back to article 30 years on, Chernobyl wildlife still feeling effects of nuke plant catastrophe

Tuesday is the 30th anniversary of the disastrous failure of reactor number four in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant – located in what is now the state of Ukraine – but the effects of the accident still linger. Chernobyl remains the biggest nuclear power failure in history, with radioactive material spread by winds over large …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    I'm surprised that the wolves are doing well

    You'd think that an apex predator like that would tend to concentrate radioactive elements, and suffer high levels of abnormalities.

    In all, a cautionary tale. Usually when you see stories about wildlife in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, they come across as positive look-how-the-zone-is-recovering stories.

    1. Old Handle
      Trollface

      Re: I'm surprised that the wolves are doing well

      Both can be true, though. It may simply mean that humans are worse than cancer.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I'm surprised that the wolves are doing well

        Sometimes there is a chance that both options are true, but that isn't the case here. All actual evidence shows that wildlife in the area around Chernobyl is thriving rather than suffering from negative effects, and the only people saying otherwise are fringe scientists with a clear agenda. When you look at the two people quoted in the article, Tim Mousseau is an anti-nuclear activist, his work contradicts virtually all other research and lacks basic rigor. Anders Møller has been found guilty of falsifying data and has minimal credibility as a scientist.

        Rather than go into specific details of the failings of their work (and they are plentiful) I'll leave a link to Patrick Walden going into far more depth that I can fit in a comment: https://www.triumf.info/wiki/pwalden/index.php/Mousseau_at_the_Helen_Caldicott_Symposium,_March_11,_2013

        1. Alan Brown Silver badge

          Re: I'm surprised that the wolves are doing well

          "the only people saying otherwise are fringe scientists with a clear agenda. "

          It's worth bearing in mind that the hot radioactives are almost completely gone (the hotter they are, the shorter they last). It's entirely possible that a lot of the effects are chemical, not nuclear (uranium and plutonium aren't particularly radioactive but they're worse than lead, if ingested.)

          The thing which should really stick out is the claim that Chernobyl "killed thousands". The death toll is less than 200 and most of those were high doses from fighting the fire. The really interesting part is that a few extra cancers have been found in kids and the general population but researchers have pointed out they're being screened so much more than the general population that mostly they're picking up stuff which would normally be missed until much much later.

          Radioactives which are hot enough to be dangerous are also hot enough to be detected at a distance and cleaned up - and in any case they'll decay after a while. Arsenic and mercury are forever.

    2. Bill Gray

      Re: I'm surprised that the wolves are doing well

      I could see several factors that might help the wolves. They probably move around a good bit; their exposure to radiation would be less than that of more "stationary" species (though wolves might be affected over a larger area). They probably have fewer issues with humans killing them. Humans may have done damage to the population of their prey; fewer humans = more food. I am, as you can probably tell, making this up as I go along, but you get the idea: there may be subtleties.

      On the flip side, I'd expect anything higher on the food chain to see more troubles, too. I read today about issues with strontium-rich dairy products being made in neighbo(u)ring Belarus. It caused me to think that were I a farmer in that area, I might want to stick to growing plants.

    3. Jemma

      Re: I'm surprised that the wolves are doing well

      Why?

      They're a 50kg animal which can absorb a surprising amount of roentgens, they're feeding, mainly on two animals that secrete most of their own radiation doses in their milk or are babies (hogs & bison respectively), and compared to a 15 gram bird with a metabolism that runs around at 600 heartbeats per minute they're in a perfect position, in fact they're doing, according to the scientists studying them better in most respects, than normal Ukrainian populations..

      A better predator to tell whether predators are being affected would probably be a fox, which would find a radiation riddled bird a nice, if potentially lethal, snack. Since they're likely to eat eggs, small mammals, birds and the like, they are much more likely to be affected - not to mention they are a tenth the weight of a wolf, smaller body means higher surface area to mass ratio which is bad when you're licking your balls perched comfortably on a nice warm piece of graphite...

