French network to air special on Chornobyl

MONTREAL - On April 26, 1986, the lid of reactor No. 4 of the Chornobyl station in Ukraine blew up, releasing tons of radioactive particles. This single event would be the starting point of the largest civil nuclear disaster of all time.

Ten years later, what is the state of health of the victims of this catastrophe? What is the level of danger for those living in still contaminated zones? Last autumn, a team from the television science magazine "Découverte," producer Pascal Gélinas and journalist Jean-Pierre Rogel, visited Ukraine in the hopes of answering these and other urgent questions.

Working with a Kyiv-based Ukrainian crew, they filmed inside the Chornobyl nuclear station. They also successfully filmed in the forbidden zone, the villages around this zone as well as Kyiv. They returned with troubling answers to their questions. The medical situation of the evacuees and of those responsible for the clean-up will get even worse. The psychological scars of the victims are real and they are profound.

Ukrainians are facing the situation with pride and courage, but international help is desperately needed.

Several Ukrainian scientists, including Dr. Ilia Likhtarev, Dr. Anatoliy Matiyko and Yuri Sayenko are interviewed for this documentary. This special edition of "Découverte" will air coast to coast Sunday, March 24, at 6:15 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time) on Societé Radio-Canada, the French network of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, March 10, 1996, No. 10, Vol. LXIV

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