ADRIANA PETRYNA Life Exposed Biological Citizens after ChernobylChapter 1 life Politics after Chernobyl Time Lapse On April 26, 1986, Unit Four of the Chernobyl nuctear reactor exploded in Ukraine, damaging human immunities and the genetic structare of cells, contaminating soils and waterways. The main reason for the ween dent is by now well known. Soviet engineers wanted to test how long Bencrators of Unit Four could operate without steam supply in the ease oy j Power failure.! During the test, operators sharply reduced power and blocked steam to the reactors generators and disabled many ofits safety systems. A huge power surge followed, and at 1:23 a.M. the unit exploded once and then again. Large-scale pressure gradients carried the radionce {ie plume co as high as eight kilometers by some estimates. The graphite core burned for days. Helicopter pilots dropped over five thousand tong of boron carbide, dolomite, sand, clay, and lead in an attempt to sufi, fate the flames of the reactor's burning core. These interventions ate now Known to have compounded risk and uncertainty. With suffocation, the femperature of the nuclear core increased. This in turn caused radioactive Substances to ascend more rapidly, forming a radioactive cloud thes spread over Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Western Europe, and other areas of the Northern Hemisphere, Eighteen days elapsed before Mikhail Gorbachey, then general secre- {20} appeared on Soviet television and acknowledged the nuclear relence to the populace.’ Within that period, tens of thousands of people were giher knowingly or unknowingly exposed to radioactive rodine-131, absorbed rapidly in the thyroid and resulting, among other things, ingSudden and massive onset of thyroid cancers in children and adults as poveras four years later* Such onsets could have been curtailed hed che seman distributed nonradioactive iodine pills within the Bese eck Sin disaster’ Contradcting assessments generated by Englch os 2uperian meteorological groups, Soviet administrators downianed a arent ofthe plume and characterized Chernobyl.as a eonteoed bistectt aris, Soviet medical efforts focused on a group of 237 tinge a (ited atthe disaster ste by Dr. Angelina Guskovas they were acl the acute radiation sickness ward ofthe Institute of Boosiveins meee SET Ot those, 134 were diagnosed with acute radiation syndeome, Ove Jove Parts ser the death toll a thiy-one workers (UAEA 1991 Wire ronal attind Such seemingly definite numbers les a web of slemaee, ‘moral, and political uncertainties nett that over the years, 600,000 or more soldiers, firemen, and 2inee workers, men and women, continued to be exposed ta rahnind cling radioactive debris into the mouth ofthe ruined one, Some cfs, Soxalled volunteers referred to themselves a “bio-robors,” a tere ahong SRazists that the one-minute rule was not well enforced. Others were vt acively well paid to construct the so-called Sarcophagus (Sarkofag, now GLDPW called the Shelter), a structure enclosing the ruined fonch Sian the feactor and containing 216 tons of uranium and platenien ai Finely, fifteen thousand people work at the now decommiceinnc) power Frantor ate paid to provide technical assistance inthe Zone of helper The Zone is an area thirty kilometers in diameter ‘circumscribing the dis. Horkent®, Access to the Zone is restricted to the plants mantenane workers, engineers, health professionals, and researchers 1a 199, during my frst field tip to Ukraine, Imet one ofthe mainte Teed yorkets who was on a two-week break from work in the Zone Tie lived in a housing complex in Kyiv, Ukraine’ capital, heey about Shey miles south of the disaster site Filled with anger he sad “ha Lim a ‘safferee’" He used the word *sulerer” in telerence a legal seas gay introduced the previous year by a newly independent Ukraine Sat for persons affected by the Chernobyl disaster. "I get five dolla month compensation, What can I buy for chat?" He said he had ao ant Sption but to continue working in the Zone. Because of his work history, no firm outside the Zone would hire him. “This is fom radiation,” he alg He lifted his pant-leg and stuck his cigarette through akin tog hes Fuekered up to form a ring above his ankle. Ie wa the result he said, of direct contact witha radiation source, and what clinciage veg calla “local skin burn.” “This happened in the Zone Wein People no one 2LIFE PouTics arteR cHsaNonyL dacletande, in hospitals, in clinics.” He characterized himself as one of the “living dead.” “Our memory is gone. You forget everything—we walk like corpses.” Thc ofthe country’s publicized efforts to improve safety standards ih fhe Zone, a director of the Shelter complex told ine in ac interview, Heats af no norms of adiation safety here.” The countrys Ministry of [icaith sets annual allowable norms of dose exposures, bee, according to HeeaiestO8 these norms are not strictly adhered to. That hoc os Ukraine’s current period of sharp economic decline, Zone is considered premium. Referring to the plant workers he wl me, faking this risk is theic individual problem. No one else 2 responsible for it” When 1 asked him to compare his country’s saloon of Worker safety norms with those of Western Europe, he told an quite Somber “No one has ever defined the price ofa dese exposure her nes One has ever defined the value of a person here.” In arteation whee even normal, nae {tn an effort to map environmental contamination, to measure individual avid populationwide exposures, and to arbitrate claime of illness, govern- the choice to delay Public announcement, and the economic incentives t0 work in the Soe hhave uniquely shaped Chetnobyl as a tekbobenns katastrofa (a techno- People Fhe ne i the words of many of my informant, including reople fighting for disabily sats, Jocal physicians, and scene woe intervene at not only excessive exposures to radiation but police tional iene themselves have caused new biological uncertainties Ra peateghnical responses have exacerbated the biologic sal soca] Problems they tried to resolve even generated newoones This process, in cri, ntibutes co further uncertainty concerning a tesolution vo rhe indicate i illness claims, and social suffering among afcceed individuals and groups. {Chernobyl was an “anthropological shock” for Western Europe, bringing the efficacy of everyday knowledge to a state cp collapse and “indcrscoring how much the conditions for secure living in whee hen