Radiation Impact

Okay, so I know I said in the beginning that this blog would be about my family, but this is one topic that's been on my mind lately and what better way to get it out then to blog.


I'm still learning, so be easy on me as some of my facts may not be exact, but let me give you a little history lesson as I understand it to be....

At 1:23 am on April 26, 1986, shortly after my first birthday, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (Pripyat, Ukraine) operators committed a fatal series of errors in the control room of Reactor #4, triggering a meltdown and an explosion that resulted in the world's largest nuclear accident to date.  This tragedy, unlike the more recent Fukushima accident was caused by human error.  To be more definite, it was the result of a flawed reactor design that was operated by inadequately trained personnel.  This accident caused the largest, uncontrolled radioactive release into the environment ever recorded and was the cause of 30 operator and firemen deaths within 3 months time.  The explosion blew the 1,000 ton roof off of the building, sending large amounts of radioactive elements up into the atmosphere.  It took ten days to put out the fire.

I learned that Soviet Union (now Ukraine) authorities waited 3 days before admitting their wrong doing to the world.  This was following scientists in Sweden noticing radiation in their shoes before entering a nuclear facility.  This more than tripled the world's background radiation levels.  Nice, huh?  The plant's town of Pripyat was evacuated the day after the explosion, April 27-45,000 residents, but by May 14 something like 116,000 people that were living within an 19 square mile radius were relocated to other areas.  Around 1,000 people unofficially moved back and lived within the contaminated zone.  Years later another whooping 220,000 people resettled into less contaminated areas. My question was why would anyone want to wait so long to get out?..turns out they adjusted the radius of contamination to well over 1,660 square miles!

There is and will continue to be medical, economical and social consequences for the people who lived in and around the Chernobyl plant.  Regarding the medical aspect, they have to deal with cancer, birth defects and worst of all, genetic mutations may be passed to their unborn children- all due to the presence of radiation.

I read some where that some areas of Chernobyl are so heavily contaminated that they will have to continue to be closed off for up to 900 years.  They are working on fixing the shambles that Chernobyl was left in, and with that workers are only allowed to work a 15 minute shift per day. They are suited up in plastic suits, equipped with respirators, and their sole job is to keep the deteriorating enclosure of radiation, well, enclosed until a planned replacement can be built.  For me it was truly hard to imagine what this has done to their people until I saw photos of the effects it played on some unfortunate residents of and around the Chernobyl plant.

 

Alexandra, 9 here with her dad suffers from hydrocephalus.  Her father is the only one strong enough to hold her when she sits up to eat.

Michael and Vladimir, 16 yrs old, twins. Michael has hydrocephalus and Vladimir is deaf.







They were never told anything about the water. Before the 90's they used the water for everything.  They said sometimes authorities would chase them away, but never once told them why. They say they were probably using them as guinea pigs.

On March 11, 2011 Japan suffered a 9.0 earthquake followed by a 46 foot high tsunami.  The Fukushima Nuclear Plant was protected by a wall made to withstand a 19 ft. high tsunami, not the 46 ft high wave it received 45 minutes after the quake.  The entire plant, as you can imagine was flooded.  All power for cooling was lost, so the reactors quickly started to overheat.  While this accident is only considered the second largest nuclear accident, it is actually more complex than Chernobyl because all reactors were involved, not just one.

The Fukushima incident has led to trace amounts of radiation.  With that being said, David  has done an incredible job of scaring me into thinking we're all going to end up with cancer.  Let's say even one tiny particle of this stuff gets into our system (since the radiation has carried over into North America) BOOM cancer.   Luckily, I'm feeling better the more research I do.  Currently, I'm reading that Health Canada has said the increase (radiation) measured in Canada was less than the natural day-to-day variation in the existing background levels.  "The presence of fallout could only be detected by analyzing the isotopes present, and there was no significant increase in the total level of radiation” Phew!  Now as for the US..monitoring was carried out by Government agencies, and all parties found low levels of radiation.

You might be thinking, but you just said this Fukushima incident is more complex than Chernobyl.  And while that is true, I read that one expert asserted that the “Chernobyl accident emitted much more radioactivity and a wider diversity of radioactive elements than Fukushima Daaichi has so far..” So take that David!

Honestly, I could go on and on with the information I found and I'm sure David and I will go 'round and 'round, but hey what's important is we're all aware of what's really going on.  Sometimes it's hard to trust what all those talking heads on tv say, but as long as we do our best to stay up on our current events we should all have a better chance at making the best decisions, and so on and so forth:)