CHERNOBYL, Ukraine--Lyubov Oshurkevich felt the familiar pain when she watched news of the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in March and thought about the evacuees.
CHERNOBYL, Ukraine--Lyubov Oshurkevich felt the familiar pain when she watched news of the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in March and thought about the evacuees.That brought back the memories of April 26, 1986, when she and her family were forced to evacuate on buses from an area following the deadly fires and explosions at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.Oshurkevich, 53, is reflective on a recent return to her former home, to which she never returned to live."It is said that the accident at Fukushima was attributable to tsunami. But is nature the only cause of the accident?" Oshurkevich asks.Today, Chernobyl is located in the "zone," where entry is still limited, less than 20 kilometers from the dead nuclear power plant. In the city, about 3,000 people are currently employed doing radiation monitoring and other jobs.According to the Ukrainian government, 168 villages disappeared due to the effects of the Chernobyl disaster and the wide-scale evacuations.Notices carrying the names of those villages stand in the city's central plaza in alphabetical order. The notices were completed this spring, which marked the 25th anniversary of the accident.The key facilities of the government organizations for such work as radiation monitoring and ecological surveys are located in the city.As decontamination work has been intensively conducted in the city, city officials have been allowed to stay there. At present, they spend about half a month at a time in dormitories in the city.In the mornings and evenings, commuter buses run around the central plaza, giving the bustling area a feeling of life. There are also shops and churches there.Away from the central area of the city, visitors can see the realities of the zone. Abandoned wooden houses stand on both sides of the main street. Rusty boats, long abandoned, are moored along Prypiat River.After leaving the city on a tour in October, some visitors traveled toward the nuclear power plant, and arrived at the area where Kopachi village used to exist, about two kilometers from the plant. Trefoil-shaped signs implying radioactivity stand on a wild land. They read, "1,114 residents evacuated on May 3, 1986."Houses in the area were contaminated with radioactive materials from the nuclear accident. Therefore, they were forced to be dismantled and buried. The radiation level above one meter from the ground on a nearby road stood at about 0.7 microsievert per hour.Depending on contamination levels, the zones were mainly set up within a radius of 30 kilometers from the nuclear power plant.Inhabitation is, in principle, prohibited in the zones. However, people can visit there on sightseeing trips with permission.About 300 residents have illegally returned to their houses in the zones and are living there while working as farmers. Some have said that they did not grow accustomed to living in areas where they were forced to relocate to.A recent tour traveling to the zone arrived at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The construction of a new shielding dome for the No. 4 reactor that caused the accident was continuing. Dump trucks were coming and going. As a rumor was spreading that an additional 3,000 people will be employed, people living around the zones are experiencing growing hope.Oshurkevich has found a job in the zone, serving as a secretary to the director of a facility in Chernobyl city, which checks radiation contamination of food. Since three years ago, she has been living in an apartment building in Slavutych city, just outside the zone.On the tour, Oshurkevich finally found the apartment building her family used to live in, and said, "Oh! This is the building (in which we were living)." Her eyes were full of tears.The building is located in Prypiat city, about three kilometers northwest of the Chernobyl nuclear plant. The city vanished due to the nuclear accident. The nine-story apartment building her family used to live in has been abandoned, and today, it is as if the building is being swallowed by the forests.Oshurkevich made the sign of the cross in front of the building and ran into her family's apartment located on the second floor, which consists of a kitchen, a living room, a bedroom, a children's room and a terrace. The rooms have been ransacked, with wallpaper peeling and the windows broken.An ornament shelf in the living room was missing. Handrails and stone materials have been removed."Someone has sold them," Oshurkevich said with a sigh.Before the nuclear accident, Prypiat was a dream town of the former Soviet Union. It was established in 1970 as a town that supported the nuclear power plant and once had a population numbering about 50,000. Most of the residents worked at jobs related to the nuclear power plant."The salaries were five times those of the average workers," Oshurkevich recalled. "Most families had cars. My house also had two television sets."It made for an extremely luxurious life in the former Soviet Union where people had difficulties in buying goods even if they had the money. As the nuclear power plant supplied electricity to other Soviet republics and satellite countries, the Chernobyl plant was a symbol of the Soviet Union's power.Everything was available in Prypiat--not only schools and hospitals--but also hotels, cafes, and even a swimming pool for competitions.After graduating from a school in the city, Oshurkevich married, and, in 1985, was finally given the apartment. Children playing in the nearby park were clearly visible from her terrace.However, such a comfortable life did not last long. On April 26, 1986, the accident occurred at the Chernobyl plant. Residents in the city were forced to evacuate on buses under orders from the government, which were broadcast over the radio.At that time, residents were told that the evacuation would continue for "about three days." However, those three days turned into an eternity.After moving to various places one after another, including a home of another family in a town several tens of kilometers away, Oshurkevich's family was given an apartment in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine.In August this year, she was allowed to temporarily return to her former home in Prypiat for the first time. Though she wanted to take out many things from the apartment, she was prohibited from carrying out any furniture, or taking her car. Eventually, she lost all her favorite personal belongings and assets."I stayed there for about four hours. Though I was required to carry a dosimeter, my clothes were normal ones," she said of her visit.