Chernobyl lives on in Europe

Press, 8 July 1986, Page 10

Chernobyl lives on in Europe

NZPA-AP Frankfurt Ten weeks after the Chernobyl nuclear accident, many Europeans still have to choose their food carefully and are haunted by predictions of increased cancer rates. Since the Soviet reactor sent a radioactive cloud over central and western Europe after an explosion and fire on April 26 in the Ukraine, the short-lived radioactive element iodine has dissipated. Some researchers warn of a long-term threat of caesium, an element which can persist for decades in the environment and is a known cause of cancer.

A physicist at West Germany’s Oldenburg University, Heinz Helmens, who

helped test soil and produce after- the accident, said caesium levels would have to be thousands of times above normal to pose an acute health hazard.

He added: "Over the long term we are going to see thousands of cancer cases in both Germanies that could be traced to Chernobyl.”

Various studies have found that fall-out levels remain high in parts of Europe. Soil samples taken in parts of the West German state of Bavaria turned up caesium contamination hundreds of times above normal.

Other West German studies have found higher-

than-normal levels of caesium in game meat, mushrooms, fresh-water fish, berries and some dairy products such as buttermilk, say radiation researchers.

An East German study in June commissioned by West German television found radioactivity 30 to 50 times above normal in milk, meat and soil in the nations north. Milk .and meat samples in the Plauen region of southern East Germany showed radioactivity 30 to 300 times normal. In France, official and private assessments of radiation levels and potential health hazards differ sharply. In Britain, the Health and Social Security Department said in a report that the nuclear accident was likely to trigger some increase in cancer deaths over the next 50 years. It said more precise predictions could not be made until better data was available on how much radioactivity Britain absorbed. Officials in the Sovietallied, east European nations, such as Poland and Czechoslovakia, acknowledge high counts from the fall-out are still found in game meat and wild berries. In Britain, the Government last week lifted a ban on the movement and slaughter of 550,000 sheep in parts of Wales and north-western England, but similar restrictions on 2.16 million sheep in other areas remain.

In sheep-raising regions of Britain, tests late last month found that some substances were emitting as much as 2000 becquerels (a measure of radioactivity). The internationally recommended safe level is 1000 becquerels. In Sweden and Finland, health officials have recommended that people eat as little as possible of certain fresh-water fish.

In Austria, cheese is bannedvfrom grocery shelves., 1