VARIOUS: Former Chernobyl volunteer recounts his experience and says Fukushima workers must contain their fears and be logical to work effectively in Japan nuclear site

Record ID: 215822

  • Title: VARIOUS: Former Chernobyl volunteer recounts his experience and says Fukushima workers must contain their fears and be logical to work effectively in Japan nuclear site
  • Date: 4th April 2011
  • Summary: CHERNOBYL, UKRAINE (FILE - 1986) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) HELICOPTER ABOVE REACTOR NUMBER 4 WHICH WAS DESTROYED IN EXPLOSION REMAINS OF EXPLODED REACTOR SEEN THROUGH HOLE WORKERS CLIMBING DOWN HOLE WORKERS POURING CEMENT ON TO EXPLODED REACTOR CHERNOBYL POWER STATION
  • Embargoed: 19th April 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Japan, Ukraine
  • City:
  • Country: Ukraine
  • Topics: Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes
  • Reuters ID: LVA4J148UF1SU9SM08ZEU275QY0F
  • Story Text: Sergei Belyakov, a former volunteer at the Chernobyl disaster site believes workers in Fukushima's damaged nuclear plant must contain their fears and be logical in order to bring the facility under control.
    Belyakov says, he has been through the doorway to hell and back six times.
    He was a volunteer "jumper" who helped clean up after the nuclear disaster in the town of Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union in April, 1986.
    These are people who jump into a radioactive area to physically clear debris or mend pipes and run to safety before radiation reaches lethal levels.
    During his 40-day tenure at Chernobyl, Belyakov was one of the hundreds crouching in the covered stairway leading to the roof of nuclear reactors 3 and 4. Outside, radioactivity was so high that it could kill within minutes.
    He would hack away at highly toxic asphalt on the roof and toss it down to be buried, but for a very limited time.
    Calculations were made on how long it would stay safe to be on the roof. For Belyakov, the longest he spent on the roof was two minutes, the shortest between 30-40 seconds.
    "Right at the door, you know, you would open the door to hell as we'd call it, there was a very elaborate and professionally done drawing on the wall, it's like a fresco of some sort which showed you the roof in 3D, and the guy tells you showing, pointing out on that drawing you go here, you do this, you go around this, this ladder is not good, don't go there because you may fall with it ok, so go this way. So you mentally imprint what you need to do and you follow that," he says adding he did not expect the scale of what he was going to experience.
    Now 55 and a U.S. citizen, Belyakov is a scientist working in Singapore for research group Albany Molecular Research, but says he never forgot the events of 1986.
    Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) is trying to get such workers -- reportedly for $5,000 a day -- to bring its damaged nuclear power plant in northern Japan under control after it was severely damaged by last month's earthquake and tsunami, the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.
    In Chernobyl, workers had to leave when they were exposed to 2 Roentgen of radiation per day, about 240 millisieverts.
    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says a dose of 500 millisieverts would cause nausea and 1,000 would cause haemorrhage.
    "You know, it's hard to compare because it has been 25 years now and obviously the size, the most important thing, underlying reason for the damage was different. In our case it was explosion, in Fukushima's case it's earthquake and tsunami. The same thing as I was telling you, you know, being brave doesn't mean it comes from your nature, it just comes with your logic, it comes with your good mind and the ability to analyse situation and to make sound decisions. As long as you are capable of sustaining the pressure and sustaining the fear, you can do pretty much whatever you want," he says.
    After sustaining 25 Roentgen of radiation, the Chernobyl workers were sent home. Many have since died prematurely. Belyakov says he knows of at least five other men who worked there who died within 10 years.
    But as many of them reach their mid-50s, it is hard to isolate the Chernobyl radiation as a cause of death, he said. Belyakov was ill for several months, but shows no visible signs now ans is a keen basketball player.
    It was reported on April 2 that the radiation level of the water leaked from the concrete pit of Fukushima's reactor No. 2 measured 1,000 millisieverts per hour.
    Figures that Belyakov believes are very high and worrying.
    "The important part for them right now is to know what to do with their highly contaminated water, they have to put it somewhere, I know that they are digging out a collection pool for 14000 tones at the moment. I don't think it is going to be enough because they are pumping out now seven to eight tonnes of water through each reactor, it's full. And that's official data, it was yesterday, it was released yesterday," he says.
    Despite witnessing and enduring such an event as well as seeing some of his partners prematurely die within 10 years of the accident, Belyakov still believes nuclear power is the answer.
    "I am pretty saddened that it takes actually the unpleasant turn, people start to think that nuclear power is perhaps tainted, you know, it's doomed, we don't have a future with it. I completely disagree, despite of the fact that I was there, I have seen how traitorous that thing can be, how dangerous it can be. I think we don't have a choice overall as mankind, it is so clean, it is so powerful and so efficient that nothing can be compared to it at the moment," he says.
    Around the Fukushima nuclear plant, high levels of radiation outside a 20 km (12 mile) exclusion zone have put pressure on Japan to widen the restricted area.
    More than 70,000 have been evacuated from the exclusion ring and another 136,000 who live in a 10-km (6-mile) zone beyond that have been encouraged to leave or to stay indoors.
    Nuclear experts say it could take years, possibly decades, to make the area around the plant safe.
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