      1. Unicornpiss
        Joke

        Re: I'm surprised that the wolves are doing well

        "smaller body means higher surface area to mass ratio which is bad when you're licking your balls perched comfortably on a nice warm piece of graphite"

        I'd think flexibility and stretching first would be more important in that scenario..

  2. Mephistro
    Devil

    I read the subheading before reading the article's title...

    "Shrinking brains, faltering fertility and cloudy sight"

    ... and I thought the article was discussing the effects of moonshine vodka.

    1. Fatman
      Joke

      Re: "Shrinking brains, faltering fertility and cloudy sight"

      Is a perfect description of many of the world's politicians.

  3. x 7

    "Shrinking brains, faltering fertility and cloudy sight"

    = Trump voters

  4. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

    So...

    Any info on how it looks in Belarus?

    There is more contamination and a contaminated area twice the one in Ukraine but the local government likes to look crossly at any data collection efforts.

  5. wolfetone Silver badge

    Liquidators

    Another year rolls by, another article regarding Chernobyl, another year missed in regards to talking bout the liquidators. For the uninformed, these were the men who would run in to/on to the power plant to throw large blocks of carbon that the reactor threw out when it blew up when the robots that they wanted to use died within minutes because of the radiation. Some of these guys are still alive, but the medical issues they have are awful. Cancer, cataracts, brittle bones, all caused by the radiation they were exposed to when they cleaned the power plant up.

    The amazing thing about these men is that they weren't prisoners and forced to do the job. They volunteered. They put themselves in harms way to do a job. This was many months after the blast and they knew what happened to the plant workers and firemen. But they still did the job. And what did the USSR, and subsequently Europe/The World do for them?

    Absolutely f**k all.

    I wouldn't say they're in poverty as such, they get some medical treatment just like any person would do in the area. But what they did saved much of Europe, and we have done nothing to help them, or to show our appreciation. No, we just carry on screwing each other over. Perversely, if these guys didn't do what they did, most of the idiots who are causing so much trouble recently wouldn't be alive to do what they're doing.

    The one thing I have always said, much to the strange looks of my fiancée and friends, is that if I had a big win on the lottery the first thing I would do is donate money to these men. I was born after Chernobyl and I may very well not have been if it weren't for them.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Liquidators

      That would truly make for an interesting albeit harrowing article. It never occurred to me how little we in Europe did for them.

      1. wolfetone Silver badge

        Re: Liquidators

        It didn't to me either until I watched one of the (many) documentaries on YouTube. I can't remember the exact one, but they had I think about 20 of the original liquidators in a room and they all looked rough, ill, etc. And it wasn't until these men were speaking did it bring the whole sorry situation home. It's easy to watch people dressed up in goggles and gloves etc running towards some rubble, then running back after 60 seconds to avoid dying from the radiation. But to see those people 25+ years later, either not being able to walk, riddled with cancer, talking about how they chose to do what they did. It's powerful stuff.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Liquidators

          The fact they are still alive 30 years later despite being exposed to that much radiation is probably the most amazing part. Yes, they are suffering and they should have received much better care, but there are others who worked in the immediate vicinity (but didn't do what they did) who show no ill effects at all.

    2. Jay 2
      Unhappy

      Re: Liquidators

      Yes, I've seen some of the documentaries and there were a lot of sacrifices made by people who ended up getting riddled with radiation. As well as the guys on the roof, there were also the (local) firefighters, the helicopter crews who had to repeatedly fly over and dump some sort of material to stop the fire (I forget what) and worst of all the divers who died whilst undertaking repairs in flooded parts of the building.

      1. wolfetone Silver badge

        Re: Liquidators

        ", the helicopter crews who had to repeatedly fly over and dump some sort of material to stop the fire (I forget what)"

        They were chucking sand, lead, clay and boron from the helicopters.

        All of this melted, and created the "elephants foot" which is radio active glass essentially.

        This site has a lot of photos of the place, before and after.

        1. Alan Brown Silver badge

          Re: Liquidators

          "All of this melted, and created the "elephants foot" which is radio active glass essentially."

