by Georges Dayan

The memorial built in Slavutich for the enginneers and employees who died just after the catastrophe. (Recator Number 4 exploded on the 26 th. of april 1986) Today the number of victims of the catastrophe is estimated at 125,000. (UNESCO source)

On the 26 th of April 1986, the reactor No. 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear station exploded, rocking the world with the worst human and ecological disaster of all times.

Since then the radiation is poisoning the life of about 8 million people of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia who are living in the ignorance of the clear consequences of that catastrophe on their health.

In the days that followed the explosion, communities were torn apart as thousands of families -almost 400.000 people- were evacuated because radiation levels in their homes had become unsafe.

Ten years after that terrible accident, medical care and assistance for the victims is rare and very difficult to obtain.

Ten years after ,we returned to Chernobyl in Ukraine which looks surprisingly beautiful and serene from the outside, but where nothing is normal anymore. We visited the people and the evacuees of that devastated area of Russia and Belarus.

For them of course, it is not a question of forgetting.In each piece of earth, in each breath of the air a silent threat veils their existence which has changed for ever.

Like all the scientists, they question"What is our future? what is the future of our children?". Because that accident was the first nuclear accident of humanity and there is no past experience nor reference.

And yet people of Ukraine and Belarus have learned to live now with that invisible monster. They have learned to live with the suffering very slowly, with a certain strength, a certain dignity.

And yet life goes on...

Georges Dayan