Stichting Laka

Publicatie Laka-bibliotheek:
Nuclear scars: The Lasting Legacies of Chernobyl and Fukushima (2016)

Auteur	Alexandra Dawe, Justin McKeating, Iryna Labunska, Nina Schulz, Shawn-Patrick Stensil and Rianne Teule
	2-34-8-10-120.pdf
Datum	maart 2016
Classificatie	2.34.8.10/120 (TSJERNOBYL - ONGELUK & OMGEVING - ALGEMEEN)
Voorkant

1. Nuclear Scars:

Introduction

It is 30 years since the beginning of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. It is also five 
years since the Fukushima disaster began. To mark these anniversaries, Greenpeace 
has commissioned substantial reviews of scientific studies examining the continued
radioactive contamination in the affected areas, and the health and social effects 
on the impacted populations. We have also carried out radiation field work to expose
the unrelenting crises in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Japan that thousands of
people still live with on a daily basis.

There is no simple or easy way to clean up an aftermath of a nuclear accident. 
Indeed, this report shows that there is no such thing in reality as a complete 
decontamination of radioactively contaminated areas. The disasters that began 
at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) in 1986 and at Fukushima NPP in 2011 
have demonstrated not only the terrible initial consequences of major nuclear 
accidents; they also left us with long-term consequences for human health and 
the environment. These scars are still with us today and will be with us long 
after tomorrow.

The nuclear industry likes to frame these accidents in terms of downplayed numbers 
of deaths, but the reality is far more complex and insidious. The impacts go far 
beyond the tens of thousands of fatalities and hundreds of thousands suffering health
consequences. Following a nuclear disaster, people are put under overwhelming 
pressures. They must evacuate their communities to avoid radiation risks.
They are displaced from their friends, families and communities for years. After 
30 years, people have still not been able to return to communities in Ukraine;
a major city in the impacted area, Pripyat, is still a ghost town. Communities 
in the Fukushima area are still abandoned, friends and neighbours in those
communities are scattered and struggling to put their lives back together.