The hard rain came and Gavie woke up to a dreaded legacy

Press, 12 June 1986, Page 21

The hard rain came and Gavie woke up to a dreaded legacy

CHRIS MOSEY reports from the small Swedish community which was drenched in ' the radioactive wastes from the Chernobyl explosion.

As a bright sun beats down, cows still locked in their winter quarters chew disconsolately at last year’s hay, kicking their stalls in protest. Most of the lush grass in the meadows around this town on the east coast of Sweden will be harvested — and then burnt.

Already, thousands of gallons of milk have been poured away and t-shirts bearing the slogan Mjolk ar livet (Milk is Life), previously fashionable in the local farming community, are worn only as a joke. Chives, parsley, and dill stay unpicked in kitchen gardens, and children, before they are allowed out, are sternly warned that they should eat nothing growing outdoors. Inspectors with clicking instruments check grass in the town park. This is the legacy of the hard rain that fell on Gavie over two days at the end of April, a rain that would otherwise have been welcomed for washing away the last of the winter snow. As it is, there is fear andfdeep anxiety among the town’s 70,000 inhabitants and those living in the surrounding countryside. The rain on those two days in April brought with it substances the very existence of which few people in Gavie had previously been aware. They included Caesium 137, lodine 131, Plutonium 239, Rutenium 103, Barium 140, Cerium 141, Tellur 132, Lautan 140, Cirkonium 95, Niab 95, and Strontium 90. All are radioactive and all were blasted high into the air when the nuclear reactor exploded in Chernobyl on April 26, hundreds of kilometres to the south across the Baltic Sea in the Soviet Ukraine.

The plume of the explosion was carried by prevailing winds across the Baltic, remaining for two days more or less intact because of high atmospheric pressure. When this changed on April 28, it was deposited with the rain on Gavle and its surrounding countryside. Krister Persson, of the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, explains: “A raincloud sucks in air from an area perhaps 10 times its size. Substances contained in the air fall to earth with the rain.”

When the World Health Organisation released figures showing the highest concentrations of the long-life radioactive substance Caesium in the West after the Chernobyl disaster, sleepy Gavle was thrust into the world spotlight. It came at the very top of the list with 137,000 becquerels per square kilometre. This means that, in two days, the area received 27 times more radioactive material than during all the period of nuclear weapons testing since the war. West Germany came next with 35,000. At Trondheim, in Norway, 13,000 becquerels per kilometre were measured, in Finland 9000, in Scotland 2500 while in England the reading was only 15.

On May 16, grass in a park in Central Gavle was found to contain 200,000 becquerels per square metre. Maps of ground radiation levels in Sweden, produced by the National Radiation Protection Institute in Stockholm, show an ugly black stain over Gavle, turning progressively lighter the further away you get from the town.

On April 29, radiation in Gavle measured 600 micro-roentgens per hour. While between May 1 and 8 this fell to 300 to 400, the

reading was still 40 times above normal background radiation levels. Values were so high that at first it was thought measuring instruments must be faulty. Swedes are a stolid people not given to panic, and Gavle is a typical Swedish provincial town, most of its drab, functional buildings dating back to the 1950 s and 19605. Its night sreets are inhabited by only a few bored teenagers and the odd drunken middle-aged reveller from the Saturday night dance at the Grand Central Hotel. The town has its distinctive aroma, the smell of sulphite from the huge Korsnas-Marma pulp and paper plant which is the main local employer. Today, there is a mood of confused worry. The local council has opened a special telephone service to advise the public on radiation. Perhaps not surprisingly, most calls are from pregnant women. The advice they get is always reassuring. Gunnar Bengtsson, head of the Radiation Protection Institute, says people in Gavle are being told the amount of radiation they have been subjected to compares with a “medium to strong' X-ray examination. The adds that another 20 cancer cases could result from this in

the next 40 years, in addition to the 1.5 million cases nationwide estimated from other causes.

But people 1 in Gavie then ask questions such as: what are the risks to someone already subjected to radiation who is advised by a doctor that he or she should undergo an X-ray examination?

Bengtsson says only: “One must evaluate the need for the X-ray examination, the value of it. For people being examined for heart problems, for example, the gain from an X-ray examination far outweighs the risks.”

One of the main fears of people in the Gavle area now is for locally-grown produce. Yngve and Anna-Lisa Ostlund, who live 20 kilometres from town, have already decided to grow no vegetables this year. "We should have planted onions, beetroot, and carrots by now, but we’ve decided against it. We wouldn’t dare to eat what grew,” says Yngve. The cucumbers, tomatoes, and radishes already planted will be thrown away, as will all apples, pears, gooseberries, and blackcurrants.

“The worst is that we know so little,” says Yngve. “You can’t see or smell radiation, but it is still there.”

He points to his 18-month-old daughter Emma, playing happily in her sandpit. “She’s around the age when a child puts everything in the mouth,” says Yngve. “Now we have to stay with her to see what she doesn’t do this when she’s out.”

Anna-Lisa says: “The worst thing is that anxiety is mounting

the whole time. Immediately after the accident we were told there was nothing to worry about. Then new figures showed high amounts of radioactivity. What’s it going to be like later on? Will there be new and worse news?”

At their farm north of Gavle, Karl Maier and his son Michael allowed 2460 litres of milk to run to waste after it was found to be contaminated, despite the ban on open grazing. Grass growing in the area must now be harvested and burnt before cows can be allowed out to graze. The Swedish Government is compensating farmers for losses.

There is also unrest among army recruits drafted to the Gavle area for military

manoeuvres. One of them, Erik Ahsberg, says: “There is great concern among the soldiers. Cows have to be kept in, but they let us out. We have no idea how much radiation we are being subjected to.” Meanwhile, the main concern is for the young. Arne Axelsson has forbidden his six-year-old son, Jesper, to eat any fruit and vegetables this year.

“I tell him to wash his hands properly after he’s been out playing, but it is so terribly difficult to explain to a child that something you can’t see or. touch can be dangerous. You wonder what the effects will be on our children and grandchildren.” Copyright — London Observer Service.