Russia-Ukraine war, Chernobyl risk: “The core is active”

“One of the areas from which the Russian troops left is the one on the border between Belarus and Ukraine. A few km from the border is the power plant and 150 km from Kiev. An incandescent situation. Very dangerous that there is a nuclear power plant there, because any kind of military situation could put further quantities of radionuclides into the atmosphere. A sarcophagus was made to cover the fourth reactor, recently made the famous ‘arch’ which it covered further, but there is still the active core and a situation of very high contamination “. So to AdnKronos Angelo Gentili, head of Legambiente’s Chernobyl project, a person who knows well the area where he has been over and over again. “That is a very sensitive objective, up to now in some way protected by the Ukrainian state, and which continues to represent a time bomb. Making it a theater of war is very dangerous, you cannot joke with nuclear power. We are very worried – Gentili underlines – the danger is unheard of. I would like to hope that there will not be a fury in that area. Among other things, beyond the border there is the so-called ‘dead zone’ that is around the plant, there are no people who live there and there is a safety belt protected by the authorities, but in the presence of a war the risk is that a whole series of health parameters will jump. This situation must also be kept in mind from an international point of view “. Gentili who knows well those areas where he works for the Chernobyl project which involves the children of the area (in Belarus, in the Speranza center, children are hosted every summer with the aim of making them lose part of the radio activity), “which adds dramatically to an already serious situation. There, in the contaminated area, still today live many people subject to a series of diseases. Between Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, we are talking about 5 million people living in contaminated areas. This situation overlaps with an already complicated situation which includes, in addition to contamination, severe suffering due to Covid and very high poverty “. By Stefania Marignetti