The Battle of Chernobyl Page #8

And yet, 1,152 children were treated for thyroid cancer between 1986 and 2002 at the specialized center in Minsk.

How many in other cities? No global statistics have yet been made public.

One doctor, Youri Bandajevski has been studying illnesses among the populations in the contaminated areas ever since the disaster.

When his findings were published in 1996, they were immediately condemned.

Arrested and officially sentenced for "corruption", he spent the next five years in jail.

In November 2005, he was still under house arrest.

Look what happened when the mother was contaminated with cesium during pregnancy.

In one single family, look how many deformations: hare-lips, missing eyes, deformed skulls.

These embryos come from hamsters that were fed only contaminated grass from the region of Gomel.

The result:
entire litters of deformed animals.

l was horrified by how many deformed embryos developed in animals that had eaten cesium-contaminated food.

l obtained a horrible number of deformations in two weeks.

Usually, when you encounter a "monster", you describe it.

You're certainly familiar with Peter the Great's Kunstkamera museum in Saint-Petersburg.

Quite frankly, I myself could create as many "monsters" as I wanted.

There's been no official study of genetic mutations stemming from Chernobyl.

Yet despite the thousands of miscarriages and abortions that took place following the disaster,

there seem to be hundred of children who suffered the effect of radiation.

The deformations we see among these children are similar to those of Bandajevski's hamsters.

In Belorussia, 300,000 children are currently suffering the consequences of contamination.

NGOs, like the International Green Cross founded by Gorbatchev after he was sidelined from the government in 1991,

have opened treatment and support centers for victims of Chernobyl.

They also organize therapeutic camps aiming to teach the new generations in contaminated areas

how to live with radioactivity like here, testing the contamination of their food.

How many years is this going to go on? 800 years? 800 years.

Until the second Jesus Christ is born? Until his return?

Yes, Chernobyl played an important role for us all.

And of course, we must keep searching and not skimp on means.

We must strengthen international cooperation, and create international scientific centers to find new sources of energy which are safer.

That's the essential issue...

I wouldn't wish for anyone, not my friends or my enemies, to experience such a tragedy.

No one deserves to live through what we did in Chernobyl.

We're all human beings and no one deserves that.

In the heart of the zone, ten kilometers from the nuclear power plant and hidden in the forest, lies Chernobyl 2.

Twenty years ago no one could get near this huge military radar: Moscow's hidden eye meant to spot American missiles.

The fact it was put out of service after the explosion tallies with what the Chernobyl accident seemed to foreshadow.

Using weapons is a terrible thing, and nuclear weapons are even worse.

Chernobyl was an accident involving one single reactor - a limited accident - whose consequences are still with us.

We've had two bombs: Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

There again, the consequences are still being felt today.

Chernobyl showed us the true nature of nuclear energy in human hands.

We'd calculated that our most powerful missile, the SS-18, was as powerful as 100 Chernobyls.

The SS-18 was the warhead the Americans feared the most, and we had 2,700 of them.

And these were the missiles we'd intended for the Americans.

2,700! Imagine the destruction...

Mister Gorbatchev was probably right in saying that Chernobyl was a big illustration of radioactivity let loose.

And in this sense, suggested to people more vividly that we ought to do away with nuclear weapons.

A year and half after Chernobyl, Gorbatchev retired all nuclear warheads with a range of 500 to 5000 km.

Ten years later the Total Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was ratified by the entire world, with the exception of India.

Chernobyl marked the beginning of disarmament for the world's greatest nuclear rivals.

Chernobyl convinced everyone.

Soviets and Americans alike realized once and for all the magnitude of the atomic volcanoes our countries were sitting upon.

Not just our two countries, but the entire world.

The entire world!

Yet twenty years later the Chernobyl disaster and its lessons seem to be fading from memory.

Meanwhile, beneath the aging sarcophagus of reactor number 4 the poison remains deadly.

Since 2001 the three Chernobyl reactors have been shut down once and for all.

But twenty years after the explosion a dosimeter flies off the chart at the base of the sarcophagus.

High levels of radioactivity, a hundred times above normal, are still contaminating the plant's surroundings.

The structure has been weakened by rain and erosion.

Since its construction, 3000 liquidators have been watching over it, trying to ward off damage.

We built this sarcophagus to last 30 years, thinking that 30 years after the explosion,

we could build a new sarcophagus without people having to run because of high radiation levels.

Twenty years have gone by and nothing's been done yet.

And it's urgent that it get replaced.

But the Ukraine doesn't have anymore money.

Neither do we.

A new sarcophagus is underway.

But its construction is already ten years behind schedule.

A structure 108 meters high meant to entirely cover the first sarcophagus.

It will cost:
one billion dollars.

An international fund led by Hans Blix has been set up.

We still have not put the new sarcophagus on it that will be ready in a couple of years' time.

When that is done, allow they can do later on to remove the masses of spent fuel, the melted fuel which is still there...

Twenty years after the explosion, the cooled magma at the reactor's core 14 meters underground is still a terrible threat.

And will remain so for years to come.

I pray God the sarcophagus never collapses.

That would be the worst thing that could happen.

Because inside, there are 100 kg of plutonium.

One microgram is the lethal dose for a human being.

That means there's enough plutonium to poison a hundred million people.

The half-life of plutonium, in other words the time it takes for half of the plutonium to disappear, is 245,000 years.

It's something we could thus consider eternal.

There are areas where there will never be life again...

Despite this terrible warning the nuclear disarmament sparked by Chernobyl is clearly coming into question today.

If nuclear development for civilian uses is being put forward as a solution to the problems of fossil fuels and global warming,

this landscape reminds us that such an option is not without consequences.

It requires the greatest caution and clear information on the real risks it presents.

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