While Europe impatiently waits for the danger in their back yard to be put down, and breathed a sigh of relief when President Clinton promised the world the plant would be history by the end of this century, funded by the industrial 7, Ukraine still thinks of Chernobyl as a necessary evil. They are still dependant for electricity from a power plant that poisoned their air, water, food and life. One of my new acquaintances, a Russian who immigrated to Ukraine as a child, and speaks 5 languages fluently told me in his village they have no hot water 6 months out of the year. Trying to care for an infant under these circumstances has been trying. He also had to quit his rockabilly band.
Electricity outages are a daily occurrence.
At a summer camp where hundreds of children are sent for a 3 week break from radiation, a group of 15 children were asked how many of them had family members that were directly involved in the clean up at Chernobyl. Over half raised their hand. When asked how many of those relatives were still alive only 2 or 3 hands were raised. Over 600,000 people were called upon to clean up Chernobyl. Imagine 12 football fields, filled with bulldozers, helicopters, and all kinds of moving equipment, all of which is too radioactive to destroy, and then think about what must have happened to the people that used them.