Chernobyl: A Human Disaster and Turning Point. 35 Years Later
I remember Chernobyl. I was ten years old. At that age, I had no real understanding of what had happened. Except that it was bad.
In the early hours of April 28, 1986, Chernobyl’s nuclear reactor No.4 exploded, tearing off the concrete roof and blasting over 100 radioactive elements into the atmosphere. It’s one of only two nuclear energy accidents rated at seven – the maximum severity – on the International Nuclear Event Scale. Chernobyl became a byword for catastrophe.
Various articles, documentaries and the recent 2019 HBO Chernobyl miniseries have detailed the extraordinary efforts that went into containing the disaster and averting an even greater calamity. Chernobyl has become both a warning and a lesson to our relationship with nuclear energy. Controversies remain, including the official death toll of 31 people. The true human cost may be far higher, as this excellent BBC article highlights.
“Chernobyl is a metaphor, a symbol. And it’s changed our everyday life, and our thinking.”
Chernobyl also had another significant impact, at least according to Mikhail Gorbachev, the eighth and final leader of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev said the explosion was “perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union.” It was a “turning point,” that “opened the possibility of much greater freedom of expression, to the point that the system as we knew it could no longer continue.”
Thirty-five years after the accident, I spent six hours in the exclusion zone around Chernobyl. The exclusion zone is 2600km² and includes the nuclear plant, the abandoned town of Pripyat and the town of Chernobyl itself, with two statues of Vladimir Lenin – the last two statues of Lenin in the Ukraine, almost frozen in time. Like the entire area.
My guide provided a Geiger counter to monitor radioactivity levels throughout the day. If I hadn’t done some research before the trip (Googling, is it safe to visit Chernobyl?) I may have been more worried about walking around an area declared too radioactively dangerous for human habitation for at least 24,000 years. But there was a huge decontamination effort after the accident involving 500,000 people. Despite this, I was told to be careful and not wander off as there are still radioactive parts. Advice I didn’t ignore.
Many of the photos I shot were of the abandoned town of Pripyat. Lying only three kilometres from the plant, it was home for a number of the nuclear workers. Built in 1970, 50,000 people lived there. Thirty-six hours after the accident, they were told to evacuate. Pets had to be left behind and they were told to bring only one case of personal items. They never returned.
I walked past crumbling and derelict schools, hospitals, shopping centres, and even a children’s amusement park, which had been open for a single day before the evacuation. Decay was all around. Decay and silence, except for the ghostly crackling of the Geiger counter when passing through a radioactive patch. It was a constant reminder of what had happened here.
My guide showed old photos of what Pripyat used to look like. Cafes by the waterfront bustling with people in summer; the town centre with children playing; and even a newly wed couple posing in front of the Pripyat town sign, unaware of the tragic events to come.
What struck me most about Chernobyl was how fast nature reclaimed the land in the exclusion zone. As this article in The Conversation points out, only the most vulnerable and exposed plant life died in the aftermath. Even in the most radioactive areas of the zone, vegetation recovered within three years.
Walking around some areas of Pripyat was like walking in a deep forest. Paradoxically, devoid of people, life was everywhere. Trees, vegetation, insects. The cycle of life. Nature is more resilient to radiation and nuclear disaster than we are.
And without the guilt.
