Chernobyl power station and the sarcophagus around the exploded reactor. Ukraine, September 1996

In the run up to the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl catastrophe (26 April), Greenpeace today issues a major study on the consequences of the accident on human health.

The report, drawing on the contributions of more than 50 research scientists, including research never before published in English from Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, seriously challenges official estimates about the number and scale of human casualties resulting from the disaster.

Despite wide variations in available data, results of recent studies included in the report estimate that over a quarter of a million additional cancers will be caused by the accident, or which nearly 100,000 will be fatal. Epidemiological data from the Russian Academy of Sciences suggests that some 60,000 people have died in Russia alone as a result of Chernobyl and that including the other highly affected countries of Ukraine and Belarus would take the total death toll to date to 200,000.

The report condemns earlier claims, most notably that of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in last September's Chernobyl Forum report which predicted 4,000 additional deaths attributable to the accident, as a 'gross simplification of the breadth of human suffering'.

Twenty years after the explosion at Reactor 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant which discharged radiation more than 250 times that released by the Hiroshima bomb, several million people, by various estimates from 5 to 8 million, still reside in contaminated areas closest to the disaster site in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.

Although early casualties from the immediate blast were relatively small - 31 plant workers, firemen and rescuers or 'liquidators' as they came to be known were killed in the days following the explosion, hundreds of thousands of people have suffered repeated ill health and many more have died earlier than they might have done had the accident not occurred.

In addition to causing cancer, radiation also impacts on the body's immune and endocrine systems, leads to accelerated ageing, cardiovascular and blood diseases, causes respiratory and digestive problems ,chromosomal aberrations and an increase in foetal abnormalities and birth defects. Studies included in this report acknowledge that as well as the direct impact of radiation, health conditions in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia were also seriously affected by a complex set of socio-economic factors resulting from the loss of land, relocation of 300,000 people, economic crisis, lack of access to information and political factors.

Greenpeace recognises that the wide range of estimates into this 'excess mortality and morbidity' resulting from the Chernobyl accident spans an extremely wide range depending upon precisely what is taken into account. It concludes that rather than being a time to close the book on the disaster, more and better coordinated research into the longer-term health consequences needs to be carried out.

Key findings from the report include:

• Cancer has increased sharply in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia. Between 1990 and 2000, there was a 40% increase in all cancers in Belarus and a 52% increase in the Gomel region. In Ukraine there was a 12% increase and in the Zhytomir region morbidity increased almost 3-fold. In the Russian Bryansk region, cancer increased 2.7 times.
• It is estimated that the Chernobyl accident will cause some 270 000 excess cancers worldwide, of which 90,000 will be fatal. Some 14,000 of these deaths will be from thyroid cancers, 8,000 from leukeamias and 71,000 from solid cancers.
• Thyroid cancer has seen the most dramatic increase of all cancers with far more and far more aggressive cases than originally predicted. It is expected to peak for youngsters in the period 2001-2006 but new cases are expected to appear for the next 30 years.
• Chromosomal aberrations have increased by a factor of 2-6 in the higher contaminated regions of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia

Blake Lee Harwood, campaigns director at Greenpeace UK says

"This Greenpeace report shows that there is a very wide range of fatal casualty estimates for the Chernobyl disaster with credible scientific observers giving figures that number in the hundreds of thousands. It's clear from the wide range of estimates, the many holes in the data set and the variability in potential health effects that no hard and fast conclusions can be reached at the moment. However, it's likely that the true human cost of the Chernobyl disaster will be many times greater than that estimated by the International Atomic Energy Authority.

"It is shocking that the IAEA should have attempted to end the debate over Chernobyl impacts by claiming a final figure of four thousand cancer deaths. The IAEA should be stripped of its responsibilities in relation to civil nuclear power and there should be a coordinated international scientific effort to establish a better assessment of the true impacts of Chernobyl."

The Greenpeace report is issued as a new photography exhibition opens in London to mark the 20th anniversary of Chernobyl. Fallout: The human cost of nuclear catastrophe held at the Oxo Gallery on London's South Bank, features poignant images of individuals and families whose lives have been devastated by Chernobyl and other nuclear disasters.

Lee Harwood continued: "These photographs are a timely reminder that behind the statistics are human lives, families and individuals, who have paid the ultimate price in the name of nuclear power. Anyone unconvinced about the dangers of nuclear power as a solution to our future energy needs should see this show, and then make up their mind."

Notes

The full report and executive summary of 'Chernobyl Catastrophe: Consequences on Human Health' can be downloaded here.

Or contact the Greenpeace press office on 020 7865 8255.