IT LOOKS like an ordinary Sunday soccer match, but not much is ordinary here. The playing field is next to the Ukrainian town of Narodichi, which is close enough to the Chernobyl power plant still to be feeling the effects of the catastrophic explosion there 20 years ago this month.
Surface levels of radioactive fallout taper off with distance from the plant, and the land around the plant has been divided up into four zones to reflect the degree of threat. Everyone within 30 kilometres, known as zone 1, has been evacuated. The soccer match shown here is between zone 2 and zone 3 (zone 3 won). Thus have these designations come to define life in the shadow of the worst nuclear accident in history.
In zone 2, where Narodichi lies, the soil is still contaminated and people are not allowed to move in from outside. Those already there can move away, but relocation is difficult since most residents lack resources and a place to go. The government does little for them. They are given the equivalent of 25 US cents a month to buy “clean” food, as crops grown in the contaminated soil are still causing sickness. The higher-risk zones such as zone 2 receive the most state assistance, which has the perverse effect of encouraging people to stay.
The cloud of dust released after the meltdown of Chernobyl’s reactor 4 contained more than 100 radioactive isotopes, including isotopes of iodine, strontium and caesium, which have been linked, respectively, with thyroid cancer, leukaemia and full-body damage. Strontium and caesium still linger in the affected areas, while locals await ...