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.

Learning from Japan's nuclear crisis

The recent devastation in Japan, caused by earthquake and tsunami, raises some pertinent questions about the disaster preparedness of countries across the globe. Though there many susceptible areas which need attention for immediate action for rehabilitation, the major one is the nuclear power plant safety because of its wide range impact on the environment. Being in an energy-hungry world, thanks to the rapid industrialization and urbanization that are catching up emerging economies, most developed and developing countries are opting for clean-energy technology such as nuclear power plants, without even considering the potential risks attached to them.

For records sake, the last 50 years in human progress have witnessed to the huge nuclear disasters that have emerged from critical accidents such as Chernobyl and Tokaimura; by natural calamities such as Fukushima and Three Mile Island; or by human errors such as Canadian Manhattan Project. It's now the time for the pro-nuclear communities to learn the lessons from Japan's nuclear crisis that attracted the huge criticisms from the environmental activists and ecologists across the globe. As most nuclear scientists claim that nuclear power is the most environment-friendly energy source, it's now a serious proposition for them to ensure how they can build a safety mechanism for plants to withstand the world's worst natural calamities, be it a magnitude-10 earthquake or a high-powered tsunami with epicenter as close to the location of the plant, or a man-made disaster like missile attack or dropping a nuclear bomb during war.

Let's look at the helplessness of Japan while fighting relentlessly to avoid the nuclear disaster due to power backup failure in the plant. This triggered a huge radioactive radiation upto 5 on a maximum severity scale of 7. The unscientific methods used there like pouring sea water from the top to cool the reactors display the extreme exigencies that a economically developed country even doesn't mind to follow not only to block the simmering situation, but also to ensure larger environment safety, which might trespass to bordering countries. So here arises a series of questions that Japan had never attempted to address before deploying these nuclear plants. First, the reactors used in Fukushima Daiichi were 40 years old and were Generation II types, which carry more risks than the Generation III and III+ reactors. Second, the power backup diesel generators were housed in an underground building close to the coast, so once a 7-metre tsunami flooded the room, the power generators failed to work. Third, there was no tertiary power supply to the reactors to trigger cooling process. And there are many other serious questions on the designing of the entire structure of the nuclear complex so close to a series of fault lines around Fukushima.

Now this is a strong message for the countries which are opting for large-scale deployment of nuclear plants for power generation. Before moving ahead, they shouldn't ignore the mistakes of Japan's recent nuclear crisis. Maybe, they can then avoid some potentials risks stored in for them along the life cycle of those plants.

India should rethink about the civil nuclear programs

I don't understand as to why our learned prime minister is in a complete denial mode to accept the growing concerns worldwide, about the safety of nuclear power plants, following the catastrophic consequences in Sendai, Japan. It seems that either our prime minister pretends to overlook the criticisms of anti-nuclear communities for engaging himself in a pro-nuclear lobby and throwing assurances that our nuclear plants have already passed through earthquakes and tsunami successfully in 2002 and 2004, and nothing has proved wrong to the safety measures we have in place, or he is under tremendous pressure from the foreign countries, especially from the US and France, to keep the promises or maybe a barter deal he made during Obama's visit to India. Our prime minister and his team are in a hurry to venture into multiple nuclear plants in different regions of our country, and Jaitapur is also one of the sites that has still been lingering over a decade. The alacrity in decisions is an indicative of the fact that something is going on behind the scenes. And the bigger truth will only emerge when a hot political debate with storm the parliament in the next few months.

Though everyone knows that nuclear power generation is the next big step for all nations to control the global climatic change, but one specific aspect of this radical drive is not clear here that why the lobby for global climatic change is often driven by western communities where they deliberately increase the carbon footprints and put disproportionate pressures on the developing countries to bear the brunt of their mistakes. Or it could be far different from the common public knowledge that there lies a sinister design of western business lobby in global political pond to realize their business mandates from the developing countries when the first world market is fast becoming saturate or they face resistance from various environmental activist groups in their homeland. Either way the facts remain that on the backdrop of global climate change lies a more dangerous vested interest of western multinational companies to pop up various pressure groups in different power circles to marginalize the larger truth, and the proposition could be such that a nuclear holocaust which is more imminent in the coming times due to the various natural calamities or human error is less important to the growing climate change that has already engulfed our atmosphere.

But again there are a number of ways to negate the ill effects of global climate change other than leveraging the nuclear power generation programs. The alternative renewable sources of energy such as wind mill, solar plants, tidal power plants, mini to small hydroelectric power generations setups are widely used for long by various nations and most of them are in the first world countries. In stead, the same countries vouch for a technology which is predominantly anti-environment and anti-nature and frequently has proved disastrous to the entire ecosystem of this planet. The last century's history is just a silent reminder of the magnitude of loss borne by mankind due to a number of nuclear disasters that has particularly occurred in those developed countries. And the recent disaster in Japan is no new one.

As most developed countries including US, Germany, France, China, and Japan are seriously thinking about the freezing their current program of expansions in nuclear power plants, it is a sad part for Indian leadership to blindly ignoring not only the lethal consequences of a nuclear crisis, but also the most evocative critiques of western communities. It seems the underlying objectives behind this motion are more hush-hush than it seems otherwise. The citizens of India should be cognizant of the hidden agenda that this government is trying to consummate.