Poison Fire, Sacred Earth,
TESTIMONIES, LECTURES, CONCLUSIONS,
THE WORLD URANIUM HEARING, SALZBURG 1992
pages 262-264
As in the past, plans and decisions in
the field of nuclear energy are still made and
confirmed behind the scenes without any
accessible and qualified expertises. . . .
B. The first two weeks after the catastrophe
During the first two weeks after the
accident, organizational decisions and actions
were of special importance. During this time, the
Chairman of the Commission for the Elimination
of the After-Effects of the Chernobyl Accident,
the academic Velichov, was to be seen on TV
every day. Fear and dismay were written on his
face. He and the other members of the
commission were expecting a new explosion with
every new day. . . .
Fifth example: Four days after the
explosion, the members of the Kiev
administration secretly started evacuating their
families. As before, the population was kept in
the dark about everything and had to rely on
contradicting rumours.
Sixth example: On the same day, the
laboratories in Kiev, in which the instruments
were kept, which would have made a
measuring of the degree of radiation possible,
were closed down and sealed. . . .
The former Soviet leaders have not learned anything
from the Chernobyl catastrophe. Their logic,
the character of their decisions and
the stereotype of their behaviour as it was before
the Chernobyl catastrophe did not change directly
after the explosion and have remained the same
up to the present day. This is why even nowadays
new nuclear and other types of catastrophes will
be unavoidable, unless there is to be a radical
change in the way decisions are made in the
former Soviet Republics. The words they use
nowadays have changed, but the melody is still
the same.
Nikolaj Ostrogskij
Nikolaj Ostrogsky, CIS. Head of an aviary clean-up task-force
in Chernobyl.
(This speech was held originally in Russian)
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen! First of
all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude
to The World Uranium Hearing for having been
invited to the conference and, apart from this,
for being given the opportunity of being listened
to. I intend to talk about the causes of future
catastrophes in the CIS.
Main thesis: The logic on the basis of
which responsible decisions are being made in
the former republics of the Soviet Union is still
the same that led up to the catastrophe in
Chernobyl.
A. How I got to Chernobyl and what I did there
I got to Chernobyl in my capacity as the
leader of an air plane expedition. I was in
command of some 60 people and four planes. The
task of this plane expedition was to prevent
precipitations in the area of the Chernobyl
Nuclear Power Station. The aim of this measure
was to keep the radioactive dust from penetrating
into the soil and reaching the ground waters or
open waters. I doubted that this intention and,
similarly, our actions were scientifically justified
or, at least, reasonable. At that time, it was not
clear what would be the more effective method to
reduce the level of contamination under the given
conditions: letting the radioactive dust penetrate
into the ground together with the rain or
dispersing the dry dust with blast air. But now I
think that the actions of the plane expedition did
a lot of harm.
This is a typical example of the
irresponsibility on the part of the atomic
administration. In the operating instructions of this
type of power station, it says that the plant is
working in a critical instability mode. In spite of
that no provisions were ever made for a possible
accident in one of these power stations in the
Soviet Union.
B. The first two weeks after the catastrophe
During the first two weeks after the
accident, organizational decisions and actions
were of special importance. During this time, the
Chairman of the Commission for the Elimination
of the After-Effects of the Chernobyl Accident,
the academic Velichov, was to be seen on TV
every day. Fear and dismay were written on his
face. He and the other members of the
commission were expecting a new explosion with
every new day. The examples of irresponsibility
and absolute lack of preparation on the part of the
administration are innumerable.
Second example: The firemen that were
called to fight the fire in the sector of the
accident did not have the slightest idea of the
danger they were facing. They did not have any
protective suits, not to speak of instruments to
measure the degree of radiation.
Third example: For days the local
population was not informed about the character
of the accident, nor about the necessary
protective measures to be taken.
Fourth example: Three days after the
explosion, Kiev television showed an
advertisement inviting the audience to spend
their holidays at the Kiev Sea, i.e. right in the
contaminated zone.
Fifth example: Four days after the
explosion, the members of the Kiev
administration secretly started evacuating their
families. As before, the population was kept in
the dark about everything and had to rely on
contradicting rumours.
Sixth example: On the same day, the
laboratories in Kiev, in which the instruments
were kept, which would have made a
measuring of the degree of radiation possible,
were closed down and sealed.
Seventh example: At the same time, they
started covering the destroyed reactor with
lead. Two weeks afterwards, examinations showed lead
poisonings of the throat and the respiratory organs
among the Kiev population.
