My Chernobyl
1986. I was ten. My dad, a Ph.D. in physics, came home from the applied physics research institute. I think it was 28th or 29th of April. It was early evening, about 5 or 6PM, it was sunny and warm, unusually warm for the season. I was standing next to our TV set (an old black-and-white Belarusian “Horizont”). Dad was pale, and when mom entered the room he said: “Something bad has happened. Something really bad. My colleagues who listen to Voice of America and Radio Liberty heard the reports that there was a nuclear explosion at an Ukrainian power plant.” Coming from the family of two physicists being ten years old I already knew what radiation means, and I already read some book about Hiroshima. When I heard my dad saying the words “nuclear explosion” my whole body froze. I was standing next to the TV set, and I had this weird repetitive thought: “Now there are hundreds of radioactive rays pulsating through me and through this room. If I concentrate really hard I can maybe see them.” It felt as if air around me became violet and electrified. I asked my dad: “Can I see the radioactive rays?” He said no. I asked then: “What do we do?” “Nothing”, dad answered.
Soviet television reported about the accident only 4 or 5 days later. In the evening news “Vremya” they said there was a “minor fire” at some unknown Ukrainian power plant. The “small fire” produced the radiation fallout equal to 500 Hiroshima bombs. 70% of it landed in Belarus. Especially sad now is that most of the attention is directed at Ukraine, and Belarus is ignored. Also inside Belarus Lukashenka’s government downplays the negative effects of radiation.
April 26th, 2006 at 1:43 pm
P.S. Comments I’ve received earlier:
bulatych
2004-04-26 03:10 pm
I always think of Belarus when I think of Chernobyl…
odtgmdovh
2004-04-26 04:21 pm
Even as a six year-old child living in the United States, I have some vague recollections of that time period. We had just moved to the suburbs of Portland, Oregon from Texas and I remember not having milk (for how long? a few days? a week? a month? I don’t remember). After asking my mom (or she simply told us; I don’t remember this exact sequence either), her explanation was that a Russian (always Russian with my mom, never Soviet…) nuclear plant had blown up and that radioactive iodine in the milk could give us thyroid cancer (she, of course, skipped or didn’t remember a few steps, like I131 being precipitated onto grass which cows would eat, etc.). Thyroid diseases being one of my mother’s greatest fears because as a child she had thyroid deformities that led to her developing severe hypothyroidism.
I didn’t learn about what Chernobyl had done in Belarus until much later, and that knowledge made my mother’s concern about our milk and us developing thyroid cancer seem more than a little out of proportion.
denverthemarion
2004-04-26 11:34 pm
To my father, as well as to much to anothers that spring of 1986, command of Armed forces has ordered: either to Chernobyl, or to Afghanistan. From almost 90 persons of that squadron of heavy transport helicopters Mi-26 almost all have died of the diseases connected to work on suppression of Chernobyl. Several participants of those events, including my father are still alive.
nos3030
2005-05-05 10:48 pm
I came acrosss this article while searching for Chernobyl images, I was wondering and I hope you don’t mind my questions, how far you were from the Chernobyl plant back in 86? Has it affected your health in any way? Thank you very much for your reply and I hope my questions don’t bring you back bad memories.
April 26th, 2006 at 2:05 pm
[…] Link […]
April 26th, 2006 at 4:06 pm
I don’t have many memories about it …
In 1986 i lived in Moscow. A few months before the explosion i was with my family in Ukraine, in a town called Ostior (i hope it’s the right spelling), which is quite close to Chernobyl. When my parents heard about the explosion, they were rather panicky - they also know a couple of things about physics and my father worked in power plants (non-nuclear) all his life.
I was only 6 yrs old, but i liked listening to the news, even though - as you probably remember - it was 60% about the imperialist armament race (гонка вооружений) and 40% about the great crops of wheat and cotton (перевыполненый план по сборке урожая, и т.д.). A few days later when people started talking openly about the terrible consequences i started connecting things and told my mom:
— “Mama, now the Americans must be really laughing at USSR - our Soviet government is fighting against nuclear weapons all the time and now we have done a bad nuclear explosion ourselves, didn’t we? Did i get it right?”
— “Yes, dear …”
April 26th, 2006 at 7:07 pm
I was only 3 when it happened… and I only found out about Chernobyl some 12 years after in geography class… And only 3 years ago while searching something on the net… I found out that the areas most affected by the incident lie in Belarus… I feel sorry for the milions of people that were affected by it… :(
A scientific page about Chernobyl and radiation:
http://www.ncgia.ucsb.edu/conf/sa_workshop/papers/krivoruchko_old.html
April 26th, 2006 at 7:53 pm
In case you have not seen this yet, here is Paul Fusco’s photo essay on the disaster. Quite powerful.
http://todayspictures.slate.com/inmotion/essay_chernobyl/
April 26th, 2006 at 9:27 pm
I am a physicist too :-)
…What do you think about this:
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/chernobyl/inf07.htm
” * The Chernobyl accident in 1986 was the result of a flawed reactor design that was operated with inadequately trained personnel and without proper regard for safety.
* The resulting steam explosion and fire released at least five percent of the radioactive reactor core into the atmosphere and downwind.
