Information about Chornobyl disaster is well known for people around the world. However behind the statistics and formal reports there are millions of personal stories and broken lives. Here is one of them.
At approximately 01:23:47 (Kyiv time) on 26 April 1986, two thermal explosions occurred at the fourth power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, completely destroying the reactor. The power unit building partially collapsed. A fire broke out on the roof. The remains of the core of the fourth reactor subsequently melted. A mixture of molten metal, sand, concrete and fuel particles spread under the reactor premises. The accident resulted in the release of radioactive substances. The situation worsened due to the fact that uncontrolled nuclear and chemical reactions continued in the destroyed reactor, releasing heat (from the burning of graphite reserves), with the eruption of radioactive combustion products from the fault for many days and contaminating large territories. It was only at the end of May 1986 that the active eruption of radioactive substances from the destroyed reactor was stopped.
Wikipedia
Beeld: © Kateryna Tushynska
Kateryna Tushynska, Agricultural Officer at the Dutch Embassy in Kyiv was 6 years old back than and all her life was largely framed by this disaster.
It was Saturday. At night we woke up to the sound of helicopters flying towards the north over our house in Kyiv. My sister and I looked out the window in the darkness. My parents were confused. We didn't have a phone then, it was impossible to find out information at night, because there were no night news channels on TV or radio either.
Back then Saturdays were working days, so my parents sent us back to beds despite of the noise outside the window. In the morning, my sister left to school for a rehearsal of the May 1 Labor Day demonstration. This was when children in red pioneer ties were supposed to march in front of the local leaders of the Communist Party.
My father went to the factory, where he worked as a turner. At lunchtime, he and my mother returned home and talked quietly in the kitchen. I only remember the words "buses", "evacuation", "Pripyat". Of these words, I only understood the word "buses" and it didn't scare me at all.
I could not remember what we did on 27-28-29-30 April, but nothing extraordinary, because my sister was going to school and parent to work. On the 1st of May we all went to the local stadium to watch the march of children from my sister’s school. She was dressed in brown school uniform with white apron, huge white bows were braided in her hair, she waved with the red flag while marching. We still have her black and white photo in our family album.
Beeld: © Kateryna Tushynska
Then we received a short telegram from my father's parents, who lived in a small village in the area where the nearest radiation cloud fell. They had regularly supplied us with produce from their household farm, but they no longer did. Since then, the village council instructed them to refrain from eating produce from their garden, eggs, meat, milk, etc. from their farm, and not even to go into the nearby forest.
The school year ended, as usual, on May 25. My mother somehow managed to get train tickets and the next day took me and my sister to a pioneer camp on the Sea of Azov. We spent the whole summer there. There were many children from Kyiv there.
Beeld: © Kateryna Tushynska
Last summer, my dad and I drove to his homevillage. I would never have been able to find it without him, because old wooden houses had been "swallowed" up by a dense forest. Without people, nature thrives there. I have never seen such biodiversity in my life. The old linden tree that still grows there, at the entrance to my grandmother's yard, has become so huge that I could not grab it with my hands.
Severivka is a former village in Korosten Raion, Zhytomyr Oblast, northern Ukraine. It was subordinated to the Lyubar village council. Due to radioactive contamination as a result of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, all of its residents were evicted. Wikipedia
Officially the village does not exist any longer since 1996.
If you are interested in more articles about Chornobyl, see the links below.
2024 - PIA Evaluation of restored agricultural land by indicator species in the context of war
2024 - Ukraine: the life after nuclear disaster
2023 - Back to nature, wild cows in exclusion zone in Ukraine
Beeld: © MFA Ukraine