The nuclear disaster at Chernobyl still remains the most appalling realisation of the dangers inherent in generating nuclear energy, though there have been some near misses, including the almost contemporary meltdown at Three Mile Island in the United States. Ten years after Chernobyl, the human tragedy touches on the borders of incomprehension: whole families condemned to the slow, inevitable death of the members from cancers and other diseases, their lives overshadowed by their nuclear induced destiny; thousands of square miles of farmland rendered useless for generations; ancient villages and communities; destroyed.
These were the consequences for the people living in the Chernobyl region. For others in the Ukraine, and in Belarus and Russia, the numbers of cancers, particularly among children, were increased significantly. Further away, the fall out from the explosion, distributed at hazard depending on the direction of the wind, meant a more limited exposure and a statistically lower risk of disease. According to specialists at an international conference in Vienna this week on the social and economic effects of the disaster, the amount of radioactivity released was 200 times that of the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, and cases of thyroid cancer among children living closest to Chernobyl was as high as 92 per million a year, compared to 0.5 per cent in England and Wales.
From what is known now, it is clear that Chernobyl was a disaster waiting to happen. It is sobering to read, as Kathy Sheridan reports today, that three years before the explosion, reports in the international specialist press commended the safety and reliability of the type of nuclear reactor installed there. Ironically, the only sign of concern was expressed by Soviet sources, relating to the standard and speed of construction, and these shortcomings counted for little in comparison with the demands of the economic plan.
With the collapse of the Soviet system, the phasing out of the Chernobyl style reactors remains a major item on the international agenda. Nuclear energy's low operating cost as opposed to the substantial costs of disposal later on makes it a vital necessity for the asset starved economies of eastern and central Europe. For the Ukraine to decommission the remaining power stations at Chernobyl by the year 2000 will cost billions of dollars in loans and aid from the international community, but the burden of servicing the loans will affect its economic development for many years. Belarus spends between a quarter and a fifth of its annual budget on recovering from the explosion.
According to nuclear scientists, it is highly unlikely that another Chernobyl calamity will ever recur, if only because of better safety awareness and the steps being taken to remedy defects. Nuclear power is taken for granted in many western countries, public opinion accepting (as in France and Britain) that the low risk is heavily outweighed by the economic benefit. Sweden, the only country to have officially decided to close down its nuclear generators, still has doubts about doing so. Yet problems remain unaddressed, and no one knows the true cost of nuclear power or the real limits to its control. Chernobyl may be a grotesquely extreme warning, but it is also a terrifying symbol of the negative elements underlying the nuclear option.