Tomorrow (April 26) 25 years ago the worst nuclear disaster ever took place. The international nuclear event scale classified it as level 7 accident (with 7 being the worst possible). It all took place in Chernobyl in the former USSR (now Ukraine) and affected great parts of Europe in some way and still shows effects in the Chernobyl area.
This post is not about historic facts since I believe that there are already many good posts and websites out there that cover this topic (or check it out on Wikipedia). This is just about what I remember and how I experienced everything and how it influenced me at that time and afterwards.
“Something bad happened”
When the disaster in Chernobyl happened I was four years old. One should think to young to remember things in detail but I guess such meaningful and important events even get into the mind of a four year old kid. I remember that my parents told me that “something bad happened” in Russia and that we children are not allowed to play outside for a few days and that we had to avoid sand playing grounds and things like that. My parents, of course, did not try to explain everything in great detail to me. I was four years old…so why bother with details?
Besides that I, of course, was able to listen to the radio or see the news my parents watched on TV. And those pictures went straight into my head and stayed there forever. The same thing happened with the radio news that said that nobody knows how bad the accident and it’s effects really will be and if we in Europe all might have to suffer from terrible consequences when the weather and wind turn out to be bad for a few days. I still remember that many people were hoping for rain since this would “clean” the air. At least that was my first thought so I hoped for it too. Some of the last memories about my childhood experience with the Chernobyl incident are that I was thinking about what bad things could happen to us. What would happen if the “bad air” comes to us and what it would be like to lose people you love or even your life. Strange and hard thoughts for a four year old. I even remember that I wrote them down and how I tried to fight these feelings and to pretend that nothing is bothering me.
25 years Chernobyl - remembrance t-shirt
Life goes on
After all I was only 4 years old and – just like right now with the japanese tragedy – life had to go on. As time passed by more and more pictures of dead people showed up in the news and the totally destroyed landscape became kind of a memorial for all the bad things that nuclear meltdowns cause. When days and weeks became months more and more famous stars of that time tried to jump on the “nuclear power is bad” (I am not arguing though) train and published topic related and critical songs. Even one of my favorite groups of that time (singing in German) published a song that took care of the Chernobyl effects. It had quite a nice melody so I was singing it all the time without really understanding what I was singing in the first place. Took me some time to realize that it was a really sad song.
After even more time passed pictures and news of people and children that suffered from and became handicapped because of the nuclear disaster appeared and stayed very picturesque in my mind.
When history repeats itself
When thinking about what happened 25 years ago in the former USSR and when seeing what happens now in Japan it is actually kind of sad that mankind (politicians in particular) seem to not have learned anything from the past. I suppose that straight after Chernobyl there was a similar mood all over the world. Everybody was against nuclear power plants….and yet they are still there. Up and running. 25 years after. This leaves only very little faith for changes after the Fukushima incident a few weeks ago in Japan.
