reprinted with permission from
Poison Fire, Sacred Earth,
TESTIMONIES, LECTURES, CONCLUSIONS,
THE WORLD URANIUM HEARING, SALZBURG 1992
pages 21-24

"It is not a normal situation
when the people who are in charge
of the fate of a whole civilization
lie quite openly to the whole world."

What dimensions did this catastrophe take on? . . . Well, firstly, according to our calculations, more than 35 million people on the territory of our -- of my -- country received this or another dosage of radiation. By "this or another dosage" I mean, well, for example, more than 15 million people got an over-dose from hundreds til some 3,500 to 4,000 times on their thyroid glands. It is clear that this will not go away without consequences for the children's health who received this dosage. As a result of the fallout from the fourth block that we succeeded in closing sometime around the 15th to 20th May, not 3.5 percent radionuclides, but, according to our estimates, 65 to 80 percent of the whole content of the reactor had been thrown out from the destroyed block. Imagine -- 192 tons of uranium, imagine that at the moment of the catastrophe the reactor produced 520 different dangerous radionuclides, among them also radioactive iodine which effects the thyroid glands of the children in the most dangerous way -- and you get an idea of the scale of damage especially to the territory of our country. . . .
. . . The thing is that we faced an astonishing interrelationship which, at first glance, cannot be understood by the human being's brain. Well, for example: You all know that there is an International Agency of Atomic Energy in Vienna which is headed by [Hans] Blix. But how astonishing that this international agency could speak the same language as our former communist government! We were simply astonished by that! We met Blix when he came to us, to Chernobyl, and Blix saw very well that, at that moment, the fourth block really was throwing out millions of Curies of activity. I related that according to our figures -- and we, thank God, observed it when we were in the air over the fourth block many times during a period of three to four months -- we saw that it was absolutely empty, and we estimated that such a quantity of the radionuclides had been thrown out. According to our estimates that was not 50 million Curies, but approximately 6.3 billion Curies of activity. And then, at that moment, Hans Blix saw that the radionuclides were being thrown out from the block and were being spread over the whole territory of the earth and, at the same time, he made calming statements: "Just be quiet, everything is all right, everything is under control, there is no cause to worry." This put us on our guard.
After that, such an extreme lie already followed when our government, under pressure from its own atomic mafia, . . . [recording interrupted]. They were all created for the production of plutonium. So this Minsredmash, as we say, the Ministry of the Medium Machine Building prepared a completely falsified protocol about the catastrophe that had happened; it claimed that only unpredictable situations had led to such a catastrophe. . . .
And what astonished us after that -- the IAEO was only too keen to believe every word and began to convince the whole world: "Yes, do not worry, the rest of the 15 blocks will not explode. No problems." It is not a normal situation when the people who are in charge of the fate of a whole civilization lie quite openly to the whole world. So, after the situation connected with the IAEO -- and IAEO, these are specialists, they could easily uncover falsification, the wrong conception; so we lost all respect for them. And from that moment on -- it was approximately one year after the catastrophe of Chernobyl --, we began to call the whole organization a good united international atomic mafia which we all have to fight, of course, because they can very quickly and easily murder us.

---

Vladimir Chernousenko

Vladimir Chernousenko, CIS. Physicist, scientific co-ordinator of the clean-up in Chernobyl.
(This speech was held originally in Russian)

Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen! Good morning, Friends! It gives me great pleasure to meet so many people here in this big beautiful hall who share the concern of those of us in my home country, who are worried about the problems of the continuously worsening global ecological situation. I would like to divide my short speech into two or three parts.

I would like to give you a short account of our sad, I would go so far as to say, tragic experience in dealing with one of the most terrible catastrophes that has ever afflicted us. I mean, of course, the year 1986, Chernobyl. Later on, I would like to say a few words about existing problems and the dangers connected with the further development of such dangerous products, in particular, atomic power stations, atomic blocks, and then, perhaps, I will speak about the problems and tasks which, in my opinion, we, together, using our combined strength, have to solve in the near future.

And so, my memories return to those tragic months of work in Chernobyl -- what I want to say most of all about those rather demanding months of work in such dangerous zones where my friends were also employed. Well, first of all, having found ourselves in this special zone, the ten-kilometer-zone around the destroyed reactor, we were soon convinced that the atomic lobby -- the atomic mafia, as I began to call it later on, having developed such a dangerous product -- had not thought at all about our future, had not at all developed a plan in the event of such an unpredictable catastrophe. Unfortunately, I did not bring along a map of the radiation situation, maybe next time during this congress I will succeed in showing it. Then all people present here would clearly understand the kind of conditions under which my friends had to work in Chernobyl.

We were approaching those zones of the fields with the extra-high radiation very slowly. If, in May, we had begun with fields of somewhere around 10, 100 or sometimes 200 Roentgen per hour, then in August, we went out in the zones with fields of 12,000 to 15,000 Roentgen per hour. As you understand yourselves, it was just impossible to work in such fields, and even the machinery we had bought in the West for hard currency -- it just immediately went out of order in fields with such high radiation. And then, on the order of our government headed at that time by Gorbachev, the command was given to throw living people in these highly dangerous radiation fields. We tried somehow to make some sort of protection, we tried to design some clothing that would have protected at least the most important organs.

