Social Effects
• About 500.000 people were evacuated after the accident. 140.000 of them are not allowed to return.
• People from all Soviet Republics were sent to the disaster area between 1986 and 1990 to assist with the clean up efforts. Their tasks included evacuating contaminated villages, bulldozing contaminated houses, and fighting the fires at the Chernobyl plant itself. These men unknowingly exposed themselves to horrific amounts of radiation and are now paying a terrible price. It is still unclear exactly how many people took part. Figures vary between 300.000 and 900,000 depending on the source.
• During the past decade, approximately 40,000 clean up workers have died, mostly men in their 30s and 40s.
• 1.2 million people continue to live on lands outside the exclusion zone, contaminated by ‘low-level’ radiation, approximately 1,800 villages affected.
• After the Chernobyl accident, almost 400,000 were forced to leave their homes as ‘environmental refugees’. Over 2,000 towns and villages were bulldozed to the ground, and hundreds more stand abandoned.
• Some deserted villages have been reoccupied by refugees from places as far away as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan. These refugees would rather live in a contaminated area than risk being shot in the wars and conflicts in their own homelands. For the original inhabitants of these villages, seeing strangers move into their ancestral homes and lands only adds to their heartache.
• Many Belarusians live in fear, uncertain about the extent to which their health and that of their children is at risk, and not knowing where to turn for information. This fear is exacerbated by the fact that the extent of the accident was not openly disclosed for many years. ‘Radiophobia’ makes it hard for many in the community to move on with their lives and help themselves.
