WORLD

_ Speed of recovery |

amazing one year

after Chernobyl

CHERNOBYL — No pair of
modern eyes could fail to recog-
nize it instantly. Its image has
been seared into our conscious-
ness: a long, low, white industrial
silhouette rising out of the gentle,
forested Ukrainian countryside,
its profile punctuated by the
characteristic extraction chim-
neys and cooling towers of an
atomic power station.

Since that tragic, terrifying
night just over a year ago, when a
hydrogen explosion ripped apart
its number four reactor building
and deadly radioactive smoke
poured into the atmosphere, this
plant has been the focus of anx-
ious nightmares and impassioned
debate over the uses and dangers
of nuclear energy.

Today, the consequences of
that disaster have been brought
under control and are being ag-
gressively eradicated by one of
the most remarkable and effective
emergency programs in history.

The success of this effort is
symbolized by the fate of the
stricken number four reactor it-
self: A huge black concrete-and-
steel sarcophagus now entirely
encases it and seals it off from the
outside world. Built to last, this
giant structure will dominate the
skyline of Chernobyl far into the
distant future.

Radioactive emissions from the
rogue reactor are now nil, says
the plant’s new director, Mikhail
Umanets. In a forceful, detailed
interview, he described the
myriad of monitoring channels
and devices that have been instal-
led within the tomb — an around-

-the-clock surveillance, he admits,
will have to go on ‘“‘indefinitely”’.

“All of the indications are
good,’ he says. ““The average
temperature within the core has
been dropped steadily and is now
about 97 degrees centigrade. “‘On
the basis of these trends, we can

pretty well exclude any possiblity
of local overheating inside the
dead reactor’’.

The first two units of Cher-
nobyl’s original four reactors
have been re-started and, al-
though Number 2 is presently
shut down for routine main-
tenance, Number | is operating at
full power. Above the humming
machinery in the plant’s huge tur-
bine hall, a banner reads: ‘‘Com-
rade workers! A single day’s
delay in launching a turbine costs
the country 12 million kilowatt
hours of electricity”’.

Umanets says he hopes that
Chernobyl’s third unit, down
since the accident, will also be put
back on-line shortly, maybe in a
month.

However, prospects for the sta-
tion’s planned fifth and sixth units
are not so good. Though
construction of these is more than
50 per cent complete, it has been
plagued with escalating costs due
to the difficulties of working in a
contaminated environment.

The tower-cranes and excava-
tion equipment that had been
working on this project stand
abandoned today. Following a
stormy meeting of nuclear power
experts in Kiev recently, at which
sharp doubts were raised about
the wisdom of continuing with
these new units, the Soviet
leadership has decided to dis-
continue construction, at least for
the duration of the current 5-year
plan. ©

The 30 kilometer zone sur-
rounding Chernobyl has been
cordoned off and placed under the
control of a single administration,
known here simply as the
**Kombinat’’. The kombinat runs
everything within the zone, over-
sees economic activity, conducts
the clean-up of remaining radio-
active hotspots, and organizes
resettlement of evacuated farms
and villages wherever it is con-
sidered safe.

For most who were evacuated
during those hard first days fol-
lowing the accident, this may
not be possible for a long time to
come, if ever. The 50,000 resi-
dents of Pryipyat, the town that
stands in the very shadow of
Chernobyl, may never see their
homes again. Pripyat was hastily
abandoned on April 27, 1986, and
is today an eerie ghost town, a
Hollywood fantasy wrenched
into reality: a ferris-wheel stand-

ing in the lot of the Pripyat palace.

of culture looks ready for cus-
tomers; laundry hung out to dry a
year ago on an apartment balcony
still flaps in the wind; a baby’s
stroller rusts forlornly in the play-
ground and somewhere, believe it
or not, a piped-music radio is still
playing.

From Moscow
Fee se ere ES SY NE eee eT
Fred Weir

Many of Pripyat’s adult resi-
dents worked at the Chernobyl
station before the accident and,
surprisingly, most continue to do
so. Some 95 per cent of the atomic

station’s workforce are people

who have been there for more
than a year. Today, however,
they live outside the 30 kilometer
zone in new settlements like
Zelyony Mys (Green Cape), a
bustling settlement of 6,000 which
was constructed with awesome
speed between May and August
1986.

Alexander Kovalenko is the
Kombinat’s 32-year old public re-
lations director, whose unenvi-
able task it is to escort journalists
around a radioactive zone. He
carries with him a small geiger
counter, which attracts the undi-
vided attention of everyone when
it begins to beep.