Well, as you understand yourselves, it is practically impossible to do so in fields of such high radiation. Today, it is simply impossible to find protection against fields of 15,000 Roentgen per hour in the form of a high-pressure suit so that a living human being could work in such fields, in such zones.

Then, in August, a conference took place at the IAEO, and the world calmed down that the block had stopped throwing out radioactive nuclides onto the whole territory of the terrestrial globe, and at that time, we approached the extra-high fields only by the end of August, and from the beginning of September almost until the end of October this terribly dangerous work was carried out in this 10-kilometer-zone in absolute secrecy.

It is possible to relate many tragic moments which highlighted the catastrophe. Well, the first and the most important thing which can be quoted here is, of course, the regime of secrecy which was accepted in our country from the very first second the catastrophe happened. People living in territories far away from Chernobyl found themselves in the radioactively contaminated zone -- they did not even know for some years in which regions they lived, why their children were ill, which doses of radiation they had been exposed to, and this was perhaps the most tragic moment and the period, I would say, of our fight for some clarity, openness, for at least some honest scientific data which might be useful to scientists, for the analysis in the future of all these consequences of contamination from radiation for -- I underline -- millions of people.

What dimensions did this catastrophe take on? Well, according to the estimates that we made during the period when the secret protocol about the liquidation of this catastrophe was being prepared for our government, we estimated -- or at least tried to estimate -- the dimensions involved. They just terrified us.

Well, firstly, according to our calculations, more than 35 million people on the territory of our -- of my -- country received this or another dosage of radiation. By "this or another dosage" I mean, well, for example, more than 15 million people got an over-dose from hundreds til some 3,500 to 4,000 times on their thyroid glands. It is clear that this will not go away without consequences for the children's health who received this dosage. As a result of the fallout from the fourth block that we succeeded in closing sometime around the 15th to 20th May, not 3.5 percent radionuclides, but, according to our estimates, 65 to 80 percent of the whole content of the reactor had been thrown out from the destroyed block. Imagine -- 192 tons of uranium, imagine that at the moment of the catastrophe the reactor produced 520 different dangerous radionuclides, among them also radioactive iodine which effects the thyroid glands of the children in the most dangerous way -- and you get an idea of the scale of damage especially to the territory of our country.

As a result of the fallout from the fourth block the whole territory of the Ukraine is contaminated practically to a two thirds degree. According to our estimates, practically the whole territory of greatly affected White Russia is contaminated. If the preliminary maps of the radiation situation said that White Russia was contaminated only to about 30 or 40 percent, then the latest, more detailed estimates which we as well as White Russian scientists and physicists have carried out, show that practically the whole territory of White Russia is contaminated with different degrees of contamination -- from some tens of Curie to 300 to 500 Curie per square-kilometer. And you get some idea, what it is like for people who have been forced to live under such conditions for six years now.

At the same time, we faced another problem for the first time that it could appear as if the territory was contaminated with two to three to five Curies, but due to the fact that these are special kinds of grounds -- peaty molds, and the coefficients of the transition were rather high, then on territories with three to five Curies they began to get very "dirty" milk which was practically unusable. And it was thought earlier that there would have been created so-called "special zones of strict control", in which clean products, medicaments could have been delivered, systematical observations of the changing health of the people would have been carried out; then we later on recognized that as a result of the decay of our last great empire it appeared to be that there were not enough "clean" products. And this is why the people were left to their fate.

It is clear that already in the near future, genetic changes in the health of children will follow, of those who live in these contaminated territories. And we have already analyses of blood carried out by independent doctors which testify that these changes have already begun to take place. And this is the most terrible consequence of such catastrophes. Besides that the Ukraine is contaminated, White Russia is contaminated, Russia is also contaminated. On these maps showing the radiation situation, which we carried out in the protocol -- regretfully they have not been published yet --, it is obvious that the traces of the radioactive cloud went from Chernobyl to the Ural, practically to Novosibirsk. You can imagine the scale of damage to our territory.

