English: Life in the Chernobyl Zone

Audio

Transcript

Voice 1 

Welcome to Spotlight. I’m Ryan Geertsma.

Voice 2 

And I’m Anne Muir. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand - no matter where in the world they live.

Voice 3

“You have got to go in spring. It is just full of trees and birds and insects. And it has accidentally become this huge wild, natural area. There is nothing like it. It is a completely special place. And most of it is just beautiful."

Voice 1 

Andrew Blackwell is a reporter. He writes about the environment. Here, he is telling the news organization NPR about a beautiful, wild place. But this place is also very dangerous. It is the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Today, this area is in the countries of Ukraine and Belarus. Many years ago the world’s largest nuclear accident happened here. But what has happened in this zone since the nuclear accident? How can it be so beautiful and yet so dangerous? Today’s Spotlight is on the Chernobyl exclusion zone.

Voice 2

In 1986 there was a terrible accident. There was an explosion at a nuclear power plant in the former Soviet Union. The Chernobyl power plant made energy using radioactive chemicals. Radiation is very dangerous. It destroys living things. People who are near radiation get radiation sickness. If it is serious, people die from radiation sickness. Some radiation sickness can be treated but it is still very painful. Radiation can also cause cancer. This can happen many years after the person has been near the radiation.

Voice 1 

The Chernobyl nuclear accident created a big cloud of radioactive dust. The radiation in this dust spread across Europe. But it was most dangerous in the area near the Chernobyl plant. So the government made the area around the power plant into an exclusion zone. They put a border around 1,000 square miles. This land had very high levels of radiation. It was not safe for people to live there. Four hundred thousand people left their homes. They could not take anything with them – everything was covered with radioactive chemicals.

Voice 2 

After the accident, people left the exclusion zone. But plants and animals stayed. No one knew what would happen. Many people thought the animals would die. Or the animals might have other health problems like cancer. Other people thought the plants and animals would grow strangely - with body parts that did not form correctly. Scientists have found some of these problems. But not as many as they expected.

Voice 1 

The power plant was near a city named Pripyat. All the people in this city left in 1986. But the city does not look empty. Pripyat is full of plants. Trees grow inside buildings and in the middle of the city square. Green branches cover buildings. Tree roots break through the roads. Colourful flowers grow wild. The town looks fresh and alive.

Voice 2

Plants are not the only things living in the exclusion zone. Birds build nests. Rivers are full of fish. Large animals like moose, bison and horses run freely. And in the empty towns and countryside there are many wolves. These wild animals look like dogs.

Voice 1 

But are these plants and animals in the zone healthy? After the Chernobyl accident the radioactive dust became part of the soil. The soil and water in the zone are full of radioactive chemicals. Plants use this soil and water to grow. So the chemicals enter the plants. Then, animals eat the plants and became full of radioactive chemicals too. Their organs and bones have radiation in them.

Voice 2 

Scientists come to the zone to study the area. They want to see how the radiation affects the plants and animals. One group of scientists studied the wolves. The television program PBS Nature explains why the wolves are so important:

Voice 4

“The state of the wolf population says a lot about the whole environmental area. Wolves are the top hunters here - they eat many other animals. So they can show us about the radioactivity across all of Chernobyl.”

Voice 1

Wolves eat many other animals. In the zone, this means that the wolves are eating animals full of radioactive chemicals. The scientists wanted to learn how this affects the wolves. So they followed the wolves. They looked at what they ate and where they lived. They found that the number of wolves in the zone is growing. The wolves are even having babies in the zone. In total, scientists found about 120 wolves in the zone.

Voice 2

Some scientists even think the zone may be a good place for wolves and other animals to live. There isradiation. But there are no people. Humans hunt, farm and mine. They build cities and put dams in rivers. This often decreases the population of animals and plants. Without people the plants and trees are growing very fast. In some areas, animal populations are also growing.

Voice 1 

Does this mean that the radioactive zone is a healthy place for animals to live? Scientists have different opinions about this. Professor Tim Mousseau of Canada leads a scientific research team. They study the environment in the zone. He says that the radiation makes it a difficult place for animals. He told the BBC:

Voice 5

"Many people come here expecting it to be like the moon. So when they see trees, and birds and a few animals, they are surprised. They think, 'Well maybe it is not so bad'.

But we are finding a big effect on the number of different animals in the zone. And these numbers are directly related to the level of radioactivity. In areas of high radiation there are only about half as many animals."

Voice 2 

Dr. Jim Smith has a different opinion. He has been studying Chernobyl for 20 years. Dr. Smith told the BBC that the damage to animals in the zone may not be so serious:

Voice 6

"Now the people have moved out the results are clear. Normal human activity did much more damage than the radiation left by the accident. Whether radiation is damaging wildlife in Chernobyl is still an open question."

Voice 1

The future for the wildlife in the zone is still not clear. Dr. Mousseau says it is important for people to know what happens in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. People can learn about the effects of radiation over many years. He told the BBC that scientists will continue to study this zone:

Voice 5 

"This place gives us the chance to do research that we cannot do anywhere else in the world. It is very important for us to do more of these studies. We will be back next spring."

Voice 2

The writer of this program was Rena Dam. The producer was Mark Drenth. The voices you heard were from the United States and the United Kingdom. All quotes were adapted and voiced by Spotlight. You can find our programs on the internet at www.radioenglish.net. This program is called ‘Life in the Chernobyl Zone’.

Voice 1 

We hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight program. Goodbye.

(Get our app for Android or for Apple devices. Let us know how you like it and write a review!)