Belarus to Repopulate Chernobyl Exclusion Zone

by Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski*

July 28, 2010

On July 23, Novosti, Interfax, Interia, other Belarusian, Russian, and Polish news
agencies announced that the government of Belarus decided to resettle hundreds of thousands
of people back into the 2,000 ghost-villages in the Chernobyl exclusion zone and other
“contaminated areas” from which they had been hastily removed 24 years ago. Assuming 100
persons as the population of one village, the scale of the resettlement might be about 200,000
persons.

That panic-stricken reaction to the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear reactor mishap was a fatal
error on the part of Soviet authorities, influenced in part by exaggerated recommendations
coming from international radiation protection bodies, such as the International Commission
on Radiological Protection and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
A short-term evacuation of people from an area near the Chernobyl power station, for
example from a town of Pripyat, situated 3 km from the burning reactor, was a reasonable
precautionary measure in the developing crisis. But, as radiation dose rates decreased rapidly
by orders of magnitude, there was no sense in keeping the inhabitants of Pripyat away from
their homes, where now the radiation level is similar to that in the streets of Warsaw
(Jaworowski 2010).

Even more senseless was relocation of people from localities in Belarus, Ukraine, and
Russia, far distant from the only really dangerous area comprising only 0.5 square kilometers,
and reaching out to a maximum distance of 1.8 km southwestward from the Chernobyl
reactor. But relocation was carried on even after 1986, resulting in the uprooting of 336,000
persons from their homesteads. Now they can come back again.

Already 10 years ago, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of
Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) made clear that these measures were exaggerated
(UNSCEAR 2000). Relocations gained nothing in respect to health, as there was no real
detectable health hazard. On the other hand, they led to enormous societal losses (ostracism
and pauperization of evacuees, exclusion from use of vast “contaminated areas,” losses of
property and infrastructure), and an epidemic of psychosomatic afflictions among the
evacuees (diseases of digestive and circulatory system, headache, depression, anxiety,
escapism, learned helplessness, unwillingness to cooperate, overdependence, alcohol and drug
abuse, and suicides).

The “contaminated areas” were defined as those where fallout of radioactive cesium-
137 was above 37 kilobecquerels (kBq) per square meter. In the Soviet Union, this covered
more than 140 000 square kilometers of land. But the Chernobyl fallout also reached many
other countries. Cesium-137 fallout of more that 185 kBq/m2 was found in Austria. Bulgaria,
Finland, Norway, Sweden, Great Britain, Greece, Romania, Switzerland, and Turkey. People
in those countries were not relocated. A cesium-137 level higher than 37 kBq/m2 corresponds
to an annual dose of 1.6 millisieverts (mSv), or about a half of the average natural radiation
dose in these so-called “contaminated areas.”

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 Normal soil contains about 50 natural radioisotopes biologically much more dangerous
than cesium-137. Their total activity in the top 10 cm layer of soil is 400 kBq/m2 (Jaworowski
2002), which is more than 10 times higher than the Soviet “relocation limit.” The promoters
of the 37 kBq/m2 limit probably did not consider this fact. They also did not take into account
that in many countries, where the natural radiation dose rate reaches to as much as 100 times
greater than the average annual radiation dose received by inhabitants of the so-called
“contaminated areas” in the Soviet Union, no increased incidence of neoplastic diseases and
genetic disorders was ever registered. Just the opposite: The health of these populations is
better than in countries with low natural radiation background. Compared with other noxious
agents, ionizing radiation is rather feeble. Nature seems to have provided living organisms
with an enormous safety margin for natural levels of ionizing radiation—and also,
adventitiously, for man-made radiation from controlled, peacetime sources (Jaworowski
1999).

The current decision of the government of Belarus is an important political event

which may bring a positive change in acceptance of nuclear power by the public. It probably
results from years of studies reviewed by UNSCEAR which show that the Chernobyl
catastrophe caused a minuscule risk for the general population. The only fatal victims were
among the employees of the power station and rescue workers. There is no increase of
neoplastic mortality among these workers, nor of cancer incidence and hereditary diseases
among the inhabitants of “contaminated areas”(UNSCEAR 2008).