* 28 people died within four months from radiation or thermal burns, 19 have subsequently died, and there have been around nine deaths from thyroid cancer apparently due to the accident: total 56 fatalities as of 2004.
* An authoritative UN report in 2000 concluded that there is no scientific evidence of any significant radiation-related health effects to most people exposed. This was confirmed in a very thorough 2005 study.”
All Polish experts on nuclear physics, whose opinions I heard, claim that the above is true. According to them, the danger is exaggerated.
April 27th, 2006 at 12:01 am
[…] br23 blog writes about how he, then a 10-year-old son of two physicist parents, learned about the accident at the Chernobyl power plant 20 years ago. Ivan Lenin writes about today’s protest rally in Minsk, and TOL’s Belarus Blog links to Radio Liberty’s photos from the rally. […]
April 27th, 2006 at 1:18 am
Nice pictures… Lol.. altho this one… I find it a rather odd combination of banned Belarusian flags, Soviet flags and some blue ones I dont know about.
(link http://www.svaboda.org/images/photo/chernobyl_demo_260406_40.jpg )
On the local news a few hours ago they also spoke about Chernobyl… altho the heading was quite different. It’s the stereotypical “East Europe is medieval” view they portrayed. (They love to portrait themselves as supreme beings here)
Sure, they spoke a little about the incident… mebe for 60 or 70 seconds… but then switched to some 5-7 year old kids they “rescued” from a very small village in south-western Belarus. Showing how they like it here and how surprised they are to see all these things they never seen before…
Oh you want to know the heading? It was “Showers and ketchup”. They were talking about that these kids never ever had a shower before… Fact remains that most villages in the entire world, not just Belarus, have no (hot) running water… does a country really have to glorify itself by pointing out such an obvious facs in other countries? I find it pathetic.. like HERE everyone has a shower, not. A partially working shower is all I got, I dont even have a bathtub myself!!!!
And the ketchup part… those kids really love to eat everything.. as long as it has ketchup on it. But… thats just how kids are.
The whole news item pisses me off… one of the worst disasters known to man… Countless lives destroyed, mangled… and people use it as an excuse to glorify themselves.. PATHETIC! I’m definately going to write a complaint to the news network.
April 27th, 2006 at 3:19 am
“Vialiki dziakuj” for sharing this very personal reminiscence of a monumental tragedy. What a heavy-hearted day. Charnobyl is yet another cross Belarus has to bear. God grant her sons, her daughters, her soil and her waters healing and cleansing in the face of human deception, evil and indifference to what He has created.
April 27th, 2006 at 4:34 pm
“Belarusian flags, Soviet flags and some blue ones I dont know about.”
blue-and-yellow flag: Ukraine
blue flag with 12 stars: European Union
:-)
April 27th, 2006 at 4:44 pm
“one of the worst disasters known to man”
Sorry, but as a pysicist I don’t agree with this. Please find the UN, IAEA or WHO reports and read about the results of the 20-year studies. Popular opinios are far too exaggerated.
April 27th, 2006 at 6:23 pm
Ania: It’s the worst technogenic accident in the history of humanity, but of course it is not “the worst disaster known to man”. I guess he just didn’t use the language properly.
April 27th, 2006 at 6:24 pm
Ania: What do you think about this…
Look up the data on thyroid cancer among Belarusan children, for example.
April 27th, 2006 at 6:34 pm
IAEA report 2005 states that the documented number of deaths due to thyroid cancer in children and youth in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia is equal to 9 (nine).
April 27th, 2006 at 6:47 pm
Ania: you quote IAEA as a disinterested, unbiased party?
April 27th, 2006 at 11:28 pm
Ania: ““Belarusian flags, Soviet flags and some blue ones I dont know about.”
blue-and-yellow flag: Ukraine
blue flag with 12 stars: European Union
:-) ”
Ania thank you :)
“Ania: It’s the worst technogenic accident in the history of humanity, but of course it is not “the worst disaster known to man”. I guess he just didn’t use the language properly.”
Please.. I said _one_ of the worst… not THE worst… I know more awful things have happened before (and most likely will in the future). I didnt forget about Hiroshima, World War 2, Vietnam, Beslan, World Trade Center… just to name a few.
Ania: “IAEA report 2005 states that the documented number of deaths due to thyroid cancer in children and youth in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia is equal to 9 (nine).”
I dunno but if I count the number of people affected by radiation on just that one photo journal… I count more than 9… True they havent died yet.. nor are they all suffering from thyroid cancer… But does that really matter? These people can never ever get a normal life, no amount of medicine can help them. Oh… speaking of thyroid cancer.. the number of reported cases in affected (radioactive) areas is only about 40.000 times higher than in other regions… Information taken from the link I posted earlier.
April 28th, 2006 at 10:14 am
Hey! Where is my yesterday message, where I quoted UN and WHO reports??
