November 22, 2009
UTNE READER

Buried Alive

(Page 2 of 2)

May/June 1996
Vladmir Chernousenko, Earth Island Journal (www.earthisland.org) 
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Since Chernobyl, childhood and animal diseases in my country have increased fourfold, and some illnesses have not even been diagnosed yet. Every month the situation gets worse. In the years to come, many people are going to die. With genetic reactions, the threat will continue for future generations. It is the worst catastrophe that has ever happened to humankind.

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There was no organization in the former USSR to monitor reactors like Chernobyl. It was a military reactor and all military reactors were kept secret. It had had explosions before. Since 1986 all accidents have been kept secret. There have been an estimated 200 accidents in nuclear installations in the former USSR, with millions of curies of radiation released. In my country not one square inch is free of radioactive fallout. People are losing their hair, and blood is coming out of their mouths.

Nuclear power stations are dangerous not only because they can blow up; they are dangerous even when they do not blow up. My assistants and I researched 10 plants, and we consistently found the water polluted and people around the plants sick. It is virtually impossible to make a reactor safe. Still we have not learned this.

There has been no significant shift in the nuclear energy policy in the United States or Russia since the Chernobyl accident. It has not changed the mindlessness of government. The international nuclear mafia will not accept the necessity to deal with the problem. But we must talk about the atomic energy situation because the next explosion will be larger. There are 48 commercial power reactors in the former Soviet Union and 110 in the United States. With one or two such explosions, it is utterly ridiculous to discuss defense measures. We shall be killed in silent ways.

Reprinted from Earth Island Journal, Summer 1995.

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