Ultrasound monitoring of the thyroid gland is carried out each year for almost all
inhabitants in the so-called “contaminated areas.” As a result of such enormous mass
screening, up to now a total of about 5,000 thyroid cancers have been detected in children and
adults from the “contaminated areas.” This corresponds to 0.1% of the population living there.
Most of these cancers are “occult thyroid cancers” which do not cause clinical symptoms, and
have nothing to do with the radioactive iodine-131 dispersed from the Chernobyl reactor. The
normal incidence of occult thyroid cancers in the population of Belarus is 9%; in the United
States 13%; and in Finland 35%. About 90% of thyroid cancers are curable. In many
thousands of Swedish and British patients who have received doses of radioactive iodine-131
much higher than the doses absorbed by people in the “contaminated areas,” no increase in
thyroid cancers was detected, but rather the opposite: a 38% deficit of cancers among the
Swedish patients, and 17% deficit among the British ones.

Calculating by unit of energy produced, the Chernobyl catastrophe caused 0.86 deaths
per gigawatt-year of electricity produced, which is 47 times less than for hydroelectric power
stations (40 deaths per GWe-year), including the 230,000 fatalities caused by the 1975
collapse of the dam on the Banqiao river in China.

The government of Belarus took into account the recommendations of a report jointly
published in 2002 by four UN organizations: the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP), United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF). World Health
Organization (WHO), and United Nations Office for Coordination of Human Affairs
(UNOCHA). In strong words, the report stated that the enormous effort and billions of dollars
spent on mitigation of the effects of Chernobyl accident, did not produce a positive result, but
rather aggravated the situation of 7 million people defined as “victims of Chernobyl,” and
petrified psychological effects of the catastrophe and of the wrong Soviet decisions. The
report recommended that the three post-Soviet countries and the international organizations
abandon the current policy, based on the misguided expectation of mass radiation health

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effects, which led to the useless expenditure of giant resources. The report presented 35
practical recommendations needed to stop the vicious cycle of Chernobyl frustrations, social
degradation, pauperization and the epidemic of psychosomatic disorders. In practice, the
recommendations suggested removal of all the restrictions that had been imposed. Most
important among them was that the relocated individuals should be allowed to return to their
old settlements.

This last recommendation was fulfilled by the government of Belarus, which should
be commended for its courage in standing up to the Chernobyl hysteria, for years cultivated
by Greenpeace and other Greens. We come back to normalcy.

*Zbigniew Jaworowski is a multidisciplinary scientist who has

published more than 300 scientific papers, four books, and
scores of popular science articles, including many in 21st Century.
He has been a member of the United Nations Scientific Committee
on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) since
1973, and served as its chairman from 1980-1982.

References

Z. Jaworowski, 1999. Radiation risk and ethics. Physics Today, Vol. 52: pp. 24-29
Z. Jaworowski, 2002. Ionizing radiation in the 20th century and beyond. Atomwirtschaft-
Atomtechnik, Vol. 47, pp. 22-27.
Z. Jaworowski, 2010. Observations on the Chernobyl disaster and LNT. Dose-Response, Vol.
8: pp. 148-171 http://dose-
response.metapress.com/media/h147e148jftulncqvwxydff147/contributions/140/143/1
45/142/03523n6276303212.pdf
UNSCEAR, 2000. “Sources and Effects of Ionizing Radiation.” United Nations Scientific
Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation UNSCEAR 2000, Report to the
General Assembly. Annex J: Exposures and Effects of the Chernobyl Accident, pp.
451 - 566. United Nations.
UNSCEAR, 2008. “Health effects due to radiation from the Chernobyl accident” Draft report
A/AC.82/R.673, pp. 1-220. United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of
Atomic Radiation.