On April 26, 1986, at 1:23:58 A.M., a series of explosions destroyed the reactor in the building that housed Energy Block #4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station. The catastrophe at Chernobyl became the largest technical disaster of the twentieth century  For tiny Belarus (population: ten million), it was a national disaster  Today, one out of every five Belarussians lives on contaminated land. This amounts to 2.1 million people, of whom seven hundred thousand are children. In the Gomel and Mogilev regions, which suffered the most from Chernobyl, mortality rates exceed birthrates by twenty percent.

—Belaruskaya entsiklopedia, 1996, s.v. “Chernobyl,” pg. 24

 

On April 29, 1986, instruments recorded high levels of radiation in Poland, Germany, Austria, and Romania. On April 30, in Switzerland and northern Italy. On May 1 and second, in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Great Britain, and northern Greece. On May 3, in Israel, Kuwait, and Turkey  Gaseous airborne particles traveled around the globe: on May 2 they were registered in Japan, on May 5 in India, on May 5 and sixth in the U.S. and Canada.

—“The Consequences of the Chernobyl Accident in Belarus”

The Sakharov International College on Radioecology, Minsk, 1992

 

LYUDMILLA IGNATENKO

Wife of deceased Fireman Vasily Ignatenko

 

We were newlyweds. We still walked around holding hands, even if we were just going to the store. I would say to him, “I love you.” But I didn’t know then how much. I had no idea We lived in the dormitory of the fire station where he worked. I always knew what was happening—where he was, how he was.