Lessons learned from Chernobyl
1.
The scale of the material losses and the financial cost of mitigating the
consequences of the Chernobyl accident provide compelling evidence of the
extremely high price of errors and shortcomings when ensuring the safety of
nuclear power plants and of the need for strict compliance with international
safety requirements during their design, construction and operation.
2.
The accident has convincingly demonstrated, that the cost of ensuring the
safety of nuclear facilities is significantly lower than that of dealing with
accident consequences. Large-scale man-made accidents cause great social and
economic damage to countries located in their area of influence. Hundreds of
billions of US dollars’ worth of direct and indirect damages have been reported
by Belarus, Russia and Ukraine as a result of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant
accident over the past 20 years.
3.
The Chernobyl accident has led to a part of the population developing an
inadequate perception of radiation risk, which has caused psychological
problems and, as a consequence, a deterioration in public health and quality of
life.
4.
The accident has shown the importance of strict compliance with the basic and
technical safety principles for nuclear power plants, of continuous safety
analysis of operating nuclear power plants and of their early upgrading in
order to eliminate deviations, of active study and the introduction of leading
world experience, and of taking thorough account of the human factor.
5.
The accident has demonstrated the need to establish and support a high-level
national emergency response system in case of man-made accidents.
6.
The accident has demonstrated the danger of not bringing nuclear power under
public control and has shown the need for open and objective dialogue with the
public on all aspects of the safe use of nuclear energy.
7.
The creation of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (ChEZ)
was a justified measure not only in view of the need to evacuate the population
from the most contaminated area, but also having regard to the follow-up tasks
of mitigating the accident’s consequences. The Exclusion Zone is the most
highly contaminated area and the largest source of radiation hazard to the
surrounding populated areas. Thanks, moreover, to its natural and man-made
barriers it has - and in future will continue to have - the important
protective function of preventing the migration of radionuclides
beyond its boundaries. Continuing activities to study, support and strengthen
the barrier function of the ChEZ
remains the most important focus of efforts to minimize the accident’s
consequences.
8.
The radioecological monitoring system established in
the Exclusion Zone, including the “Shelter”, has enabled monitoring of the
existing situation; however, it does not produce entirely reliable predictions
of the radioecological and ecological situation,
either for the Zone as a whole, or parts thereof.
9.
The experience obtained over the past 20 years shows that a complete halt in
economic activity in the Exclusion Zone is impossible because it does not lead
to spontaneous recovery of the contaminated ecosystems to their original state.
At the same time, there is an additional risk of radionuclide release outside
the Zone. In many cases, spontaneous evolution leads to secondary negative radioecological and ecological consequences (forest fires,
floods, outbreaks of plant and animal epidemics, and so on), which require
human intervention in view of the hazard to populated areas.
10.
Scientific co-operation thanks to the efforts of many countries (Belarus,
Russia, Ukraine, countries of the European Union, USA, Japan and others) and
international organizations (UN, WHO, IAEA) has produced important scientific
results in nuclear and radiation safety, radioecology and radiation medicine,
which are of significant practical importance. However, insufficient funding of
national scientific research programmes and their lack of co-ordination do not
facilitate the creation of a sound and comprehensive scientific research
strategy. At both the national (Belarus, Russia, Ukraine) and international
level, there is a need to develop and improve scientific research programmes which take into account the long-term tasks.
11.
Managing the radioactive waste from the Chernobyl accident is becoming a more
pressing and topical problem as time goes on. Despite the established national
programmes and international projects on radioactive waste management, there is
still no realistically balanced and sound (taking into account the “Shelter”
aspect and decommissioning of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant) unified
concept for radioactive waste management which includes all stages from
collection and processing to final disposal.
12.
Dealing with the consequences of the accident in the agro-industrial sector has
become an important part of ensuring public radiation safety. The system of
countermeasures developed has resulted in a decrease in exposure to the
population and precluded the production of contaminated products.
13.
Implementation of the agricultural countermeasures has revealed critical areas
where even a relatively small amount of contamination of the soil by long-lived
radionuclides leads to considerable contamination of
plant and animal products due to the high rate of soil-to-plant radionuclide
transfer. Failure to take this phenomenon sufficiently into account reduces the
effectiveness of the countermeasures in agriculture and leads to irrational
wastage of material resources.
14.
The Chernobyl accident resulted in unprecedented exposure of the Belarusian,
Russian and Ukrainian population. In view of its uniqueness in terms of spatial,
temporal, professional and age specific factors, as well as the combination of
external and internal exposure, it has no analogy in the entire history of
man-made accidents.
16.
At the time of the accident the medical services were not equipped to deal with
or minimize the medical consequences of a large-scale man-made accident. The
stable iodine prophylaxis was not administered in time or on a sufficient scale
and protective measures such as sheltering and the replacement of contaminated
with “clean” milk were barely used. The countermeasures to reduce psychological
stress in the population were ineffective. In the initial phase of the accident
and for the first five years thereafter, there was a shortage of medical
personnel (doctors, nurses, laboratory workers) in the regional hospitals. On
the whole, only the leading hospitals were able to provide high-quality, timely
and proper treatment.
17.
The early clinical effects in the first months after the accident were
attributable to radiation (ionizing radiation of all types) and non-radiation
(high concentration of chemical substances, changes in living conditions,
inadequate psychological perception of the radiological hazards) factors.
18.
However much money and effort is expended on improving nuclear safety, the
probability of a nuclear accident will never be zero and, since people may
suffer as a result, we should be prepared to minimize losses through timely
response. Analysis of the response experience with respect to the Chernobyl
accident provides a unique opportunity for improving the emergency response
system, which should include well-defined procedures for action, trained
personnel, the necessary instruments and equipment, criteria and mechanisms for
decision-making developed in advance, and a system for training emergency
workers. This experience should be integrated into international
recommendations and methods for assessing, monitoring and responding to nuclear
accidents.
19.
The lack of objective and timely information to state authorities and the
population about the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant led to an
inadequate response to its potential negative consequences on people’s living
conditions and health, and also created the preconditions for
socio-psychological stress.
20.
The adoption of legislative acts and legal documents has allowed a significant
easing of the socio–psychological situation among clean-up workers and the
affected population.