reprinted with permission from [Dr. Vladimir Chernousenko]
Poison Fire, Sacred Earth,
TESTIMONIES, LECTURES, CONCLUSIONS,
THE WORLD URANIUM HEARING, SALZBURG 1992
pages 21-24
"It is not a normal situation
when the people who are in charge
of the fate of a whole civilization
lie quite openly to the whole world."
What dimensions did this catastrophe take on? . . . Well,
firstly, according to our calculations, more than 35 million
people on the territory of our -- of my -- country received this
or another dosage of radiation. By "this or another dosage" I
mean, well, for example, more than 15 million people got an
over-dose from hundreds til some 3,500 to 4,000 times on their
thyroid glands. It is clear that this will not go away without
consequences for the children's health who received this dosage.
As a result of the fallout from the fourth block that we succeeded
in closing sometime around the 15th to 20th May, not 3.5 percent
radionuclides, but, according to our estimates, 65 to 80 percent
of the whole content of the reactor had been thrown out from the
destroyed block. Imagine -- 192 tons of uranium, imagine that at
the moment of the catastrophe the reactor produced 520 different
dangerous radionuclides, among them also radioactive iodine which
effects the thyroid glands of the children in the most dangerous
way -- and you get an idea of the scale of damage especially to
the territory of our country. . . .
. . . The thing is that we faced an astonishing
interrelationship which, at first glance, cannot be understood by
the human being's brain. Well, for example: You all know that
there is an International Agency of Atomic Energy in Vienna which
is headed by [Hans] Blix. But how astonishing that this
international agency could speak the same language as our former
communist government! We were simply astonished by that! We met
Blix when he came to us, to Chernobyl, and Blix saw very well
that, at that moment, the fourth block really was throwing out
millions of Curies of activity. I related that according to our
figures -- and we, thank God, observed it when we were in the air
over the fourth block many times during a period of three to four
months -- we saw that it was absolutely empty, and we estimated
that such a quantity of the radionuclides had been thrown out.
According to our estimates that was not 50 million Curies, but
approximately 6.3 billion Curies of activity. And then, at that
moment, Hans Blix saw that the radionuclides were being thrown out
from the block and were being spread over the whole territory of
the earth and, at the same time, he made calming statements: "Just
be quiet, everything is all right, everything is under control,
there is no cause to worry." This put us on our guard.
After that, such an extreme lie already followed when our
government, under pressure from its own atomic mafia, . . .
[recording interrupted]. They were all created for the production
of plutonium. So this Minsredmash, as we say, the Ministry of the
Medium Machine Building prepared a completely falsified protocol
about the catastrophe that had happened; it claimed that only
unpredictable situations had led to such a catastrophe. . . .
And what astonished us after that -- the IAEO was only too keen
to believe every word and began to convince the whole world: "Yes,
do not worry, the rest of the 15 blocks will not explode. No
problems." It is not a normal situation when the people who are in
charge of the fate of a whole civilization lie quite openly to the
whole world. So, after the situation connected with the IAEO --
and IAEO, these are specialists, they could easily uncover
falsification, the wrong conception; so we lost all respect for
them. And from that moment on -- it was approximately one year
after the catastrophe of Chernobyl --, we began to call the whole
organization a good united international atomic mafia which we all
have to fight, of course, because they can very quickly and easily
murder us.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Vladimir Chernousenko
Vladimir Chernousenko, CIS. Physicist, scientific co-ordinator of
the clean-up in Chernobyl.
(This speech was held originally in Russian)
Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen! Good morning, Friends! It
gives me great pleasure to meet so many people here in this big
beautiful hall who share the concern of those of us in my home
country, who are worried about the problems of the continuously
worsening global ecological situation. I would like to divide my
short speech into two or three parts.
