UKRAINE: Chernobyl residents celebrate Orthodox Easter, remembering loved ones killed by the world's worst nuclear disaster

Record ID: 215866

  • Title: UKRAINE: Chernobyl residents celebrate Orthodox Easter, remembering loved ones killed by the world's worst nuclear disaster
  • Date: 23rd April 2006
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE)(Russian)VITALY OLIYNYK, RESCUE WORKER, SAYING: "We hope that God will help Ukraine and its people to overcome this tragedy and we will hope everything will be all right. Happy Easter."
  • Embargoed: 8th May 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Ukraine
  • Country: Ukraine
  • Topics: Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes,Religion
  • Reuters ID: LVA7OYJNOYSVKO4L2VIXWEUJ0ZMC
  • Story Text: As in the past, residents of Chernobyl town are busy preparing to celebrate Orthodox Easter.
    But this year is a special one.
    Twenty years after the world's worst nuclear accident devastated this town, residents recall the horror of April 26, 1986 when several explosions destroyed reactor No. 4 at the plant, turning it into a radioactive inferno that sent a lethal plume into the night sky.
    The blaze raged for 10 days. Radioactive material was deposited as far away as Japan and the United States.
    Two decades later, and 5 1/2 years after Chernobyl's last reactor was shut down, the area around the plant is alive with reminders of the disaster.
    But residents also remember the spirit that held the community together during the dark days following the accident.
    Here in St.Nikolai's church, the only place of worship within the 30-km (19-mile) exclusion zone, residents gather to continue praying for their community.
    "We hope that God will help Ukraine and its people to overcome this tragedy and we hope everything will be alright," - said Ukrainian emergency ministry officer, Viktor Oliynyk.
    For millions around the world, Chernobyl symbolises disaster and devastation, myth and controversy.
    But twenty years on, Chernobyl has changed - and continues to change.
    A town of 9,000, Chernobyl now boasts several offices, three shops, a bar and a Soviet-style canteen -- despite being in an exclusion zone where settlement is banned. It is surrounded by rich, green forests, teeming with wildlife.
    The 30-km (19-mile) exclusion zone is still being patrolled by police and Ukraine's Emergencies Ministry.
    Counters show radiation in some areas far above the norm, while other villages display levels lower than in Kiev, 80 km (50 miles) to the south.
    Debate still rages about the human cost of the accident.
    This week, environmental group Greenpeace said the eventual death toll could be far higher than official estimates with up to 93,000 cancer deaths attributable to the disaster.
    The World Health Organisation puts at 4,000 the number of extra deaths in the worst-hit areas of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, with 5,000 in less affected zones.
    Ukrainian doctors, who have observed patients exposed to radiation for 20 years, point to a dramatic rise in thyroid cancer among those who were children in 1986.
    Thyroid cancer can be treated if detected early. Mobile laboratories conduct checks in villages near the exclusion zone, where unemployment is high and most residents worry more about making ends meet than about their health.
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