Chernobyl

A couple days ago me and my host Mom took an excursion to the Chernobyl Museum in another part of downtown Kiev. It was really interesting to say the least, but sobering in many ways as well. We were fortunate enough to have a tour guide that spoke English, but at times we could not tell it what he was saying.

Some of the facts we heard were crazy. Roughly 91,000 people were evacuated from their towns and homes because of the incident. The explosion and fire occurred around 1am on April 26, 1986. Unfortunately the effects were astronomical that people in the surrounding areas did nothing for the first couple weeks because the government decided to basically ignore how bad the disaster really was.

The circumstances for the first couple days after the explosion were devastating to the firefighters and other workers who went in to clean up. They were given protective equipment, but even these workers were ignorant to what the radiation was doing to them. It is estimated that the protective gear they were given was protecting them from only about 1% of the radiation. And that was if they wore the gear. Most decided not to use it because of how heavy and awkward it was to wear while working. As a result the effects on their bodies was devastating. For every 2 minutes they spent in exposure to the radiation was estimated to take 2 years of life away. Many many workers died within weeks after the disaster. The radiation was so intense that devices they were using to measure it were worthless. The radiation was at higher levels then the devices could read.

The most fortunate part of the aftermath was the direction that the wind was blowing. The wind carried the majority of the radiation and damaging effects to the North. This is not to say that was not still very bad. But if the wind had been blowing South the radiation would have devastated the areas in and around Kiev and would have killed many more people...possibly in the millions. This is especially because the people in any direction of the disaster were not informed of the danger, and life carried on as usual. The day after the explosion The New York Times filled the entire front page and another half page of paper reporting on what had happened and the effects. That same day The Soviet Union Paper published 8 lines on the front page in the bottom left corner about the explosion. This was about the size of a small paragraph. That day more people in New York knew more about how bad the effects were then those being directly effected by it in Ukraine! It 2 weeks before Vladimere Putin made a public announcement about what had happened. But even then the evacuation process was near impossible for how many people were effected. There were a just over 100 buses and only 2 trains that were used to get people out of Kiev, which was not even close to enough.

The number of people that died because of the radiation is impossible to count or even estimate because of how massive of an area was effected by it. In the museum there were hundreds of pictures on the walls of just the workers that died from the disaster. Two men from the military received the highest award possible for their sacrifice, but this was only issued after their deaths, and their families only received a letter congratulating them on the award, but not saying that there husbands had died because of ignorance. For years after the disaster people were afraid of having children because they did not want handicapped children. The nearby forrest was so damaged by the radiation that the trees were glowing red, which is why that forrest is still call Red Forrest today.

The most amazing part of the tour was a video showing pictures of the aftermath. Through the whole video portions of the book of Ecclesiastes was recited in Russian. This was one of the most amazing experiences I have had while in Kiev.

Blessings to you all.