She never finished school because there are no longer any schools around here to finish. Her three older brothers spend their days tethered to the vodka bottle. Her parents live like invalids. So when she heard there might be a job open in this emotionally scarred, ecologically poisoned village not far from her home, and only about 10 miles north of the Chernobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine, she wasted no time worrying about her health. She just grabbed it.
People talk a lot about how Chernobyl killed our country.
That may be. But sometimes I think the fear is worse than the sickness. Ten years after the catastrophe at Unit 4 of the V.I. Lenin Atomic Power Station turned the word Chernobyl into the world's foremost symbol of technological disaster, the legacy of the accident can be felt in every part of this wasted land. The fire, which burned out of control for five days, spewed more than 50 tons of radioactive fallout across Belarus, Ukraine and western Russia. Even now, the full medical consequences of the accident are unclear, but some truths have emerged.