Radiation Victim in Russia

Siraniya Hasanova from Tatarskaya Karabolka shows the portrait of her deceased daughter. She had been diagnosed with liver cancer due to radiation exposure at the age of one, and finally succumbed to the disease at the age of six. There are many people throughout the contaminated region who suffer from similar and other radiation related illnesses.

Unique identifier: GP0STOMJ3

Type: Image

Shoot date: 28/09/2014

Locations: Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia

Credit line: © Greenpeace / Liza Udilova

Ranking: ★★★★ (E)

Containers

Shoot:

Radioactive Contamination from Mayak Nuclear Facility in Russia

The Techa River has been heavily contaminated by multiple accidents, discharges, and routine releases from the Federal State Unitary Enterprise ‘Production Enterprise Mayak’ (the FSUE ‘PE Mayak’), a spent nuclear fuel reprocessing facility in the Chelyabinsk province in the South Urals, Russia. One of the worst of the accidents at Mayak was the Kyshtym disaster on 29 September 1957, during which a spent nuclear fuel tank exploded, spewing massive amounts of radiological contamination. Although there is no direct dumping today, the river remains heavily contaminated with radiological pollution, and continues to be polluted through routine discharges from Mayak via bypass canals and the filtrate of Dam 11. Communities not evacuated in the wake of the disasters are forced to continue living in a heavily radioactive environment.

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