          The elephant's foot was so hot that it would be deadly to be in the room with it. 30 years later you can spend some time in there.

          Radiation tends to kill cells or damage them to the point where they get killed by their neighbours (which is why radiation therapy is a big part of cancer treatment). What that means is that if you get a large dose you'll either live or not live (depending how bad the damage is) and if you get long term exposure it depends if the body's repair rate is exceeded.

          The liquidators have been treated appallingly and a lot of what you see is more a result of harsh living than long-term effects of the exposure. They were treated as pariahs for a long time - people thought they might "catch radiation" from them, etc.

          Bear in mind that the world's coal burning plants emit more nasty radioactive shit into the atmosphere than 3-5 chernobyls _per year_. That's something the anti-nuke activists don't like being reminded about, along with the pointer that coal burning is almost entirely responsible for the doubling of oceanic mercury levels since the start of the industrial revolution.

          Yes it was a stupid event, yes nukes could be safer but they're still tens of thousands of times safer than burning coal when you look at deaths and injuries per TWh from the various energy sources. The fact is, "we" need to get more nuke plants online to replace coal/gas ones, or the environment is fucked (Wind and solar could just about replace current electricity demands if fully deployed, but that's only 1/3 of current carbon generation. Getting rid of gas/oil heating systems, moving to more-electric vehicles and supplying enough energy to poorer countries to lift people out of poverty (cheap energy really is the key to that) means we need to increase supply abilities by a factor of at least 8 if not 16

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Liquidators

      Here is some footage of the "bio-robots" working.

      Scientists went into the core wearing improvised radiation protection. Not much more than a boiler-suit duct taped to rubber boots.

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p028d139

    4. Jemma

      Re: Liquidators

      I wouldn't disagree they deserve more recognition, although as to the "volunteering" many of them didn't know what radiation levels were because the detectors had literally been cooked, they apparently assumed, for unknown reasons, that when a detector runs to its end stop, it means it is still measuring.

      No one ever seems to mention the divers either that drained out the water pools, dead men walking before they got out of the water (think K19 with attitude).

      It's also not often mentioned that the Chernobyl style reactors are still being used with safety improvements (built from dead Lancias instead of Wartburgs).

      As to not being born, you might be alot closer to the mark than is comfortable - many women terminated perfectly healthy pregnancies because of radiation panics. Abortions immediately after Chernobyl were much higher as a population percentage in several countries.

      All in all it reflected badly on all of humanity then, and it still does.. with bits of the sarcophagus rusting away and the rest welded together by YTS trainees it still isn't safe and never will be.

      I'm not entirely sure that they "saved Europe", dumping bits of reactor back inside was truly a brave and/or borderline suicidal thing to do, but this would have had a more local effect - the European saviours were the poor sods in the helicopters dropping sand and Boron to dampen the core, a further runaway reaction would have produced another more dangerous plume, probably nastier and highly likely to be in a different direction and possibly a higher plume height - imagine if the fallout cloud climbed into the jet stream or high level high speed winds, as it was, it got to the UK.

    5. Wade Burchette

      Re: Liquidators

      I have been to the Ukraine, 14 years ago. I actually met a man who helped clean up Chernobyl. He name is Zenia (although I do not know how to spell his name in English). He spoke English well enough that I could have a conversation with him. He told me the Russian government paid him about $100/month for his service. 14 years ago in Ukraine you could live quite well on $1500/month. My brother's wife is Ukrainian, so I know he is still alive.

    6. Rainer

      Re: Liquidators

      Europe paid a lot of money to the USSR (and Ukraine). And still does. It's just that the money does not always end up with those who need it most (news at 11 - it's the Ukraine, No 130 on the World Transparency Index for perceived corruption).

      Your lottery-win donation would most like disappear beneath the corruption, too (or even fuel it, as those receiving the money would get more influential that way).

      A lot of the men where more or less summoned there - it was the "last phase" of the USSR and I saw an interview with Gorbachev about it. He said it would have been impossible to handle a few years later.

