Chernobyl Realities

Ask anyone the death toll from Chernobyl and the figures will range from thousands to millions!

A World Health Organisation Report 20 years after the accident places the figures very much lower. 100 scientists prepared the report and found only 28 died from radiation sickness while the total deaths reached 78. These deaths were among those who bravely went in to clear up the mess. They said possibly 4000 people would die earlier from cancers which will develop and this would be 3% of those who had received high doses of radiation. This future increase in mortality is projected from earlier statistics from the Japanese bomb exposures but cannot yet be measured in the Chernobyl population.

Several reports are available on the World Health Organisation website http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs303/en/ and a useful summary on the Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl

How have our impresions become so exaggerated? It is said that the Russians fuelled the fears to enable them to sell more oil. Did the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament make us fearful of anything nuclear? Is it time to reconsider?

James Lovelock also points out that the radiation from Chernobyl was only one hundredth of the radiation released in the years of nuclear testing by the great powers. Several Chernobyls would then be an acceptable risk to take to eliminate fossil fuels.

He argues that the nuclear industry is relatively safe. The death rate among workers worldwide was 8 workers per terrawatt generated compared with 342 in the coal industry and 883 workers and public in the hydroelectric industry!


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