The Ukrainian authorities believe up to 75,000 Ukrainian men may have died of radiation related illnesses since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Those men, became known as the " liquidators" as their job was to contain the radiation and remove and bury the radio-active material. In far-eastern Ukraine in the coal town of Donetsk, a group of liquidators struggle to cope with the illnesses they suffer as a result of radiation poisoning they recieved while performing their duty at...
more »The Ukrainian authorities believe up to 75,000 Ukrainian men may have died of radiation related illnesses since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Those men, became known as the " liquidators" as their job was to contain the radiation and remove and bury the radio-active material. In far-eastern Ukraine in the coal town of Donetsk, a group of liquidators struggle to cope with the illnesses they suffer as a result of radiation poisoning they recieved while performing their duty at Chernobyl. They were sent, in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, to evacuate residents of the now abandoned town of Prypiat (adjacent to the exploded reactor), remove contaminated rubble and direct operations aimed at containing an even more dangerous explosion occurring.
Today, in Ukraine, liquidators are not hailed as heroes but feared and stigmatised because of their association with Chernobyl. There are still thousands more liquidators (like those in Donetsk) in Ukraine who suffer serious ongoing health problems.
However, they receive very little state support and often cannot afford the life-saving operations and medicines they need to stay alive. The liquidators heroic role in containing the biggest radio-active disaster in the world remains largely forgotten.
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