      There are also (not totally unreasonable) claims that the reactor-building itself is pretty harmless these days: most of the radioactive material has apparently been thrown out of it by the explosion and all the panic around the sarcophagus is just a bit of a scam to extract a few billions then and now from the West.

      AFAIK, Ukraine keeps most of the medical data of all of its citizens (and esp. the victims) a state-secret.

      The radiation-levels in the beginning were totally off-the-charts, though.

      I think I read that most (almost all) of the plant's own firemen who were there as first-responders died within 24 hours from the extreme exposure.

      There's a video on youtube from somebody visiting the most radioactive places on the earth. One of the places is the hospital in Chernobyl. They walk around a bit and finally go to a room in the basement where all the clothes from the firemen ended up being thrown into - there, the dosimeter goes off the scale and there's just a continuous "beeeeeep". Creepy.

      1. Alan Brown Silver badge

        Re: Liquidators

        "There's a video on youtube from somebody visiting the most radioactive places on the earth."

        That video ends by pointing out that the insides of a smoker's lungs are pretty "hot" too, thanks to naturally occuring polonium being concentrated in the bronchia. It's #1 on the list for levels of exposure.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRL7o2kPqw0 - who on earth is exposed to the most ionising radiation.

        1. Rainer

          Re: Liquidators

          That video ends by pointing out that the insides of a smoker's lungs are pretty "hot" too, thanks to naturally occuring polonium being concentrated in the bronchia. It's #1 on the list for levels of exposure.

          I known. But that radiation accumulates over an entire smoker-life.

          The worker and first-responders were basically dead in a couple of minutes - they were just alive long enough to see their own bodies break down and fall apart, literally.

    7. FuzzyTheBear
      Thumb Up

      Re: Liquidators

      These men are heroes. Period.

  6. Chozo
    Flame

    Save the cuddly animals

    So when will all the cute woodland creatures be protected from the evil wizards radiation? The arched confinement shield been has been under construction for many years now and long overdue.

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      The confinement shield won't do anything for the cuddly ones. The issue is with all the radiation that is around the nuclear plant, not the radiation in it.

      Of course, not having the confinement shield would definitely make things worse.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Shrinking brains, faltering fertility and cloudy sight

    Long term programming does that to you as well, so a friend tells me.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      Re: Shrinking brains, faltering fertility and cloudy sight

      It's PHB radiation.

  8. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
  9. Gordon 10

    Show me some stats

    Some more stats would have been nice. How much more frequent are small brains and cataracts? How much above background are the levels now? Is this a point in time study based around now or a long term multi-year study.

    If multi-year are the trends rising or falling?

    Otherwise this is just coming across as "Radiation is bad mkay?"

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Show me some stats

      I couldn't agree more. What were they using for the control group? If they have been so long on this study what is the trend over that time? What is the stance of the researchers regarding any radiation from nuclear plants?

      This is much more hype than actual facts and therefore can largely be discarded.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. h4rm0ny

        Re: Show me some stats

        I'm also pretty certain that the article is wrong. Or at least highly misleading. It refers to more than 50% of animals having reduced brain size. That should be more than 50% of the types of animals suffer from it. I.e. they found incidences of this in X number of species, not of all individual animals total, more than 50% were afflicted.

        Definitely some numbers required. I'm going to make an educated guess and say they would lead to a very different impression than this article.

  10. Jo_seph_B

    All this Radiation

    Still no super heros......

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: All this Radiation

      Or giant ants or spiders :-(

  11. Simon Harris

    "if it were not for constant immigration"

    "Damn immigrants, coming over here and keeping our population from going extinct!"

  12. Pat Att

    If Lewis Page had written this article...

    ... He'd have said how wonderful everything was, and how much of a success Chernobyl had been, despite the nasty and biased media coverage.

    I do miss laughing at his articles.

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      I think you're confused with Fukushima.

      Nobody has ever said that Chernobyl was wonderful or a success. Well, nobody apart from the Soviet government of the time.