April 28th, 2006 at 10:26 am
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs303/en/
“In Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine nearly 5 000 cases of thyroid cancer have now been diagnosed to date among children who were aged up to 18 years at the time of the accident. While a large number of these cancers resulted from radiation following the accident, intense medical monitoring for thyroid disease among the affected population has also resulted in the detection of thyroid cancers at a sub-clinical level, and so contributed to the overall increase in thyroid cancer numbers. Fortunately, even in children with advanced tumours, treatment has been highly effective and the general prognosis for young patients is good. However, they will need to take drugs for the rest of their lives to replace the loss of thyroid function. Further, there needs to be more study to evaluate the prognosis for children, especially those with distant metastases. It is expected that the increased incidence of thyroid cancer from Chernobyl will continue for many years, although the long-term magnitude of the risk is difficult to quantify.”
Generally, only the health of a small group of “liquidators”, highly exposed to the radiation in the closest neighborhood of the nuclear plant, had been significantly affected.
April 28th, 2006 at 10:30 am
“Oh… speaking of thyroid cancer.. the number of reported cases in affected (radioactive) areas is only about 40.000 times higher than in other regions… Information taken from the link I posted earlier.”
??? Where did you find this ???
For sure, not here:
http://www.ncgia.ucsb.edu/conf/sa_workshop/papers/krivoruchko_old.html
April 28th, 2006 at 10:44 am
“Please.. I said _one_ of the worst… not THE worst… I know more awful things have happened before (and most likely will in the future). I didnt forget about Hiroshima, World War 2, Vietnam, Beslan, World Trade Center… just to name a few.”
Ehm… What you listed is rather a set most TV-ADVERTISED disasters.
;-)))))))
April 28th, 2006 at 10:44 am
a set of the most TV-ADVERTISED disasters.
;-)))))))
April 28th, 2006 at 1:13 pm
lol.. you really should start reading all of what I write… ;) and yes… there’s most likely more happening than the news is showing… but it isnt realistic for me to be on every square inch of the planet to see these things happen myself now is it? :) Can you honestly say you know every disaster that has happened in the last 10 years?
April 28th, 2006 at 8:47 pm
“Can you honestly say you know every disaster that has happened in the last 10 years?”
No, and that’s why I am too cautious to speak about “the worst disasters known to man”. I can only speak about the worst disasters known to ME.
May 6th, 2006 at 9:42 am
I’ve noticed now your profound and controversial discs while before it was a personal memoirs to which is difficult to comment in substance.
VIEW at Technologos Logosphere the FRISCOQUAKE DESTRUCTION 100 years ago video images along with CHERNOBYL TRAGEDY of APRIL 1986 as Vitruvius is publishing artistic original films as archives shorts on earthquake effects and visual experience of Chernobyl disaster to compose intelligence film design silent MEMORIAL Symphony to remember as American Tragedy in SAN FRANCISCO 100 yeas ago so Chernobyl Tragedy 20 years as of today
.
April 26 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine was the product of a flawed Soviet reactor design coupled with serious mistakes made by the plant operators in the context of a system where training was minimal. It was a direct consequence of Cold War isolation and the resulting lack of any safety culture.
The official lies on the accident created a chain reaction of disallusionment among people with USSR leaders which led to eventual collapse of ‘Evil Empire’ and desintegration of USSR.
It must be noted that official information on the disaster appeared only on May 5th while the event was mentioned as minor accident after three days of absolute silence in the media & elsewhere
AS Technologos twin VITRUVIUS VIDEOSPHERE posted short film chronicles as FRISCOQUAKE DESTRUCTION serial to view along with published COLD WAR serial as well as World War II and artistic original films of World War I film archives shorts along with A-Bomb creation and testing at USA whivh you can view as well by searching or view all the films posted by Vitruvius.
At VITRUVIUS Technologos twin Videosphere you may view EXTRAORDINARY RISKY CAMERAVIEW THE NUCLEAR REACTOR
THAT PROBABLY LED TO LATER DEATH OF THE CAMERAMEN AND THE COPTER PILOT FROM EXPOSURE TO RADIATION THAT EXCEEDED 900 times LEVEL OF HIROSHIMA A-BOMB EXPLOSION
October 20th, 2006 at 12:24 pm
Chernobyl, one of the most polluted places. Here http://pripyat.com/en/photo_gallery/ - more than 6000 photos from
this territory. More than 20 years passed, but knowbody knows exactly what is going on there. Also there are
articles, ivestigations, news
December 1st, 2006 at 11:50 am
Critical thinking, group communication skills, building self confidence and confidence self improvement
December 11th, 2006 at 1:51 pm
violence in america, public school violence, domestic violence laws
January 31st, 2007 at 5:43 pm
Tschernobyl-Demo in Belarus wurde zur Demo gegen Lukaschenko
Nachdem die Bewohner von Belarus vor 20 Jahren Hauptleidtragende des physikalischen Tschernobyl wurde, sind sie nun Opfer des politischen Tschernobyl in Person von Diktator Aljaksandr Lukaschenka.
So ist es auch kein Wunder, dass, wie tagesschau.de be…
February 1st, 2008 at 4:13 am
Thanks for sharing
February 7th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
I’d prefer reading in my native language, because my knowledge of your languange is no so well. But it was interesting! Look for some my links:
March 24th, 2008 at 2:28 am
I’d prefer reading in my native language, because my knowledge of your languange is no so well.