The Ghost of Chernobyl

Twenty-five years before, exactly on this date, it was just another aspiring day for the people in northern Ukraine who were starting their day with a new goal, a new hope that they normally had like any other day of the year, but it was not as wonted at all. It's meant to be something inconceivably different so that the people of Chernobyl including the surrounding Ukraine and Belarus cant forget even after many generations. An explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, triggered by a testing error, devastated the entire region to a hell of radioactive inferno that burned for ten days and 190 tons of toxic materials were expelled into the atmosphere, making it the worst nuclear disaster in the history of human civilization.

The explosion was so powerful that it released 100 times more radiation than the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Though immediate death due to explosion was not great in numbers, over 30 thousand people since the disaster have died due to ling cancer, leukemia, and cardiovascular disease. Over seven millions of people who lived around the contaminated territories were exposed to the toxic radioactive material such as iodine-131, cesium-137, strontium-90, and plutonium-239 and the repercussion of the exposure was so huge that it widely damaged the ecosystem, and Belarus was the worst hit country in terms of economic loss. According to a report by the Committee on the Problems of the Consequences of the Catastrophe at the Chernobyl NPP, the economic damages to Belarus after the accident over 30 years (1986 – 2015) could be to the tune of $235 billion.

The environment and health impact of Chernobyl nuclear disaster are extremely concerning. Thyroid cancer in children has increased since the disaster. According to World Health Organization report, in this region, 50,000 children will develop the disease during their lifetime, 30 times higher after the accident. Leukemia has increased 50% in children and adults. In addition to thyroid cancer and leukemia, as per a UNICEF report, between 1990 and 1994, nervous system disorder has increased by 43%; cardiovascular diseases by 43%; and bone and muscle disorders by 62%.

After 25 years, the innocent victims of Chernobyl are still in a state of fear and uncertainty. They even don't know for how many generations they would face the burnt of this disaster, which has always been the results of mindless technological progress, often postulated by the agents of callous state machinery. Perhaps, in the name of technological progress the human aspirations for precarious achievements pose the most perilous threats that one day the entire world would be pushed to the brink of extinction.

The wounds that never soothe

After 25 years of that fateful day at Chernobyl, the chilling trepidation of nuclear disaster still echoes from the ghost town, and never settles to die down in the memory of human civilization. Thousands people died instantly after the disaster, millions fled away after being exposed to high degree radioactive emission and those who survived the death trap of this potentially calamitous revolutionary technological progress are still suffering from the pangs orchestrated by mindless pursuits of mankind negotiated for small comforts of society – the comforts that never reach to those people who for all splendors of human development are forced to bury their lives under the perfidious design of the ruling class.

The spirit of human settlements that once dotted around Chernobyl will never resurrect from that epochal nightmare. The survivors even shiver today when they brood over the consequences of a diabolic nuclear disaster that the mankind can never forget and forgive those people who for all their boundless human greed put the entire human civilization at the brink of danger. Even today the newborn babies inherit the curse of dangerous technology. Physically deformed, mentally agonized, these children of post-Chernobyl fallout are the reflection of our imbecilic hankering for technological progress that has always posed myriads of threats to the sustenance of nature. We forget for a moment that the fascinating advantages of a hugely risk-ridden technology cant overwhelm the piles of danger that it intrinsically bears within.

After 25 years we are still crestfallen. The recent meltdown of nuclear plants at Fukushima, triggered by a series of potentially catastrophic earthquakes and tsunami, has again posed serious doubts on the safety of a hazardous technology that many duplicitous protagonists vouch for its economic importance in a world of acute energy crunch. But the moot question here that slaps on our face is: Can we bargain with a crocodile to get rid of a tiger? This is a catch-22 situation. The imminent dangers of climatic changes due to toxic effluents of fossil fuels used in thermal power plants are equally threatening to the sustenance of this world. Now is the time for a serious contemplation. We must engage collectively to think about a third alternative which could be pro-nature, pro-mankind, and sustain the continuous human progress.

Are we prepared for the worst case scenario?

As Japan escalates the threat level at Fukushima nuclear plant to 7, it clearly indicates that a Chernobyl like disaster is not far from here. Anytime, Japan can face the worst ever nuclear catastrophe after what it had brushed with at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, during World War II. The world nuclear scientific community is helplessly looking for a way out like Mahabharat's Abhimanyu who though knew how to penetrate a seven-layer of armors ring, but had hardly an iota of knowledge as how to escape from such dangerous plot. Beyond the sarcasm of irony, I would like to ask those scientists who are basking under the glory of a complex scientific discovery of nuclear fission, have they ever considered the grave concerns of an imminent nuclear catastrophe which could be a serious cause of complete annihilation of mankind from the surface of earth? What have they learned till date from the sequence of nuclear disasters emerged from Kyshtyn, Windscale, Three Mile, and Chernobyl? Even after 25 years of the Chernobyl incident, the nuclear scientists are still not in a position to design alternative processes to absolutely reverse the nuclear reaction, other than the moderation, and still claim they have achieved sky high in nuclear technology. I would like to remind these scientific jingoists that they are still at half way in their journey towards excellence. What's the need of the hour for them is to first come forward and find out as many alternatives to counter an extremely acute situation haunting Fukushima. Fukushima is not a regional case, it's become the gravest global concern given the visible repercussions the entire mankind is waiting for. This is the high time that the political leadership of Japan should shun the cocoon of introversion and act proactively to ask for immediate help from the western countries to evade a potentially dangerous nuclear holocaust, which Japan wont be the only country to witness, but the entire Asia, Europe and surrounding regions would face the brunt. If the international scientific community still doesn't have a fitting solution to counter Fukushima's gravest problem, then it's better to stop marketing a half-baked scientific discovery, which has more dangerous implications than any amount of contribution to economic progress.

Heading for a disaster?

Why India is so rigid about pursuing its wildest dream to enter into a sizable civil nuclear program at a time when the most developed countries are in state of quandary by noticing the imminent consequences of Japan's worst nuclear disaster in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake followed by a widely destructive tsunami? Why India is in a hurry to clear all new nuclear power plant projects, even without considering the dire consequences that the world super powers have already been haunted, be it Chernobyl, Pripyat, or now the Fukushima? Why the proposed Jaitapur nuclear power plant, which was in a dark chamber for many years due to safety considerations, has got the environmental clearance from the Ministry of Environment while the same ministry did play foul with a large-scale steel plant, which of course doesn't have a comparable risk index vis-a-vis a mega nuclear power plant, in Orissa? There are many uncomfortable questions though which would raise doubts about the intention of this Government at the Centre, for a sustainable development in India.

The party in power in different regimes has shown sheer disregards to humanitarian values and public safety standards whenever it inks large industrial deals with foreign companies. The people of India have already experienced the apathy of government in the Union Carbide case. Even after 27 years of that industrial disaster, which killed thousands of innocent people and crippled many more thousands for generations, the culprits are roving free and the victims are still waiting for the justice. When most politicians and bureaucrats escape the public anger by simply toning it down to the most unfortunate event, the sufferers take the pain for go. And now that this government has again in a hush-hush deal with US and France companies for nuclear power plants, the pressure from international forums, often driven by US, is mounting high, which is clear from the hotfoot of administration.

Many nuclear scientists though opine that India's nuclear plants have the highest safety standards and they have endured the fury of 2004 tsunami and Latur earthquake and nothing has happened, the larger point of the debate is that whatever precautions may be taken to ensure the safety of these plants, if anything goes wrong, the consequences will be disastrous. This is the high time for Indian leadership to reconsider the options available before heading for another Chernobyl like situation.