Chernobyl disaster: Difference between revisions

 

The official contaminated zones saw a massive clean-up effort lasting seven months.<ref name="MarplesSocialImpact"/>{{rp|177–183}} The official reason for such early (and dangerous) decontamination efforts, rather than allowing time for natural decay, was that the land must be repopulated and brought back into cultivation. Within fifteen months 75% of the land was under cultivation, even though only a third of the evacuated villages were resettled. Defence forces must have done much of the work. Yet this land was of marginal agricultural value. According to historian David Marples, the administration had a psychological purpose for the clean-up: they wished to forestall panic regarding nuclear energy, and even to restart the Chernobyl power station.<ref name="MarplesSocialImpact"/>{{rp|78–79, 87, 192–193}}

 

Although a number of radioactive emergency vehicles were buried in trenches, many of the vehicles used by the liquidators, including the helicopters, still remained, as of 2018, parked in a field in the Chernobyl area. Scavengers have since removed many functioning, but highly radioactive, parts.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/06/in_pictures_chernobyl0s_silent_graveyards_/html/1.stm |title=Chernobyl's silent graveyards |date=20 April 2006 |website=BBC News |access-date=8 November 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181105043521/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/06/in_pictures_chernobyl0s_silent_graveyards_/html/1.stm |archive-date=5 November 2018 |url-status=live }}</ref> Liquidators worked under deplorable conditions, poorly informed and with poor protection. Many, if not most of them, exceeded radiation safety limits.<ref name="MarplesSocialImpact"/>{{rp|177–183}}<ref name="PetrynaLE">{{cite book |last=Petryna |first=Adriana |year=2002 |title=Life Exposed: Biological Citizens After Chernobyl |location=Princeton, NJ |publisher=Princeton University Press}}</ref>