European Greens launch study on malignant legacy of Chornobyl (04/23/06)

THE 20th ANNIVERSARY OF THE CHORNOBYL NUCLEAR DISASTER

European Greens launch study on malignant legacy of Chornobyl

BERLIN - The European Greens on April 6 launched a new report on the devastating and ongoing legacy of the disaster in Chornobyl. With the 20th anniversary of Chornobyl falling on April 26, the report by two leading scientists from the United Kingdom, which was commissioned by Member of the European Parliament Rebecca Harms of the German Party of Greens, clearly sets out the continuing and predicted future noxious effects of Chornobyl - not just on the immediate area, but worldwide, particularly Western Europe.

Some key findings of The Other Report on Chernobyl (TORCH) include:

Belarus, Ukraine and Russia were heavily contaminated, however, more than half of Chornobyl's fallout was deposited outside these countries.
Fallout from Chornobyl contaminated about 40 percent of Europe's surface area, and about two-thirds of Chornobyl's collective dose was distributed to populations outside Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, especially to Western Europe.
About 30,000 to 60,000 excess cancer deaths are predicted - seven to 15 times greater than the International Atomic Energy Agency/World Health Organization published estimate of 4,000.

Speaking at the launch of the report in Berlin, Ms. Harms said: "We commissioned TORCH to counterbalance claims made by the IAEA in the media last year, which both played down the lethal consequences of the nuclear accident at Chornobyl and failed to make a meaningful analysis of its wider effects on Europe and the world."

She added: "The much-publicized IAEA estimate of a mere 4,000 excess cancer deaths provoked an outcry among the scientific community and environmental NGOs, and was a dishonor to those who have and will suffer as a result of Chornobyl. This is one of a number of underestimates, which TORCH set out to rebut. There must be no mistaking the catastrophic dangers that are still very much associated with nuclear power."

TORCH was prepared by two UK scientists, Ian Fairlie, Ph.D., and David Sumner, D.Phil. Dr. Fairlie was to take part in a wider Greens press conference on nuclear energy on April 19 in the European Parliament in Brussels in advance of Chornobyl's 20th anniversary.

The Greens are also organizing a conference in Kyiv on April 23-25 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Chornobyl disaster and present arguments as to why the deadly nuclear option must not be considered as an answer to Europe's current energy supply problems.

The story above was transmitted by the Ukrainian-American Environmental Association, a private, non-governmental organization founded in 2004 and chartered in both the United States and Ukraine. It is a network of more than 500 Ukrainian and American NGOs, academic researchers, businesses and government officials to facilitate the exchange of information on a broad array of environmental issues including, but not limited to, energy policy, climate change, air and water pollution, toxic wastes, soil conservation, sustainable agriculture, and wildlife and wilderness protection.

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