Due to an economic crisis in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, testing for contamination even 30 years after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster has been "cut or eliminated," a Greenpeace report says. People in these areas continue to eat and drink foods with dangerously high radiation levels.
Scientific tests show that contamination from key isotopes such as caesium-137 and strontium-90 has reduced, but also that they still cling to forests and other places.
In 1986, the Chernobyl accident occurred due to a "flawed reactor design,: which was operated with poorly trained personnel. The disaster led to the release of radioactive fallout across large tracts in Europe.
And today, even 30 years later, the situation is fraught with worry. Severe economic crisis has been created due to political turmoil and increased pro-Russian insurgency in the eastern territories. Last year, the economy reportedly contracted by more than 10 percent.
Residents of the contaminated regions continue to come into contact every day with high levels of radiation, the report, titled "Nuclear Scars: The Lasting legacies of Chernobyl and Fukushima," explains.
"It is in what they eat and what they drink. It is in the wood they use for construction and burn to keep warm," it explains.
The report adds that Ukraine "no longer has sufficient funds to finance the programmes needed to properly protect the public... this means the radiation exposure of people still living in the contaminated areas is likely increasing."
The contamination, in fact, has risen in some products such as grains, and in a few areas nearby, with about 5 million residents.
"And just as this contamination will be with them for decades to come, so will the related impacts on their health. Thousands of children, even those born 30 years after Chernobyl, still have to drink radioactively contaminated milk," the report points out.
Hence, there is widespread exposure to illnesses, with a reportedly sharp rise in cancer cases. There does not seem to be any progress or improvement in the situation here, even after earlier reports that called for research to bring about change.
Poverty has heavily contributed to the refusal to stop eating the contaminated food. Victor Khanayev, a surgeon in the Russian district of Novozybkov, explained that as there are too many poor residents, it is difficult to stick to uncontaminated food.
"It is impossible for rural people and even the district town's residents to refuse local produce from the land and their garden, especially with the official monetary compensation being so small," he has told researchers.
Another case quoted in the reports included Halina Chmulevych, a single mother of two in a village in Ukraine's Rivne region. "We have milk and bake bread ourselves that yes is with radiation," she says. "Everything here is with radiation. Of course, it worries me, but what can I do?"
