THE LONG SHADOW OF CHERNOBYL // Gerd Ludwig
Summary: On April 26, 1986 at 1:23 am, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant blew up after operators botched a safety test, triggering the world's worst nuclear disaster to date. More than twenty years later, the long shadow of Chernobyl continues to darken lives - socially, environmentally, and physically.
Today the Chernobyl Power Plant sits inside the fenced 30 km Exclusion Zone. Radioactive remnants of the failed reactor linger inside the so-called sarcophagus, a 24-story concrete and steel encasement hastily erected after the accident. Radiation levels are so high there that heavily protected workers are only allowed one shift of 15 minutes per day. The evacuated town of Prypiat, once inhabited by 50,000 plant workers, is a chilling ghost town still littered with the remnants of its hasty abandonment. Within the Exclusion Zone, in dozens of abandoned villages collapsed houses are disappearing under overgrowth. Ignoring radiation levels, some 400 elderly people have returned to their homes.
From the first day, officials downplayed the damages of the catastrophe and the politics of misinformation continues:
A UN report estimates that 4,000 people will eventually succumb to cancer-related illnesses as the result of the accident. But major environmental organizations have accused the report of whitewashing Chernobyl's impact and state that more than 200,000 people have already died as a consequence of the disaster.
Many scientists see a clear connection between the health damages and the fallout in given areas. Their findings have enlisted the support of international aid organizations, which care for mentally and physically disabled children in the affected regions.
The thawing of bureaucratic barriers in Ukraine enabled Gerd Ludwig to move freely within the Exclusion Zone and delve deeper into Chernobyl reactor than any other Western photographer, while many of Chernobyl's victims had the courage to allow their suffering to be documented in the hope that tragedies like Chernobyl be prevented in the future.
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