A Drone's Eye View of Chernobyl

Chernobyl

Twenty-seven years ago, the Soviet Union's version of Fukushima took place at Chernobyl. The disaster created an "exclusion zone" in which human habitation is forbidden. Recently, a drone was used to video footage of the land on which radioactivity imposed a death sentence. The footage was posted in the Italian website corriere.it, the website for Italy's leading newspaper, Corriere della Sera.

I once taught a man who directed the effort to extinguish Chernobyl's nuclear fire. He suffered from radiation sickness, but he never doubted his actions during the disaster. I was proud to be his teacher. When I watched the drone's footage earlier tonight, I thought about a brave man whose life touched me, and saved the lives of thousands.

And so, on Thanksgiving Day, I want to thank the many who put their lives on the line for others.

PS. Shortly after Thanksgiving Day, the online version of the BBC posted an article about wildlife returning to the Chernobyl contaminated zone. The fascinating story is linked here.

Germany Signals Caution Over Radioactive Meat

Wild Boar
(Image: Wikipedia)

Germans craving wild boar sausage may need to exhibit care before dining. According to a story originally appearing in the UK newspaper The Telegraph and summarized in theverge.com, a study cited by the German government raised the yellow flag on wild boar consumption. The report noted that one of three hunted wild boars in Germany's eastern province of Saxony exhibited radiation levels unsafe for human consumption. The unhealthy source was most likely from the wild boars' food supply, notably mushrooms, that continue to harbor radiation from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. In case you're keeping score at home, the distance from Chernobyl to Saxony is roughly equivalent to the distance between New York and Chicago.

Oil Lake

Many years ago, I taught Russian refugees. Many related tales of unfathomable catastrophes, including the Chernobyl disaster. One of my students had led the helicopters that dropped sand into the nuclear facility. While radiation-related sickness dogged him in New York, he studied a new, often baffling language and wondered how he would become employed. He talked with me about his experience at Chernobyl calmly, far more so than most people could ever have hoped to muster.

Today, the United States confronts an environmental calamity in the Gulf of Mexico of numbing proportion. One expert claimed today that up to forty percent of the Gulf has essentially become an oil lake. While I doubt Gulf Coast residents will become flee America, I wonder if they will be as resilient as those Russians who left their once-fertile, now-poisoned land.