Kovalenko’s detection device
sounded constantly in the area
that had been just downwind of
reactor 4 on the night it blew.
Radioactive debris literally rained
down on a small forest that had
been here, about one kilometer
from the station. Now the trees
have been levelled and the entire
area covered in layers of sand.

‘*This was the worst-hit place,” —

says Kovalenko. ‘‘The fact that
we can stand here experiencing
only insignificant radiation read-
ings shows how thoroughly the
situation has been contained’.
Still, the scene is grim. Clean-
up crews are busy all around the
30-kilometer zone stripping off
layers of contaminated top-soil,
which is then buried — forever —
in specially-lined pits known as

‘“‘sraveyards’’. In some places
plastic is being sprayed over the
ground surface to hold down ra-
dioactive dust. The heavily-trav-
elled roads have to be washed
down regularly by specially

equipped water trucks. Vehicles—

used inside the zone may never
leave it.

Much of the clean-up work in
the zone is being handled by
military construction troops, and
Kovalenko struggles constantly
with them over where reporters
may point their cameras. He
laughingly agrees that the tug-
of-war between the separate con-
cerns of security and public rela-
tions is ‘‘one of the non-antagon-
istic contradictions under social-
ism’. Kovalenko has a jovial,
soothing manner, and he usually
gets his way; reporters get their
pictures.

Radiation inspection of villages near Kiev.

Of the 135,000 people who wel
evacuated from the 30 Km zom
las May, most were collecti¥
farmers and villagers from the re
ion. Some ‘have since returné?
The Kombinat is increasing!
worried that many are trying *

return to the zone without pe
mission. Most, however, ha —

been resettled in other places.

The village of Fasova, som
100 kilometers from Chernobyl,!

one of the refugee settlemet) |
rapidly constructed in the wake? —

the disaster. Here 155 new ©
tages were built in just ™
months to house evacuees fro!
the now-dead village ®
Chapeyevka.

‘‘This is a much better hou*
than we had in Chapeyevka,
says Pavel Pavlenko, a sma
gray, elderly man who Wé
brought here with his wife a
sons on May 7, 1986. ‘‘But I lone
for my home. We’ll go back if ¥f

9

can .

Wouldn’t he be afraid to Ii
just 15 km from a nuclear Pp
again?

‘‘No fear,”’ he says. *‘We lived
a long time and nothing 9%
pened. It was an accident, bY
now we feel fine. Everything
fine. I want to go home’’.

Officials admit, however, ¥

there is little chance of that 4
pening in the near future. Fas

like the 15 other refugee villae
constructed in the Kiev reg
has a permanent look about

One year after the tragedy: ©
of those displaced have i
given new homes and jobs: |
medical program of unp!
cedented proportions has Ke
them all under tight observatl@”
and will continue to do 0%,
years to come. The degree ‘
which Soviet society has Db
able to mobilize resources #7)
co-ordinate efforts has ama”
many outsiders.

Native

granted

Nicaragua

autonomy

population.

By CINDY HAWES
MEXICO CITY —A_ multi-ethnic
conference in Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua
has finalized a law that will make Nicara-
gua the first Latin American country to
grant full autonomy to its indigenous

The law guarantees the right of the
country’s indigenous and Black popula-
tions, including the Miskito Indians, to
preserve their culture, religion, customs
and language and use their natural resour-
ces according to their needs.

Before the 1979 revolution, the Atlantic
region was virtually cut off from the rest of
Nicaragua. The people were exploited by
British and Spanish colonizers, and later

years.

languages.

revolution.

by U.S. companies. Cultural animosity
and distrust of the Pacific Spanish-
speaking people also developed over th

When the Sandinistas came to power,
they gave priority to the development of
the region. During their national literacy
campaign, they taught the indigenous
peoples — 76 per cent of whom were
illiterate — to read and write in their own

Health care facilities now reach the
most inaccessible areas, and the area has
three times more teachers than before the

Despite these advances, the Sandinistas

now agree that they made mistakes, many |
based on a lack of comprehension of thé
Atlantic coast culture and traditions.
: CIA-led contras’ daily attacks prompté
the Sandinistas to move the MiskitoS |
along the Coco River to settlements inlan
to protect them, often causing resentment |
Thousands of Miskitos chose to relocat® |
in neighboring Honduras instead.

But the two-year autonomy process has
helped rectify many of the initial Sandr
nista errors, according to Nicaragual |
Interior Minister Tomas Borge. Proof of
this, he said, is that 12,500 Miskitos hav® |
returned to Nicaragua, and the majority |
those who rose up in arms have abal
doned them.

The |

8 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MAY 6, 1987