VIENNA — Cancer rates are up to 200 times higher than average in areas contaminated by radiation from the 1986 explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear power station in the Ukraine, according to a Greenpeace report titled Chernobyl: 10 years after, the consequences, released on April 9.
The report was released to coincide with the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) conference "Chernobyl: One Decade After".
At its last international meeting on the consequences of Chernobyl in 1991, the IAEA concluded that "future increases over the natural incidence of cancers or hereditary effects would be difficult to discern, even with large and well designed long term epidemiological studies".
This prediction has proved to be totally incorrect. According to OECD figures, thyroid cancers in the heavily contaminated areas of Belarus, in Gomel, have increased to nearly 200 times above that expected, with the average increase in the country above 100 times.
"What is now required is open-minded scientists to analyse the prevalence of other diseases which are beginning to emerge", said Eloi Glorieux of Greenpeace International.
The report points to increased immune deficiencies, diseases of the digestive organs, cardiovascular systems and malignant tumours which have been found in both some of those involved in the clean-up (800,000 so called "liquidators") and some living in contaminated areas.
Several studies have showed a clear relationship between radiation dose and particular morbidities (for example, malignant tumours) among liquidators. These findings are based on substantial epidemiological data.
In addition, Greenpeace reports that there has been a serious underestimation of the total amount of radioactivity released. Since 1986, international experts have claimed that the total radioactivity released was around 50 million curies.
However in February the Nuclear Energy Agency, part of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, found that 140 million curies were released. The total land contaminated in the three republics most affected (Belarus, Russia and Ukraine) ranges from 100,000 to 160,000 square kilometres, with the cost to those countries estimated to rise to a staggering $300 billion by 2015.
To date an estimated 375,000 people have been relocated, and 270,000 require evacuation due to the high radiation levels. In total, at least 9 million people have been affected by the accident.
According to Antony Froggatt of Greenpeace International, "the health, environmental and social costs [of Chernobyl] have not yet peaked and are unlikely to do so for years if not decades".
Yet nuclear proponents at the April 11 Vienna IAEA conference played down the consequences of what is now widely acknowledged as the greatest humanitarian tragedy ever caused by an industrial accident. Some said that, apart from the dramatic increases in thyroid cancer, no radiation-related effects can be seen in the three most affected countries.
This conclusion was contested by members of the Ukrainian delegation, who said that already the mortality rate in both the affected populations and amongst the liquidators is "significantly higher" than control groups. Moreover, the Belarus Ministry for Emergencies and Population Protection from the Chernobyl Consequences has already stated in its 1995 report that there is an increase in the rate of malignant tumours in the population of the heavily contaminated Gomel area.
During an international conference on "The radiological consequences of the Chernobyl accident" organised last month in Minsk by the European Commission, World Health Organisation experts reported that pilot studies in liquidators had shown "that for malignant tumours, blood and blood-forming organ diseases, endocrine system diseases, psychiatric disorders, nervous systems and sensory organ diseases a statistically significant linear increase in the relative risk values was observed dependent on dose.
"There is also a significant positive trend for digestive organ diseases and infectious and parasitic diseases. The results obtained in the Russian Federation suggest there will be a continuing increase in morbidity and mortality among the liquidators."
Until recently, western governments had agreed that the "highest risk" nuclear reactors, such as the RBMK (the type which exploded at Chernobyl) and VVER 440-230s, should be closed down immediately. However, in the past few months some G7 governments have agreed to invest in back-fitting operations to lengthen the lives of these types of reactors.
According to Greenpeace, this expensive back-fitting program has not been successful; whatever the marginal safety increases, the operation of RBMK reactors would not be approved to western standards.
"RBMKs generate only about 5% of the electricity in the Ukraine and 7% in the Russian Federation. They could easily be made superfluous by implementing cheap and immediately effective energy efficiency measures", said Greenpeace's Helmut Hirch. "Western aid programs should focus on this."
Meanwhile, a March 31 international conference of the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions called on the G7, European Union governments, IAEA, IMF and World Bank to finance a social plan to relocate and train Chernobyl workers.
According to the union, which represents some 20 million workers, a totally inadequate amount of US$4 million has been allocated to a social program for the personnel of Chernobyl and the 26,000 inhabitants of the town of Slavutich.
"The elaboration of a comprehensive social program for the safe closure of Chernobyl ... has to serve as a positive example of such closures in the future. Worldwide, over 200 other nuclear reactors are scheduled for decommissioning by 2010. Chernobyl is the first challenge — not the last", said the union.