Word: chernobyl
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Four years have passed since the meltdown at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, but the grim legacy of the Soviet catastrophe is still unfolding. Large populated areas surrounding the reactor site in the Ukraine and in nearby Belorussia remain contaminated with high levels of radioactivity. The poisoning of the land has created dire health problems and economic devastation. A new study by the chief economist of a Soviet government institute calculates that the cost of Chernobyl, including the price of the cleanup and the value of lost farmland and production, could run as high as $358 billion -- 20 times as much...
Much of the disturbing news about Chernobyl comes from journalists who have toured the area. Among the most prominent is Igor Kostin, a photographer who % has covered the tragedy from the early days after the accident. His latest set of photographs, taken within the past four months, present haunting images, including scenes of children still living in contaminated towns and shots of animals born horribly deformed, possibly because of radiation. The pictures, which are being published for the first time in the West in these pages, are part of an exhibition organized by the Italian firm Imago that will...
Soon after the Chernobyl meltdown, Soviet officials ordered the permanent evacuation of villages within 30 km (19 miles) of the power plant, but heavy nuclear fallout covered a much broader area. In some parts of Narodichi, a Ukrainian agricultural district whose boundaries lie some 60 km (37 miles) from the reactor, levels of radioactivity are still nine times as high as the acceptable limits, according to the local Communist Party chief. Vladimir Lysovsky, a doctor at Narodichi District Central Hospital, contends that in the past 18 months, there has been a dramatic rise in cases of thyroid disease, anemia...
Just hours after the Chernobyl accident, a pilot friend asked Igor Kostin if he wanted to fly over the nuclear plant. "I agreed, of course," recalls Kostin, 53. "I wanted to prove that I was a man." He also proved he was a good journalist by becoming the first photographer on the scene. "There was still smoke coming out of the reactor," he says, "but I managed to get a few shots off. You could actually feel the silence. It was like a cemetery...
Since then, Kostin has returned to the reactor site six times and has traveled extensively through the contaminated regions. His mission: to document the world's worst nuclear-plant catastrophe. "People have the right to know," says Kostin, who devotes a third of his time to covering Chernobyl's aftermath. "The technology of atomic energy is not perfect. This could happen anywhere." Kostin lives in Kiev, 100 km (62 miles) from Chernobyl, and was a successful construction engineer before turning photographer at age 36. His trips to Chernobyl and its environs have deeply disturbed him. The children he saw haunt...