Extract from the letter from Professor Nesterenko to Wladimir Tchertkoff, Solange Fernex and Bella Belbéoch
“(…) we know that on May 7 1986 the fire raging in Block 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was finally out. However, there were still several subsequent releases of radioactive gases from the reactor, and the radiological protection service of our Institute recorded a three to fourfold increase in radioactive contamination in the district of Narovlia (70 km from the Chernobyl power plant).
The exploit of hundreds of thousands of young people – firefighters, soldiers, conscripted “liquidators”, in response to this accident was unprecedented.
According to physicists’ estimates, the reactor core at the Chernobyl plant contained some 400 kg of plutonium. It is estimated that about 100 kg of plutonium was ejected into the environment during the fire (one microgram of plutonium is a fatal dose for a man weighing 70 kg).
My opinion is that we came close to a nuclear explosion at Chernobyl. If this had happened Europe would have become uninhabitable.
A dangerously false idea is making its way in the West: now that the Chernobyl reactors are shut down, there is supposed to be no risk of an atomic explosion. However, so long as the nuclear fuel remains inside the ruined reactor, it is a hazard not only for Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, but for the entire European population.
I consider that the peoples of Europe should be infinitely grateful to the hundreds of thousands of liquidators who risked their lives to save Europe from an appalling atomic disaster (…)”
V.N. Nesterenko, January 2005
Corresponding member of the Academy of Science of Belarus, professor, doctor in technical science, liquidator after the accident that occurred at the Chernobyl atomic power plant in 1986.
