m. "My friends were dying under my eyes," Konstantyn Sokolov, a 68-year-old former Chernobyl worker -- who suffered from throat and lip cancer -- told the AP. "I try not to recollect my memories. They are very terrible."
The explosion that ripped through Reactor no. 4 two decades ago ripped the roof off the reactor block and a cloud of radiation -- many times that released by the Hiroshima bombing in 1945 -- resulted in 10 days of fallout across 200,000 square kilometers of the Soviet Union and Europe. One worker was killed instantly, his body never found, and at least 29 rescue workers and plant workers died subsequently of radiation poisoning. The exact death toll from the disaster remains a matter of controversy, with the World Health Organization saying the ultimate death toll will be as low as 9,300 while Greenpeace recently claimed that as many as 93,000 lives will be lost as a direct result of the disaster and diseases -- especially thyroid cancer -- caused by radiation.
Some 350,000 people were ultimately evacuated from the exclusion zone set up around the stricken reactor, including 50,000 from the former city of Prypiat. The region remains mostly deserted but for a number of older residents who returned soon after the accident. A further 5 million people still live in areas hit hard by radioactive fallout, mostly in Ukraine and neighboring Belarus, according to the AP.
Commemoration ceremonies in Ukraine are planned to continue throughout the day on Wednesday with Yushchenko scheduled to meet with surviving "liquidators" -- those sent in immediately after the blast to battle the raging fire. They were exposed to massive doses of radiation and many of them died. There is a memorial to the liquidators not far from the defunct power plant inside the exclusion zone.
Belarusian opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich was in Gomel, Belarus -- the closest Belarusian city to the exclusion zone -- on Wednesday to attend a conference on the disaster's aftermath organized by the opposition. Roughly a quarter of Belarusian territory was covered by radiation from the blast. The opposition accuses President Alexander Lukashenko of downplaying the effects of Chernobyl radiation in Belarusia. The conference was held in a small home because authorities denied the opposition the use of any public hall in the city.
Mourners gathered early Wednesday morning to commemorate the worst civilian nuclear disaster ever. Exactly two decades ago, Reactor no. 4 exploded, sending a radioactive cloud around the world.
Bells tolled, sirens blared and mourners bearing candles commemorated the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster early on Wednesday morning in the small town of Slavutych, some 50 kilometers east of the stricken reactor. Hundreds of people, many carrying a single red carnation, filed through the streets before observing a minute of silence at exactly 1:23 a.m. Moscow time -- the time on April 26, 1986 when Reactor no. 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, sending a cloud of radiation billowing out over the Soviet Union, Europe and beyond.
At the same time in Kiev, mourners -- joined by Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko -- attended a solemn, wee-hour ceremony in the Ukrainian capital with bells tolling 20 times starting at 1:23 a.m. "My friends were dying under my eyes," Konstantyn Sokolov, a 68-year-old former Chernobyl worker -- who suffered from throat and lip cancer -- told the AP. "I try not to recollect my memories. They are very terrible."
The explosion that ripped through Reactor no. 4 two decades ago ripped the roof off the reactor block and a cloud of radiation -- many times that released by the Hiroshima bombing in 1945 -- resulted in 10 days of fallout across 200,000 square kilometers of the Soviet Union and Europe. One worker was killed instantly, his body never found, and at least 29 rescue workers and plant workers died subsequently of radiation poisoning. The exact death toll from the disaster remains a matter of controversy, with the World Health Organization saying the ultimate death toll will be as low as 9,300 while Greenpeace recently claimed that as many as 93,000 lives will be lost as a direct result of the disaster and diseases -- especially thyroid cancer -- caused by radiation.
Some 350,000 people were ultimately evacuated from the exclusion zone set up around the stricken reactor, including 50,000 from the former city of Prypiat. The region remains mostly deserted but for a number of older residents who returned soon after the accident. A further 5 million people still live in areas hit hard by radioactive fallout, mostly in Ukraine and neighboring Belarus, according to the AP.
Commemoration ceremonies in Ukraine are planned to continue throughout the day on Wednesday with Yushchenko scheduled to meet with surviving "liquidators" -- those sent in immediately after the blast to battle the raging fire. They were exposed to massive doses of radiation and many of them died. There is a memorial to the liquidators not far from the defunct power plant inside the exclusion zone.
Belarusian opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich was in Gomel, Belarus -- the closest Belarusian city to the exclusion zone -- on Wednesday to attend a conference on the disaster's aftermath organized by the opposition. Roughly a quarter of Belarusian territory was covered by radiation from the blast. The opposition accuses President Alexander Lukashenko of downplaying the effects of Chernobyl radiation in Belarusia. The conference was held in a small home because authorities denied the opposition the use of any public hall in the city.
Home