Eighth example: Two weeks after the
explosion, I conducted measurements to
determine the degree of radioactive
contamination on the surface of residential
premises in Kiev. The surfaces of buildings facing
towards the direction of Chernobyl emitted
radiation ten times higher than the permissible
threshold value. However, the inhabitants had still
not been informed about any protective measures
to be taken against a radioactive contamination.
These are typical decisions that were
made by the administration at that time that
was crucial for the elimination of the
after-effects of the catastrophe.
C. The first eight months
The plane expedition was carried out within the
area of Chernobyl for eight months. During this
time the character of the decisions to be taken
did not change.
Ninth example: The most important task,
i.e. the map plotting of the contaminated areas in
the Ukraine, Belorussia, Russia and the Baltic
Republics, was carried out so insufficiently that
after some years, contaminated areas were
detected that had never been marked on the map,
but in which habitation was not permissible. But
at the given time, the results of the map plotting
were never brought to the attention of the
population at all.
Tenth example: About one and a half
months after the explosion of the second block,
the Ministry of Energy had already started up
the defective third block, while next to it the
second block was still burning and not under
control. Futhermore, it was not even clear how
to deal with it.
Eleventh example: I was stunned by the
open falsification of the data concerning the doses
of radiation those people who had been sent to
work in the area of the Chernobyl reactor by the
draft offices were exposed to. There was no
registration of the data shown on their individual
counters. Identical values of 50 Roentgen or even
less were registered on their control sheets even
at a time when the radiation dose they were
exposed to already exceeded 300 and even 400
Roentgen.
Twelfth example: Five to six months after
the explosion, the Kiev administration decided to
have the city cleaned from the contaminated
autumn leaves. Kiev school-children were sent to
collect and sometimes even ordered to burn the
radioactive leaves.
Thirteenth example: All members of the
medical staff were ordered by the central
authorities to conceal the relation between the
illness of the "liquidators" and their exposure to
radiation in Chernobyl.
All these actions serve as an example
for the inability of the Soviet leaders to take
reasonable measures. Neither the accident itself
nor the possibility of a nuclear explosion or even
human casualties did, in fact, have any
influence on the character of the decisions that
were taken during these eight months after the
catastrophe.
Fourteenth example: The plane
expedition, even given the insignificant powers
it had at its disposal, was ordered to continue its
flights in order to prevent precipitations even
when the season of the heavy autumn and winter
rains was already setting in and preventing
rainfall was becoming absolutely impossible.
D. The consequences nowadays
As in the past, plans and decisions in
the field of nuclear energy are still made and
confirmed behind the scenes without any
accessible and qualified expertises.
Fifteenth example: Without any
reasonable and well-founded plans, without a
sufficient evaluation of the experience received
from the Chernobyl catastrophe, the Russian
Prime Minister Jegor Gajdar, having been put
under pressure by military and industrial forces,
not long ago signed a decree concerning funds to
be directed towards the further development of
nuclear power plants. In connection with this, the
Nuclear Energy Administration is working on plans
to open new uranium mines in the North of Russia.
This inhumane way of taking decisions is
not exclusively a Russian, but a world-wide
problem. Many of the speakers have already
called our attention to the inhumane character of
the decision-making of the American, French,
British and many other military-industrial
administrations. The Soviet military industry is no
better than its western counterparts. But there is
one particularity about the Soviet administration:
The realization of the decisions taken by western
administrations to a high extent corresponds with
the set goal. The realization of decisions taken by
the Soviet administration in general does not
correspond with the set goal. Because of this, the
process of realizing decisions leads to
unpredictable effects. And in situations in which
these effects might turn out to be horrible ones,
they inevitably lead up to a catastrophe.
The former Soviet leaders have not learned anything
from the Chernobyl catastrophe. Their logic,
the character of their decisions and
the stereotype of their behaviour as it was before
the Chernobyl catastrophe did not change directly
after the explosion and have remained the same
up to the present day. This is why even nowadays
new nuclear and other types of catastrophes will
be unavoidable, unless there is to be a radical
change in the way decisions are made in the
former Soviet Republics. The words they use
nowadays have changed, but the melody is still
the same.
Thank you very much for your attention.
Joanna Macy (Moderator)
Thank you. We thank our witnesses very much and ask that Andres Illan and Vladimir Nechunaev come up to the table, to the podium.