I would like to give you a short account of our sad, I would go
so far as to say, tragic experience in dealing with one of the
most terrible catastrophes that has ever afflicted us. I mean, of
course, the year 1986, Chernobyl. Later on, I would like to say a
few words about existing problems and the dangers connected with
the further development of such dangerous products, in particular,
atomic power stations, atomic blocks, and then, perhaps, I will
speak about the problems and tasks which, in my opinion, we,
together, using our combined strength, have to solve in the near
future.
And so, my memories return to those tragic months of work in
Chernobyl -- what I want to say most of all about those rather
demanding months of work in such dangerous zones where my friends
were also employed. Well, first of all, having found ourselves in
this special zone, the ten-kilometer-zone around the destroyed
reactor, we were soon convinced that the atomic lobby -- the
atomic mafia, as I began to call it later on, having developed
such a dangerous product -- had not thought at all about our
future, had not at all developed a plan in the event of such an
unpredictable catastrophe. Unfortunately, I did not bring along a
map of the radiation situation, maybe next time during this
congress I will succeed in showing it. Then all people present
here would clearly understand the kind of conditions under which
my friends had to work in Chernobyl.
We were approaching those zones of the fields with the
extra-high radiation very slowly. If, in May, we had begun with
fields of somewhere around 10, 100 or sometimes 200 Roentgen per
hour, then in August, we went out in the zones with fields of
12,000 to 15,000 Roentgen per hour. As you understand yourselves,
it was just impossible to work in such fields, and even the
machinery we had bought in the West for hard currency -- it just
immediately went out of order in fields with such high radiation.
And then, on the order of our government headed at that time by
Gorbachev, the command was given to throw living people in these
highly dangerous radiation fields. We tried somehow to make some
sort of protection, we tried to design some clothing that would
have protected at least the most important organs.
Well, as you understand yourselves, it is practically
impossible to do so in fields of such high radiation. Today, it is
simply impossible to find protection against fields of 15,000
Roentgen per hour in the form of a high-pressure suit so that a
living human being could work in such fields, in such zones.
Then, in August, a conference took place at the IAEO, and the
world calmed down that the block had stopped throwing out
radioactive nuclides onto the whole territory of the terrestrial
globe, and at that time, we approached the extra-high fields only
by the end of August, and from the beginning of September almost
until the end of October this terribly dangerous work was carried
out in this 10-kilometer-zone in absolute secrecy.
It is possible to relate many tragic moments which highlighted
the catastrophe. Well, the first and the most important thing
which can be quoted here is, of course, the regime of secrecy
which was accepted in our country from the very first second the
catastrophe happened. People living in territories far away from
Chernobyl found themselves in the radioactively contaminated zone
-- they did not even know for some years in which regions they
lived, why their children were ill, which doses of radiation they
had been exposed to, and this was perhaps the most tragic moment
and the period, I would say, of our fight for some clarity,
openness, for at least some honest scientific data which might be
useful to scientists, for the analysis in the future of all these
consequences of contamination from radiation for -- I underline --
millions of people.
What dimensions did this catastrophe take on? Well, according
to the estimates that we made during the period when the secret
protocol about the liquidation of this catastrophe was being
prepared for our government, we estimated -- or at least tried to
estimate -- the dimensions involved. They just terrified us.
Well, firstly, according to our calculations, more than 35
million people on the territory of our -- of my -- country
received this or another dosage of radiation. By "this or another
dosage" I mean, well, for example, more than 15 million people got
an over-dose from hundreds til some 3,500 to 4,000 times on their
thyroid glands. It is clear that this will not go away without
consequences for the children's health who received this dosage.
As a result of the fallout from the fourth block that we succeeded
in closing sometime around the 15th to 20th May, not 3.5 percent
radionuclides, but, according to our estimates, 65 to 80 percent
of the whole content of the reactor had been thrown out from the
destroyed block. Imagine -- 192 tons of uranium, imagine that at
the moment of the catastrophe the reactor produced 520 different
dangerous radionuclides, among them also radioactive iodine which
effects the thyroid glands of the children in the most dangerous
way -- and you get an idea of the scale of damage especially to
the territory of our country.