      1. Pat Att

        As Triggerfish has shown, it seems Lewis Page has done just that.

    2. h4rm0ny

      Re: If Lewis Page had written this article...

      Might be better if he had. See my correction above about the "50% of animals" statement. This article is very lacking in actual numbers which is one of the first signs you should look deeper. Are you really of the belief that media coverage of nuclear incidents isn't generally biased? I can provide you plenty of examples of bias and misrepresentation from mainstream sources if you ask.

    3. Triggerfish

      Re: If Lewis Page had written this article... --- He did!

      http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/06/chernobyl_wildlife_ting/

      Massive amount of cherry picking and bollocks in the piece.

  13. HmmmYes

    Have they though about twinning with Norfolk?

    1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

      "Have they though about twinning with Norfolk?"

      Which one?

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Unconvincing advocacy research

    There may or may not be radiation related effects on the wild life but following the link back to the original article and to the Chernobyl and Fukishima Research Initiative gives no indication of controls or how the massive changes in the human use and environmental impact in the area were compensated for. The fact that they claim to have found significant impacts at Fukishima strains credulity with attribution to radiation rather than massive changes in human activities. Contrary to what this team claims to have found I have read several reports which comment on the massively enhanced biodiversity and extent of wildlife around Chernobyl although the cause of that is obvious and only related to radiation through the effect on human behaviour.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Is Chernobyl paradise for nature?

    Is the article biased - and tries to describe Chernobyl as a disaster, not a paradise for nature?

    In Chernobyl, "A herd of Przewalski's horses, an endangered subspecies of wild horse once considered extinct in the wild, grew to around 200 members – until poachers reduced their number to about 60"

    http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/wildlife-chernobyl-exclusion-zone-bears-wolves-rare-horses-roam-forests-1477124

    i.e. some 100 wild horses were killed by poachers. Haven't seen a single article about horse killed by cancer.

    The article reads a bit like the "Fukushima cancer epidemic" articles,

    which say that thousands of thyroid cancer cases were found in Fukushima - but don't say that thousands have also been found also in Korea following increased testing.

    1. Chronos
      Thumb Up

      Re: Is Chernobyl paradise for nature?

      Which just goes to show you that removing humans from the equation, regardless of whatever else may be there. is always a net positive for nature. Now they want to use the 30km exclusion zone as a nuclear waste dump and buffer zone but, personally, I think it has far more value as a massive experiment in nature without human interference, if for no other reason than to teach the klaxon mob just how resilient life really is. Note the way they describe Pripyat as a "ghost town" with life all around them, even when they go out of their way to always film in Autumn so it looks as dreary as possible.

      Oh, and try telling people in areas with large concentrations of granite what the "normal" background radiation level is. I'm sure some of us could do with a good laugh.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Is Chernobyl paradise for nature?

        "Oh, and try telling people in areas with large concentrations of granite what the "normal" background radiation level is"

        I'm surprised Pravda hasn't done propaganda articles about how the British government locked up criminals in a radioactive wasteland (Dartmoor). Perhaps they have.

      2. Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese Silver badge

        Re: Is Chernobyl paradise for nature?

        "Which just goes to show you that removing humans from the equation, regardless of whatever else may be there. is always a net positive for nature"

        Indeed - have you read "The World Without Us" by Alan Weisman? Quite a sobering book

        1. Chronos

          Re: Is Chernobyl paradise for nature?

          Indeed - have you read "The World Without Us" by Alan Weisman? Quite a sobering book

          That's a very clever title to appeal to those of us who grew up with Mr Attenborough's BBC programme. I'll try to grab a copy. Thanks for the recommendation.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    (Related) ... Anyone have grounded theories about this...

    Is it directly or indirectly related to Fukushima...??? Its hard to find reports in the mainstream news, but the pacific fish die-offs are supposed to be affecting many ocean species all the way up to Alaska...

