Chernobyl: the bitter taste of wormwood

The recent accident at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station in the Soviet Union could have caused a major disaster in the 20th century, perhaps second only to those of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in terms of radioactive pollution . Measueres taken after the accident and its adverse effects on the human body will remain a serious subject of controversy even in the next century, and the name – Chernobyl – will be recorded in the history of man as a name synonymous with disaster.Home experts have estimated that the number of people exposed to radiation as a result of this accident will amount to something like 2.000 million in the whole of Europe.The area that suffered a fallout of Caesium 137, to give only one example, extends for 2.000 kilometres from north to south and 2.500 kilometres from east to west. This covers a large portion of the European continent. Caesium 137 has a half- life of 30 years, and in this area it will therefore, be necessary to subject water and essential foodstuffs to careful inspection until well into the 21th century.This programme is the result of two months of careful coverage work by an NHK staff team who traveled through various countries in Europe from July to September 1986, gathering valuable data. ON the basis of their direct observations and interviews, and reports issued in a number of countries throughout the world, the coverage team constructed a map which shows clearly the extent of the radio-active contamination of Europe caused by the accident at Chernobyl.