Finally, the figures were mentioned that the sum of the damage due to the catastrophe that had happened was estimated to be 8.5 billions of dollars to our country. I have to say that this is over 100 times too low a figure. According to our estimates, only the works necessary for carrying out the deactivation of the immense Kiev water storage lake from which 40 million people drink their water -- these works are estimated according to our scales in 150 to 200 billions of rubles. And that is only the estimation of the water storage lakes from which the people drink their water. But how can one estimate the deactivation of the huge territory which has practically not yet begun as it would have been proper? That is approximately how I would estimate the size of the loss as a result of this catastrophe. The thing is that we faced an astonishing interrelationship which, at first glance, cannot be understood by the human being's brain. Well, for example: You all know that there is an International Agency of Atomic Energy in Vienna which is headed by [Hans] Blix. But how astonishing that this international agency could speak the same language as our former communist government! We were simply astonished by that! We met Blix when he came to us, to Chernobyl, and Blix saw very well that, at that moment, the fourth block really was throwing out millions of Curies of activity. I related that according to our figures -- and we, thank God, observed it when we were in the air over the fourth block many times during a period of three to four months -- we saw that it was absolutely empty, and we estimated that such a quantity of the radionuclides had been thrown out. According to our estimates that was not 50 million Curies, but approximately 6.3 billion Curies of activity. And then, at that moment, Hans Blix saw that the radionuclides were being thrown out from the block and were being spread over the whole territory of the earth and, at the same time, he made calming statements: "Just be quiet, everything is all right, everything is under control, there is no cause to worry." This put us on our guard.

After that, such an extreme lie already followed when our government, under pressure from its own atomic mafia, . . . [recording interrupted]. They were all created for the production of plutonium. So this Minsredmash, as we say, the Ministry of the Medium Machine Building prepared a completely falsified protocol about the catastrophe that had happened; it claimed that only unpredictable situations had led to such a catastrophe. If there are any questions, I am ready to talk about the technical reasons for the catastrophe -- I just do not have the time necessary for that; I only want to say the essentials.

Analyses had been carried out after that catastrophe; before, we had not had a possibility to do it, because all these projects had always been kept secret, there had been no approach for the independent scientists. It was just impossible to do it. We demanded it before Chernobyl, because we suspected that it was not good. But already after Chernobyl, having carried out the independent estimates, we showed that in every project of the blocks of the type RBMK [Large capacity reactor, "boiling"] and of other blocks, there were at least 32 mistakes in the project itself and, according to everyone of these mistakes, these blocks had to explode. And this reason should have been given to the IAEO. But no, our government called it a "completely unpredictable situation", in other words: Pure chance had led to this catastrophe.

And what astonished us after that -- the IAEO was only too keen to believe every word and began to convince the whole world: "Yes, do not worry, the rest of the 15 blocks will not explode. No problems." It is not a normal situation when the people who are in charge of the fate of a whole civilization lie quite openly to the whole world. So, after the situation connected with the IAEO -- and IAEO, these are specialists, they could easily uncover falsification, the wrong conception; so we lost all respect for them. And from that moment on -- it was approximately one year after the catastrophe of Chernobyl --, we began to call the whole organization a good united international atomic mafia which we all have to fight, of course, because they can very quickly and easily murder us.

Now, if you give me a couple of minutes, I want to describe this tragic situation in which we live. Look: In the last few years, we have seen that climate changes, rivers disappear, oceans disappear, that the ecological situation is worsening. Yes, it is really like this, this is the tragedy of our time, but we have to understand the grave importance of the problems. And when talking about the most important things, it seems to me that the situation connected with the development of the atomic industry, the creation of new nuclear blocks must be placed first, because the experience which we got in Chernobyl tells us that all it takes is one or two reactors to explode and the whole of Europe will cease to exist.

Well, here is the simplest first example. When we were beginning our work in Chernobyl, we estimated very quickly what would have happened to the world and to Europe if the other three RBMK blocks in Chernobyl had exploded. The estimate showed that the earth would have been burned from Chernobyl to the English Channel. Well, you can imagine the scale of an unpredictable, unexpected catastrophe which can happen at any moment if we, together with you, still do not put barriers in front of the international atomic mafia, for the further development of such sharp and dangerous products. This is the first.

Finally, inside this industry itself, there are many completely inevitable contradictions. I am speaking about the final storage of the radiation waste and about the 1,000-year-long observations of them and about the impossibility of creating absolutely safe products -- any project of the block of the type RBMK. All this led us to the necessity -- I mean most of us nuclear physicists who in general before that, I have to say it to you honestly -- we just didn't have all the information about the existing dangerous situation in the projects of these blocks. And when we just carried out the analyses after Chernobyl, it really terrified us, and now we have to speak and to talk and to explain clearly, exactly, in simple language, to millions of people this degree of danger with which we live.

And finally, I'll allow myself to say the last thing. What should one do in this situation? Here is our experience -- partly my meetings with people, my travelling around the world; it showed that people want to tackle this tragic situation, they want to do something, but they have neither the necessary knowledge nor the special training nor the complete information about the existing real tragic situation in the world.

That is why it seems to me that the necessity to unify the efforts of the independent scientists all over the world is long overdue. It is necessary, in our opinion, in my opinion, it is necessary to establish an independent international institute of ecology in the shortest period of time, it is necessary to call in the best scientists, so that they can give an independent expert estimate, honest, tragic, but correct, so that they will not be rigged as the atomic mafia does it, maintaining that by developing atomic production we move our civilization ahead, but not saying that doing so, we push it to the brink of destruction. But it is necessary that honest, independent scientists give this information.

Thank you for paying attention.