    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/03/starfish-sea-star-deaths-west-coast

    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/16/california-whale-deaths-human-role-ocean-changes

    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/crippled-fukushima-reactors-are-still-a-danger-5-years-after-the-accident1/

    1. h4rm0ny

      Re: (Related) ... Anyone have grounded theories about this...

      I find it hard to believe that any negative effects from Fukishima on fish populations would even be measureable against the effect of fishing and whaling by human beings.

      There's one reason for collapse in marine populations, and it's us.

    2. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: (Related) ... Anyone have grounded theories about this...

      "but the pacific fish die-offs are supposed to be affecting many ocean species all the way up to Alaska..."

      1: Overfishing

      2: Look up "anoxic events" - and what's preceeded them in geological record.

      possibly 3: Stuff like Minamata Bay.

      This was already happening before Fukushima.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    1. Swarthy
      Mushroom

      Re: CIH

      I remember that Bastard! It cooked a (vulnerable, but expensive) motherboard of mine back in the day. Crispy-fried the BIOS.

    2. harmjschoonhoven
      Facepalm

      Re: CIH

      And just in time several viruses ("W32.Ramnit" and "Conficker") were detected at the German Gundremmingen B nuclear power station. It only affected the handling of nuclear waste. The reactor is safe. Nothing to see here.

      http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nuclearpower-cyber-germany-idUSKCN0XN2OS

  18. Disk0
    Mushroom

    ...Now tell me again

    ...how nuclear is the safe option. Only one incident of this kind, but when we're stuck with the consequences basically forever, one is too many. But wait. There's more, like Fukushima...Yeah definitely safe.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: ...Now tell me again

      (yeah, I know, feeding the troll)

      40 years on, Three Mile Island's meltdown reactor is being cleaned up as radiation levels are safe enough to deal with. Leaving it to cool off really is the best option for such events.

      As at Fukushima: noone died. Noone was even seriously injured.

      Boiling water by putting it in direct contact with radioactive materials isn't necessarily the cleverest thing to do, nor is using sodium as coolant instead. There are better alternative reactor designs but nuclear energy is still the only practical way forward.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

        1. Alan Brown Silver badge

          Re: ...Now tell me again

          "So, Alan, I humbly disagree with your slur on sodium."

          Tell that to the nice folks at Monju, and whilst you're at it you might like to suggest ways of removing several tons of sodium from their basement. Perhaps your seawater method might work.

          In isolation, sodium seems an ideal coolant, however using something which burns furiously(*) when exposed to air has turned out to be "not a very good idea after all" - on multiple occasions at multiple sites.

          (*) Solid sodium is bad enough but at least it only reacts when exposed to water.

    3. dehildum

      Re: ...Now tell me again

      Note that in most areas around Chernobyl, the background radiation is less than the beaches at Rio. Basically, the entire area is safe for human habitation, aside from the the reactor building itself and some of the equipment used to clean up the accident. In fact, from an exposure standpoint it is considerably safer than many currently inhabited areas.

      Consider also that at both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the radiation caused by the nuclear attacks is no longer detectable by even the most sensitive instruments we have, and we are very, very, very good at detecting radiation and determining its source. Remember to that plume was completely unconfined, and ALL the radioactive material in the bombs and secondary irradiated material was spread over a wide area with no containment at all.

  19. TeeCee Gold badge
    Coat

    .......diminished brain size as a result of radioactive exposure......

    A few more decades of that and the local wildlife will be appointing Jeremy Corbyn as their leader.

  20. This post has been deleted by its author

  21. Stevie

    Bah!

    On the upside: no Daleks.

  22. The Vociferous Time Waster

    Visited last year

    It is a fascinating place to visit.

  23. Annihilator

    Exclusion zone

    "The reactor is now surrounded by a 30-kilometer (19-mile) exclusion zone and it has provided a unique experiment for scientists studying the effects of radioactivity."

    Weirdly it's not exactly a strict exclusion zone though. A community of people live there who refused to leave, and it's worth remembering that Chernobyl continued to operate the remaining reactors for 15-odd years after the disaster.

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