Capture of Chernobyl by Russian troops 'a nightmare come to pass' - Adi Roche
The New Safe Confinement - a structure built to confine the remains of the number 4 reactor unit at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. File Picture: Wikimedia Commons
The seizure of the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant by Russian forces has been described “as very, very dangerous” because of the presence of nuclear waste on the site.
The founder and CEO of Chernobyl Children International, Adi Roche, described the move by the Russians as “a scenario that is my worst nightmare which I would not want to imagine coming to pass”.
She said there is a huge potential “lethality” on the site of the 1986 nuclear disaster.
Ms Roche said that if the Russian and Ukrainian sides engage in exchanges, the level of potential danger increases, “if anything were to hit the waste storage tanks or if a weapon or a bomb was large enough to penetrate the new sarcophagus which was built over the nuclear reactor.”
She said there are approximately 219 tonnes of highly radioactive graphite and uranium in the exploded reactor, which is extremely dangerous.
She pointed out that there are burial sites of items including cars, trucks, household contents, school books, left behind by many families who had to leave the areas around Chernobyl following the 1986 disaster.
The sites are shallow and not lined with lead, increasing the risk of contamination if the topsoil on the sites are disturbed.
Many of the sites are unmarked, meaning that tanks or foot soldiers could go over them without realising how close to the contaminated items they could be.
Ms Roche also said that there are many cemeteries across more than 3,000 towns and villages which were left abandoned after the 1986 disaster.
She said nobody can predict the outcome now that the Chernobyl site has become a central location in the invasion by Russian troops.
She appealed to the warring bodies to make the area a “no-war” zone “for the sake of Europe”.
She said the exclusion zone between Ukraine and Belarus, near Chernobyl, is the most radioactive environment in the world.
She said there are hundreds of tonnes of nuclear waste accumulated there.
Ms Roche is hoping that political and church leaders will come together and be successful in bringing the situation back "from the precipice."
And she declared: "There are no winners in any war on any side other than those who sell the weaponry."
And she said: “I am in touch with the Department of Foreign Affairs myself and with our embassy in Lithuania, speaking about our concerns."
She stressed though that the CCI's operations there in hospitals and other institutions will keep going, regardless of war.
