Ecology - Nuclear energy
Tchernobyl
The truth on the wind mills
Nuclear waste
The protocol of Kyoto
The bomb H and the Nobel
Dongtan
After oil

Location of TchernobylIn the north of the Ukraine, to approximately 130 km (81 miles) of Kiev, all seemed calm in the power station of Tchernobyl. It had 4 engines of 1000 megawatts brought into service into 77, 78, 81 and 83 and belonged to RBMK, a Russian die criticized for its poor protection. But saturdays April 26, 1986, one of the engines explodes. The deflagration, which took place whereas the primary education system of cooling was extinguished, destroyed the shell of the engine, irradiating the power station and its surroundings. The heart of the engine burned with 1500°C (2732 °F). The explosion makes 2 dead and several casualties. The 29, one counts 25 dead and 1000 men exposed to atomic radiation. The majority of the people having intervened died, they received a radioactive amount higher than 800 rems, the mortal stage. The 28, the safety of the power station of Frosmark (Sweden) raises a rate of radioactivity in the air 5 times higher than the normal. At 7 p.m. 17, Tass (arranges of Russian press) diffuses this message in the world : « an engine of the power station of Tchernobyl was damaged. Measures are taken to eliminate the consequences from the accident. Our care is lavished on the victims » the site was covered with concrete and the surroundings were frozen with liquid nitrogen. Little after the accident, the authorities issued the evacuation of all the population in a radius of 40 km (25 miles). 130 000 people were moved and a hundred villages (for example Pripyat) were abandoned. Today still, the area is prohibited.

The cloudThe radioactive cloud touched above all (3/4 of the repercussions) the Ukraine and Bielorussia but also Finland, Scandinavia, Poland, Germany, France and Italy. The Soviet official reports made state of 32 deaths including 29 by irradiation, but one estimated in 1995 the number of men exposed to atomic radiation at 1,5 million people.
However, the three other engines were given on the way in 1987. In 1991, the Ukrainian authorities promised the permanent closure of the site but required of the Westerners a financial assistance for work, very rare thing during the Cold war and today still (one could note it with Koursk). They rose to 3 billion dollars. The Ukrainian deputies voted the maintenance in activity of two of the remaining engines, then the government announced in 1995 their closing before the year 2000. It took place on December 15, 2000.

How many victims ?
According to a report of the United Nations published in September, 2005, 50 deaths were directly caused by the explosion and the immediate radiations : firemen and rescuers are dead from a few months to 20 years later. One must add 4,000 cancers of the thyroid (among them a dozen of deaths) which mainly touch children and teenagers.
Some people also think, that among the 200,000 persons who have worked on the site during the year following the tragedy, 2,200 should die. 5 billions of humans live in radiates areas (In Ukraine, Russia and White Russia). 100,000 of them are in very risked regions.
In conclusion, the estimations expect to 4,000 deaths because of Tchernobyl.

Causes of the accident: the most probable assumption.
On 25, the primary coolant circuit is broken. The turbine stops, followed pumps making circulate water. The 200 tons of uranium heat and water vaporizes. It reacts with zirconium, a metal contained in the pipes. It is released from the hydrogen which breaks the sealing of the engine.

Human errors
- Before the explosion, scientists were devoted to experiments in the engine.
- the evacuation was too slow.
- the authorities choked the business too a long time (let us recall for example that the movements of evacuation would have remained to us unknown without the American spy satellites).

An article of newspaper (La tribune Le progrès, Saint-Etienne edition, December 9, 2000)
New episode in the history of the repercussions of the cloud of Tchernobyl.
After a person of Reims which seizes justice, a new complaint is deposited by Mrs. Z, this time in the name of X reached of a cancer of thyroid, convinced, it also, which it is the victim of the greatest civil nuclear catastrophe.
In October [1999], this quadragenarian woman which lives today in the area of Narbonne, must undergo a surgical operation for a slipped disc in a Toulouse private clinic. In the tread of the operation, and to fight against an excess weight, it passes from the examinations on the spot which reveal a nodule with the thyroid one. A new intervention thus is essential. And the report falls, without call : cancer of the thyroid one.
Since, X is questioned at the same time because the surgeon who operated it said to him « I did never see thyroid also damaged » recommending to him to advise with her family, her large children and her ex husband, « to pass from the examinations ». A precaution which did not appear useless since one of her two daughters, who is pregnant of its first baby, discovered in its turn a nodule with the thyroid one. Before even the childbirth, the doctors recommended to him not to nurse its baby. Then, X of them decided to carry felt sorry for in its turn while addressing itself to the lawyer rémois who starts to be specialized in the question.
In Dardilly (Rhône) in 1986
This stage of the business one could think that it is acted of a patient who seeks a reason with her evil and her suffering, but as May 1986, at the time of the passage of the cloud of Tchernobyl, X, which was called then Mrs. Z, lived with her first husband and their three children in the Lyon's west with Dardilly in the « résidence Rabelais ».
It tells : « After the accident of Tchernobyl, two official cars stopped, one afternoon, in front of our house in the allotment. In each car there were several people who presented themselves as being prefecture and specified : « civil protection ». They asked for the permission to me of enter the garden to make taking away of ground. When I gave my agreement, they called with the telephone of car a third vehicle, which was not to be far, arrived at once with instruments and a large case out of wooden. Then, a man threaded a combination, took with a drilling machine, a good quantity of ground which it put in the case. Then while leaving they said to me that they would hold me with the current of the continuation, also asking me to remain discrete and not to speak about their visit ».
She never again had news and almost had forgotten the episode, which abruptly returned to him in memory. She have invite, it there have a few day ago, the protection civil of Rhône where one him have answer that it there be « no trace of a unspecified intervention at it ». Matter that Mrs. W, of the service concerned with the prefecture of the Rhône, confirmed to us. However, X did not dream, not more than it is not a liar. Her children remember the episode and, as a good Southerner, she had, as of the following day, told with her friends this strange visit. They also remember it.
By discovering its disease, even if the forecast is excellent (the near total of cancers of thyroid lead to a cure), X wants to know: « they are the doctors who look after me and particularly the doctor who operated me which encouraged me to seek the causes. They see multiplying the thyroid problems in particular in the young people ». Remarks supported by a doctor endocrinologist : « We do not have concrete medical elements for saying that it is Tchernobyl more not than do not have we to say the opposite, but one is increasingly founded to put questions ».
X who is on the point of entering again in private clinic to follow a treatment « in armoured room » is much more categorical : « One failed to kill me, one surely also failed to kill some out of others... I want to know »