As a result of the fallout from the fourth block the whole
territory of the Ukraine is contaminated practically to a two
thirds degree. According to our estimates, practically the whole
territory of greatly affected White Russia is contaminated. If the
preliminary maps of the radiation situation said that White Russia
was contaminated only to about 30 or 40 percent, then the latest,
more detailed estimates which we as well as White Russian
scientists and physicists have carried out, show that practically
the whole territory of White Russia is contaminated with different
degrees of contamination -- from some tens of Curie to 300 to 500
Curie per square-kilometer. And you get some idea, what it is like
for people who have been forced to live under such conditions for
six years now.
At the same time, we faced another problem for the first time
that it could appear as if the territory was contaminated with two
to three to five Curies, but due to the fact that these are
special kinds of grounds -- peaty molds, and the coefficients of
the transition were rather high, then on territories with three to
five Curies they began to get very "dirty" milk which was
practically unusable. And it was thought earlier that there would
have been created so-called "special zones of strict control", in
which clean products, medicaments could have been delivered,
systematical observations of the changing health of the people
would have been carried out; then we later on recognized that as a
result of the decay of our last great empire it appeared to be
that there were not enough "clean" products. And this is why the
people were left to their fate.
It is clear that already in the near future, genetic changes in
the health of children will follow, of those who live in these
contaminated territories. And we have already analyses of blood
carried out by independent doctors which testify that these
changes have already begun to take place. And this is the most
terrible consequence of such catastrophes. Besides that the
Ukraine is contaminated, White Russia is contaminated, Russia is
also contaminated. On these maps showing the radiation situation,
which we carried out in the protocol -- regretfully they have not
been published yet --, it is obvious that the traces of the
radioactive cloud went from Chernobyl to the Ural, practically to
Novosibirsk. You can imagine the scale of damage to our territory.
Finally, the figures were mentioned that the sum of the damage
due to the catastrophe that had happened was estimated to be 8.5
billions of dollars to our country. I have to say that this is
over 100 times too low a figure. According to our estimates, only
the works necessary for carrying out the deactivation of the
immense Kiev water storage lake from which 40 million people drink
their water -- these works are estimated according to our scales
in 150 to 200 billions of rubles. And that is only the estimation
of the water storage lakes from which the people drink their
water. But how can one estimate the deactivation of the huge
territory which has practically not yet begun as it would have
been proper? That is approximately how I would estimate the size
of the loss as a result of this catastrophe. The thing is that we
faced an astonishing interrelationship which, at first glance,
cannot be understood by the human being's brain. Well, for
example: You all know that there is an International Agency of
Atomic Energy in Vienna which is headed by [Hans] Blix. But how
astonishing that this international agency could speak the same
language as our former communist government! We were simply
astonished by that! We met Blix when he came to us, to Chernobyl,
and Blix saw very well that, at that moment, the fourth block
really was throwing out millions of Curies of activity. I related
that according to our figures -- and we, thank God, observed it
when we were in the air over the fourth block many times during a
period of three to four months -- we saw that it was absolutely
empty, and we estimated that such a quantity of the radionuclides
had been thrown out. According to our estimates that was not 50
million Curies, but approximately 6.3 billion Curies of activity.
And then, at that moment, Hans Blix saw that the radionuclides
were being thrown out from the block and were being spread over
the whole territory of the earth and, at the same time, he made
calming statements: "Just be quiet, everything is all right,
everything is under control, there is no cause to worry." This put
us on our guard.
After that, such an extreme lie already followed when our
government, under pressure from its own atomic mafia, . . .
[recording interrupted]. They were all created for the production
of plutonium. So this Minsredmash, as we say, the Ministry of the
Medium Machine Building prepared a completely falsified protocol
about the catastrophe that had happened; it claimed that only
unpredictable situations had led to such a catastrophe. If there
are any questions, I am ready to talk about the technical reasons
for the catastrophe -- I just do not have the time necessary for
that; I only want to say the essentials.
