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Chernobyl survivors recall a decade of death and denial

April 26, 1996
Web posted at: 3:00 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT)

SLAVUTYCH, Ukraine (CNN) -- Workers from the Chernobyl power station stood in silence Friday to remember colleagues killed when the plant's fourth reactor, now encased in concrete, exploded 10 years ago.

woman

The mourners, who had come from all over Ukraine, Belarus and Russia to remember and to ensure the world never forgets the disaster, observed a minute of silence. (539K QuickTime movie)

Many wept as an orchestra played solemn music.

"I donated my blood, my marrow," cried a woman who tried unsuccessfully to save the life of her only son, a nuclear engineer at Chernobyl. "He told me, 'Mom, your blood was the best.'"

Disaster strikes without warning

At 1:23 a.m. on April 26, 1986, staff conducting an unauthorized experiment lost control of the reactor and it exploded, blowing the unit's roof into the air and sending a cloud of radioactivity over most of Europe.

Poorly trained and managed workers made it worse with an improper shutdown that nearly triggered a meltdown.

Chernobyl reactor

Residents in a nearby town were unaware of the explosion and went about their daily business.

As the radiation spread throughout Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, scientists in Scandinavia picked up increased radiation levels. They alerted the world that something was terribly wrong at Chernobyl.

Radiation levels were so high that a Swedish engineer suspected something more sinister than an accident.

"My first thought was that a war had broken out and that somebody had blown up a nuclear bomb," Cliff Robinson, a nuclear engineer at Sweden's Forsmark nuclear plant, told Reuters.

"No one said it was terrible"

Despite early reports from the West, people were encouraged to attend May Day celebrations as usual oblivious to the risk of the radioactive clouds overhead.

"We found out about the accident the day after but no one said that it was terrible," said Anna Sheshlova, a schoolteacher in nearby Narovlya.

"Nobody explained anything to the people," said one man who lost his brother to Chernobyl. "Food markets were open. Such was the regime."

Indeed, local authorities tried to cover up mistakes hoping to avoid trouble with party leaders. The cover-up would later cost them their lives.

Even after party leaders were informed, it took Moscow nearly three days to admit the accident had occurred, a delay that experts say cost many lives.

"If we were informed about the real truth ... in that period especially for children, I think the damage from Chernobyl, damage for our health (would not be) so great," said Ukrainian Environment Minister Yuri Kostenko. (165K AIFF sound or 165K WAV sound)

Ukrainian officials link the Chernobyl disaster to some 4,300 deaths. They claim it also affected the health of an additional 3.5 million people.

Two weeks and four days after the accident, then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev appeared on television and blamed not Russia but the West for the disaster.

"We cannot ignore the political aspect of things and how the Chernobyl tragedy was handled by the government, political figures, the media, certain countries in NATO and especially the United States. They initiated an unabashed anti-Soviet campaign," he said.

Russian officials say they did not know

A decade later Gorbachev, who is trying to make a political comeback in the new Russian democracy, said he did not recognize the danger of the disaster until it was too late.

"Today, they say we hid some things, kept them secret. That is rubbish. We were short of information," he said during a recent news conference. "If something wasn't done at the time, it was because we didn't know."

Gorbachev said he was deeply affected by the crisis and now divides his life into periods before and after the disaster.

Some blame the Soviet system for allowing such an unsafe reactor to be built.

"In a democratic society it would be impossible to build such kind of reactors," said Kostenko.

Chernobyl still fueling controversy

The 10th anniversary commemorations were marred by a minor release of radiation this week which officials blamed on lax working practices.

To ensure there will never be another disaster at Chernobyl, the West is paying $3.2 billion dollars to shut down the reactor by the end of the century.

Anti-nuclear protesters who demonstrated outside the plant said they want the reactor closed immediately.

"This plant is truly dangerous for mankind," said Krista van Velzen, one of 10 anti-nuclear protesters who strapped themselves to an active railway line.

Moscow Bureau Chief Eileen O'Connor, the Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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