April 26, 2006

Report: Number of Victims Of The Chernobyl Disaster

On April 26 1986, one of the reactors of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant literally exploded. For many, the name Chernobyl became a symbol for both the failure of nuclear technology and of human progress alike.

However, for others it symbolises the failings of Soviet Communism. Both the Chernobyl and the much worse Mayak disaster of 1957 took place under the conditions of the soviet command system. Future research in Russian archives might reveal even more nuclear accidents during the communist era.

Either way, it was the Chernobyl disaster that influenced the debate on energy production all over the world.

What is even more controversial are the disaster's consequences on human health. Soviet secrecy prevented the world from learning the total number of victims for years.

The dispute was fueled by a report of the IAEA in September, 2005 indicating that Chernobyl "only" caused 56 losses of human life. This report attempts a brief compilation of the various figures on actual Chernobyl victims from various scientific and media reports, that were quoted in connection with the 20th anniversary of the disaster.

Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR, report of July 10, 1986, file number 20-34
26 deaths, 135.000 evacuated, 800.000 people received medical treatment;

UNSCEAR 2000 Report on the Health Consequences of the Chernobyl Accident (in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine)
30 deaths among rescue workers;
134 rescue workers with confirmed acute radiation sickness;
1,800 cases of thyroid cancer;

Martin C Mahoney et al.: Thyroid cancer incidence trends in Belarus: examining the impact of Chernobyl, International Journal of Epidemiology 2004
"Age-adjusted thyroid cancer incidence rates (adjusted to the WHO 2000 world population) [in Belarus] have increased between 1970 and 2001 from 0.4 per 100,000 to 3.5 per 100 000 among males (+775%) and from 0.8 per 100,000 to 16.2 per 100,000 among females (+1925%). [...] The highest incidence rate ratios were observed among people from 'higher exposure' areas ages 0-14 yr at time of diagnosis."

IAEA, WHO, FAO, UNDP, UNEP, UN-OCHA, UNSCEAR, World Bank, Governments of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia ("Chernobyl Forum"), September 2005
56 deaths (47 emergency workers of radiation sickness, 9 children of thyroid cancer);
8,930 expected deaths (cancer and leukemia caused by radiation);
4,000 cases of thyroid cancer (estimated);
15 deaths of thyroid cancer;

Prof. Nikolai Omelyanets, Ukrainian government official (in "Guardian", 25 March 2006)
"At least 500,000 people - perhaps more - have already died out of the 2 million people who were officially classed as victims of Chernobyl in Ukraine," said Nikolai Omelyanets, deputy head of the National Commission for Radiation Protection in Ukraine.
"[Studies show] that 34,499 people who took part in the clean-up of Chernobyl have died in the years since the catastrophe. The deaths of these people from cancers was nearly three times as high as in the rest of the population."

"Der Spiegel", German news weekly, 16/2006, April 2006
300.000 people are "most heavily injured";

Ian Failie, David Sumner (for the European Greens): The Other Report on Chernobyl (TORCH), Berlin, Brussels, Kyiv, April 2006.
237 cases of acute radiation sickness among emergency workers, of whom 28 died in 1986 and a further 19 between 1987 and 2004;
4,000 thyroid cancer cases in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia in those aged under 18 at the time of the accident;

International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), German section / Gesellschaft für Strahlenschutz (eds.): Gesundheitliche Folgen von Tschernobyl - 20 Jahre nach der Reaktorkatastrophe. (Health consequences of Chernobyl - 20 years after the disaster of the reactor), April 2006
50,000 - 100,000 deaths among "liquidators" or rescue aid workers (estimated),
total number of casualties: 264,000 (rescue aid workers and local population, estimated);
540,000 - 900,000 injured rescue aid workers (estimated);
30,000 - 207,500 children with genetic defects worldwide (estimated);
10,000 thyroid cancer cases in Belarus, up to 20,000 all over Europe;

Greenpeace (ed.): The Chernobyl Catastrophe Consequences on Human Health, April 2006
The disaster "could top a quarter of a million cancer cases and nearly 100,000 fatal cancers."
"The new data, based on Belarus national cancer statistics, predicts approximately 270,000 cancers and 93,000 fatal cancer cases caused by Chernobyl. The report also concludes that on the basis of demographic data, during the last 15 years, 60,000 people have additionally died in Russia because of the Chernobyl accident, and estimates of the total death toll for the Ukraine and Belarus could reach another 140,000."
"The most recently published figures indicate that in Belarus, Russia and the Ukraine alone the accident resulted in an estimated 200,000 additional deaths between 1990 and 2004."