Analyses had been carried out after that catastrophe; before,
we had not had a possibility to do it, because all these projects
had always been kept secret, there had been no approach for the
independent scientists. It was just impossible to do it. We
demanded it before Chernobyl, because we suspected that it was not
good. But already after Chernobyl, having carried out the
independent estimates, we showed that in every project of the
blocks of the type RBMK [Large capacity reactor, "boiling"] and of
other blocks, there were at least 32 mistakes in the project
itself and, according to everyone of these mistakes, these blocks
had to explode. And this reason should have been given to the
IAEO. But no, our government called it a "completely unpredictable
situation", in other words: Pure chance had led to this
catastrophe.
And what astonished us after that -- the IAEO was only too keen
to believe every word and began to convince the whole world: "Yes,
do not worry, the rest of the 15 blocks will not explode. No
problems." It is not a normal situation when the people who are in
charge of the fate of a whole civilization lie quite openly to the
whole world. So, after the situation connected with the IAEO --
and IAEO, these are specialists, they could easily uncover
falsification, the wrong conception; so we lost all respect for
them. And from that moment on -- it was approximately one year
after the catastrophe of Chernobyl --, we began to call the whole
organization a good united international atomic mafia which we all
have to fight, of course, because they can very quickly and easily
murder us.
Now, if you give me a couple of minutes, I want to describe
this tragic situation in which we live. Look: In the last few
years, we have seen that climate changes, rivers disappear, oceans
disappear, that the ecological situation is worsening. Yes, it is
really like this, this is the tragedy of our time, but we have to
understand the grave importance of the problems. And when talking
about the most important things, it seems to me that the situation
connected with the development of the atomic industry, the
creation of new nuclear blocks must be placed first, because the
experience which we got in Chernobyl tells us that all it takes is
one or two reactors to explode and the whole of Europe will cease
to exist.
Well, here is the simplest first example. When we were
beginning our work in Chernobyl, we estimated very quickly what
would have happened to the world and to Europe if the other three
RBMK blocks in Chernobyl had exploded. The estimate showed that
the earth would have been burned from Chernobyl to the English
Channel. Well, you can imagine the scale of an unpredictable,
unexpected catastrophe which can happen at any moment if we,
together with you, still do not put barriers in front of the
international atomic mafia, for the further development of such
sharp and dangerous products. This is the first.
Finally, inside this industry itself, there are many completely
inevitable contradictions. I am speaking about the final storage
of the radiation waste and about the 1,000-year-long observations
of them and about the impossibility of creating absolutely safe
products -- any project of the block of the type RBMK. All this
led us to the necessity -- I mean most of us nuclear physicists
who in general before that, I have to say it to you honestly -- we
just didn't have all the information about the existing dangerous
situation in the projects of these blocks. And when we just
carried out the analyses after Chernobyl, it really terrified us,
and now we have to speak and to talk and to explain clearly,
exactly, in simple language, to millions of people this degree of
danger with which we live.
And finally, I'll allow myself to say the last thing. What
should one do in this situation? Here is our experience -- partly
my meetings with people, my travelling around the world; it showed
that people want to tackle this tragic situation, they want to do
something, but they have neither the necessary knowledge nor the
special training nor the complete information about the existing
real tragic situation in the world.
That is why it seems to me that the necessity to unify the
efforts of the independent scientists all over the world is long
overdue. It is necessary, in our opinion, in my opinion, it is
necessary to establish an independent international institute of
ecology in the shortest period of time, it is necessary to call in
the best scientists, so that they can give an independent expert
estimate, honest, tragic, but correct, so that they will not be
rigged as the atomic mafia does it, maintaining that by developing
atomic production we move our civilization ahead, but not saying
that doing so, we push it to the brink of destruction. But it is
necessary that honest, independent scientists give this
information.
Thank you for paying attention.