Brussels, 19/04/2006 (Agence Europe) - A week ahead of the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear accident, which happened in Ukraine on 26 April 1986, the Greens/EFA group of the European Parliament has spoken out in the strongest possible terms- and using scientific evidence to support its position- against what it terms the grotesque playing-down of the consequences of the nuclear catastrophe by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and urges the European Commission to commission its own independent study to draw up an exhaustive and realistic list of the damage caused by the most serious industrial accident of all time.
In support of their request, the Greens/EFA presented the TORCH (The Other Report on Chernobyl) report in Brussels on Wednesday. This is an independent study attempting to put forward the "other version of Chernobyl", by putting together the results of the critical scientific analysis of the permanent and future consequences of this large-scale nuclear disaster, results which will be seen in the whole world, and more particularly in Western Europe, on the basis of all available official data. This study, which was carried out by independent scientists, was commissioned by Rebecca Harms, a German Green who is a member of the EU-Ukraine delegation, to refute the most recent public affirmations of the IAEA, which play down the consequences of Chernobyl, by putting the number of potential deaths as a result of the disaster in the region of 4000. This figure was arrived at on the basis of scaled-down risk factors and by limiting the study- erroneously, the Greens explain- to the three worst-hit countries- Belarus, Ukraine and Russia. What was behind the Greens' initiative was the indignation caused by a press release published by the IAEA dated 5 September 2005 entitled "Chernobyl: The True Scale of the Accident", and which reads: "radiation could cause up to about 4000 eventual deaths". The joint report by the IAEA and the WHO, to which this press release was supposed to refer, spoke instead of 9000 deaths.
The objective of the TORCH report is to put together, in 90 pages, 280 scientific references and 30 tables, an impartial scientific examination of the main effect of Chernobyl on health and to examine recent official reports, from a European point of view. One of its main conclusions is that one can expect an additional 30,000 to 60,000 deaths due to cancer as a result of Chernobyl between now and the end of the century, a level between seven and 15 times higher than the IAEA's estimations in its press release. The report also concludes that: - predictions concerning the number of additional deaths by cancer depend largely on the risk factor used; - the estimated future cases of thyroid cancer can be measured on a scale between 18,000 and 66,000 and Belarus alone, depending on the risk factor used; - other cases of cancer with long periods of dormancy are starting to appear, 20 years after the accident; - if Belarus, Ukraine and Russia were hard hit, more than half of the Chernobyl fallout hit countries outside this zone; - fallout from Chernobyl has contaminated over 40% of the surface area of Europe; - it is estimated that the most realistic collective dose, from all the data published, is 600,000 sievert (unit of radiation) per head, a level 10 times higher than the 55,000 estimated by the IAEA and the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2005; - over two thirds of the collective dose of Chernobyl radiation hit populations outside Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, mostly in Western Europe.
"Although Ukraine, Belarus and Russia were very hard hit, other countries will more so, such as Germany (44% of the territory affected by the fallout), Austria and Switzerland, and regions in France and the United Kingdom. In the months following the disaster, the whole of the northern hemisphere was affected. Sweden, southern Germany and the United Kingdom still have certain food restrictions in place", said Professor Ian Fairlie, an independent British scientist and co-author of the study.
Stressing the fact that radiation is not respectful of national borders, the professor pointed out that vast areas are no longer habitable and will be "wasteland" for dozens of generations to come. "The IAEA, however, is trying to skirt around the subject and proposes to create more nuclear reactors. We need to treat these contaminated areas and take care of the populations", he added. Ian Fairlie went on to explain that the "collective doses" are the most important indicator to illustrate the enormity of the situation, because they are deadly.
In the opinion of Rebecca Harms, it would be wrong to discuss only possible victims who may die as a result of the disaster. "The TORCH report puts them between 30,000 and 60, 000, Greenpeace at 90,000, but this is not the only problem we need to deal with 20 years on. The most important issue is that we know the full scale of this disaster, try to find out how many people have fallen sick, how many people can no longer live in their own homes, and how many live in affected regions".
”We should make it understood that the IAEA's strategy of wanting to close the Chernobyl chapter and turn to the future without taking into account the past, is mistaken. Many cancers, such as cancer of the thyroid, leukaemia and others are beginning to strike”, underlined Ms Harms, who called on the European Commission to distance itself from the manipulation of the IAEA. She added that, “twenty years after the terrible Chernobyl disaster, we have to draw up a balance sheet. We have to be fully aware of the radio-ecological and radiation consequences from the nuclear fusion reactor in Block 4 at the plant, which is continuing to be felt and where the location of the accident still presents serious dangers”. This is not a matter of putting a final stop to the last twenty years but rather of listing and evaluating the health consequences of the accident on humans and the environment”. Ms Harms said that the Green/EFA group would be asking questions about this subject at the Parliamentary plenary session next week. Pierre Jonckheer, Belgian Green, said that the publication of the TORCH report was particularly timely, the 20th anniversary of Chernobyl and the debate in Europe on relaunching civilian nuclear power.
The Greens believe that in a situation where the IAEA and nuclear industry do not cease to systematically minimise the repercussions of Chernobyl, it is important that the European Commission presented an exhaustive balance sheet of the consequences of the disaster. This is why they have sent the European Commission thirteen written questions: how many deaths were provoked by the accident, directly or indirectly in the three countries most affected, namely, Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, as well as within the European Union? What support is the EU giving to survivors and continuing to give to the latter? What calculation has the Commission made of the level of global collective radiation affecting the whole of Europe's population? What is the Commission's opinion of the degree of maximum radioactive contamination affecting European citizens through consumption of contaminated game, berries and mushrooms? What restrictions have been applied in EU farming up till now? What were the financial consequences for the Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and the EU? What quantity of liquid radioactive discharge is trapped under the head of the reactor? What is the percentage of waste containing plutonium and what are the precautions taken up till present for protecting the environment against highly toxic plutonium? What was and what is the level of radioactive contamination in phreatic water and water tables around Chernobyl? The Greens/EFA want to have answers by the end of April. They stated that, “it will not be possible to learn the real lesions until the whole truth about the real consequences of Chernobyl is obtained”. They also affirmed that they were, nevertheless, convinced that relaunching nuclear energy in Europe was a “trick”.