Jan Haverkamp
Those words were spoken to me by the Russian human rights lawyer, Nadezhda Kutepova. For years she, with her NGO, Planet of Hopes, defended people who suffer in one of the most radioactively polluted places on this planet: the area surrounding the nuclear waste and reprocessing complex, Mayak, in Russia’s Southern Urals. Kutepova continues to stand up for her people from Paris where she has been exiled to because she was no longer safe in her home town. She made the comment when we were discussing the latest radiation measurement findings that Greenpeace published this week.
The people around Mayak are suffering from the third biggest nuclear catastrophe in history: the Kyshtym disaster that happened 60 years ago today. The radioactive pollution from Mayak continues to this day.
The Kyshtym disaster is named after the nearest known town on the map. In 1957 a mistake in the reprocessing plant led to an explosion that contaminated 20,000 square kilometres – an area that did not appear on any map. Also missing from maps at the time was the nearby town of Chelyabinsk, a so-called “secret” or “closed town” for Mayak nuclear complex workers. It’s here that Kutepova was born. Around 270,000 people in the area were directly affected by the disaster.
Only in the 1990s, after the fall of the Soviet Union, did the true impact of the accident become apparent. Only then did the Russian nuclear industry, now known as Rosatom, take some responsibility. Only after Kutepova started supporting local victims and working with photographer, Robert Knoth, who recorded the the lives of those affected, did Rosatom concede to evacuating those who suffered most.
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The people around Mayak are suffering from the third biggest nuclear catastrophe in history: the Kyshtym disaster that happened 60 years ago today. The radioactive pollution from Mayak continues to this day.
The Kyshtym disaster is named after the nearest known town on the map. In 1957 a mistake in the reprocessing plant led to an explosion that contaminated 20,000 square kilometres – an area that did not appear on any map. Also missing from maps at the time was the nearby town of Chelyabinsk, a so-called “secret” or “closed town” for Mayak nuclear complex workers. It’s here that Kutepova was born. Around 270,000 people in the area were directly affected by the disaster.
Only in the 1990s, after the fall of the Soviet Union, did the true impact of the accident become apparent. Only then did the Russian nuclear industry, now known as Rosatom, take some responsibility. Only after Kutepova started supporting local victims and working with photographer, Robert Knoth, who recorded the the lives of those affected, did Rosatom concede to evacuating those who suffered most.
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