Voice 1
Thank you for joining us for today’s Spotlight program. I’m Joshua Leo.
Voice 2
And I’m Liz Waid. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no matter where in the world they live.
Voice 1
On April 26, 1986 the world changed forever. A part of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded. The explosion released harmful chemicals into the air. Many people died. Even more people became sick. Today, over twenty years later, people still feel the effects of this explosion
Today’s program is on the Chernobyl accident.
Voice 2
The Chernobyl power plant was a kind of factory. It was in Pripyat, a village in the former Soviet Union. Today, it is in the country of Ukraine. Nuclear power plants make electricity. They use uranium dioxide, a chemical that can be very dangerous. If the machines in a power plant do not work correctly, the chemicals can harm people. This is what happened at the Chernobyl Power Plant.
Voice 1
There were four nuclear reactors at the Chernobyl power plant. These reactors contained machines and chemicals to create heat. then machines changed heat into electricity.
Voice 2
On April 25, 1986, workers performed a test on reactor number four [4]. They shut off many of the safety controls. The men started to cool the reactor. They used cooling rods. Cooling rods are long thin pieces of the chemical boron. But the reactor cooled too quickly. So, the workers pulled the cooling rods out of the reactor.
Voice 1
Then the reactor began to heat up again. It became too hot too quickly. The tubes for the cooling rods started to melt. Workers could not put the cooling rods back into the reactor. The reactor continued getting hotter. It produced much more energy than normal. The fuel in the reactor started to explode. The water in the cooling system turned into steam. This steam blew the top of the reactor building off. Air from outside entered the reactor. It caused another explosion. Each explosion released harmful chemicals into the air and onto the land.
Voice 2
Fire fighters and the military hurried to the power plant. They tried to stop the growing fires. But they did not know about the dangerous chemicals. The chemicals were radioactive. Radioactive materials produce dangerous waves of energy. These radioactive waves can damage the cells inside a person’s body. Many of the people that fought the fires died very soon after the accident. They died from radiation poisoning.
Voice 1
The explosion at the Chernobyl power plant was the world’s worst nuclear accident. A radioactive cloud floated over a large area around Chernobyl. The fallout, or radioactive chemicals in the air, spread through Europe. However, most of the fallout affected the villages and cities close to the power plant. The people in these areas did not know about the radiation. The government at that time did not tell the people that they were in danger.
Voice 2
Lena Kostuchenko lived near Chernobyl. She and her husband were visiting her mother on the day of the accident. She was five months pregnant. Lena remembers:
Voice 3
“We were waiting for a bus, but no bus came. A policeman came and said that there would be no busses because there had been an accident.”
“On the next Sunday, I had to go to work in Pripyat. Again there were no busses, so we set off on foot. But I began to feel very sick before I had walked half way.”
Voice 1
The Soviet government tried to keep the accident a secret. They did not want the world to know what happened. But they government could not hide the radioactive fallout. The people living around Chernobyl, and across Europe could tell something was wrong.
Voice 2
The police and military told people in the nearby villages to leave their homes. The police told the people they would only be gone for a few days. But the people from these villages would never return to their homes. The people’s clothes, and all their possessions had become radioactive. After the accident, over three hundred fifty thousand [350,000] people had to move away from the affected area.
Voice 3
“A policeman finally told me the truth. He said there was high radiation and pregnant women should get out at all costs. At that time, I did not know what radiation was.”
Voice 1
Lena went to a hospital after the accident at Chernobyl. The doctors took her clothes. They said that all pregnant women would be forced to either kill their unborn babies or give birth early. This was to prevent the babies from getting health problems.
Voice 3
“I gave birth to my daughter Anya two months early.”
Voice 2
Lena’s daughter Anya was sick even when she was born. Doctors put her in a special room to improve. Lena was not allowed to see her new baby for eight days.
Voice 1
Soon after the accident, over two hundred [200] people went to the hospital. Thirty-one [31] of those people died there. But the people who died then were not the only people affected by the Chernobyl nuclear accident. People still felt the effects of the radiation many years after the accident. Many groups do not agree about how many people died because of the radiation. the World Health Organization estimates that nine thousand [9,000] people died. Greenpeace esitmates that it was as high as two hundred thousand [200,000].
Voice 2
As Anya became older. Lena noticed that her daughter was often sick. She believed it was because of the radiation.
Voice 3
“At that time you were not allowed to say it was because of Chernobyl. Later a doctor told me I had been very unlucky. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time of my pregnancy.”
Voice 1
Today, Lena’s daughter has a rare blood disease. She becomes sick very easily. Lena believes that the radiation from Chernobyl affected Anya before she was born.
Voice 2
The people living in the villages and cities around Chernobyl are not as healthy as they should be. There are higher amounts of thyroid cancer, birth defects and other health problems. People have more sickness that comes from stress and worry. The accident also affected the area’s economy. Businesses had to close. People lost everything they owned. They had to rebuild their lives.
Voice 1
Lena’s home is still radioactive today. The worst radiation exists in an area thirty [30] kilometres around the power plant. People are not permitted to travel into this area.
Voice 2
Military workers built a protective cover for the power plant after it exploded. This covering keeps most of the harmful chemicals and radiation contained. However, people built the cover poorly. And it is starting to break. The chemicals inside will be radioactive for hundreds of years. But the cover will last that long. If the cover on the power plant continues to break, another explosion may happen. There may be another dangerous accident.
Voice 1
Ukrainian officials have designed a new cover for the power plant. This stronger cover will last much longer than the old cover. It will protect the area for about one hundred [100] years. The cloud of radioactive smoke is gone today But it will continue to affect the world for many years.
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