Locals eating radioactive food 30 years after Chernobyl

[NeoGreen]

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/locals-eating-radioactive-food-30-years-after-chernoby-greenpeace-tests/1/615672.html

People in affected areas are still coming into daily contact with dangerously high levels of radiation from the April, 1986 explosion at the nuclear plant that sent a plume of radioactive fallout across large swathes of Europe.

Economic crises convulsing Russia, Ukraine and Belarus mean testing in areas contaminated by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster has been cut or restricted, Greenpeace said, and people continue to eat and drink foods with dangerously high radiation levels.

According to scientific tests conducted on behalf of the environmental campaigning group, overall contamination from key isotopes such as caesium-137 and strontium-90 has fallen somewhat, but lingers, especially in places such as forests.

People in affected areas are still coming into daily contact with dangerously high levels of radiation from the April, 1986 explosion at the nuclear plant that sent a plume of radioactive fallout across large swathes of Europe.

"It is in what they eat and what they drink. It is in the wood they use for construction and burn to keep warm," the Greenpeace report, entitled "Nuclear Scars: The Lasting legacies of Chernobyl and Fukushima" says.

The research report seen by Reuters ahead of publication on Wednesday said Ukraine "no longer has sufficient funds to finance the programmes needed to properly protect the public... this means the radiation exposure of people still living in the contaminated areas is likely increasing."