STEVE GURR PROFILE DRAFT- ENGLISH 2010
NUCLEAR POWER-
CHERNOBYL SURVIVOR
SHARES HER STORY
In the early morning hours of April 26, 1986, the
Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine
exploded, creating what has been described as the
worst nuclear disaster the world has ever seen.
9/25/2017
Located about 81 miles north of the city of Kiev,
Ukraine, and about 12 miles south of the border
with Belarus, the four reactors at the Chernobyl
Nuclear Power Plant were designed and built
during the 1970s and 1980s. A manmade
reservoir, roughly 8.5 square miles in size and fed
by the Pripyat River, was created to provide
cooling water for the reactor.
Explosions killed two plant workers, who were
the first of several workers to die within hours of
the accident. For the next several days, as
emergency crews tried desperately to contain the
fires and radiation leaks, the death toll climbed as
plant workers succumbed to acute radiation
sickness.
Manzurova was a 35 year-old nuclear engineer in
Russia when she was assigned to be part of the
clean-up crew at Chernoby
Despite her training, Manzurova did not fully
comprehend the dangers. On a preliminary visit
to Chernobyl soon after the disaster, she stood out
amidst the slew of workers dressed in anti-
contamination suits.

During her four and a half years burying

contaminated houses, plants and animals,
Manzurova would come to experience the
noxious effects of nuclear power firsthand. She
bears the Chernobyl necklacetwo scars on
her neck from operations to remove cancer from
her thyroid.
I arrived in a short dress and sandals. I had no
idea what I was going in for, she said.

Women are twice as sensitive to contracting

cancer of the thyroid and breast [from ionizing
radiation] than men, and of course, you have the
offspring, Alvarez said
Manzurova began her work as a so-called
liquidator at Chernobyl in August 1987; her job
was to help clean up Pripyat, a city located just 3
kilometers from the reactor whose entire
population of 50,000 was evacuated after the
disaster.
Exposures during that period [pregnancy] are much
more serious than they would be for an adult, and that
youre looking at the probability for raising the risk of
childhood cancer and things like that.

The International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA)

estimates 4,000 cancer deaths among the individuals
most highly exposed to radiation at Chernobyl and
another 5,000 in peripheral populations.

Several separate studies predict much higher numbers. A

2006 Greenpeace report based on national health
statistics from neighboring Belarus estimates 93,000
fatal cancer cases in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia.
 Citation

Chernobyl Survivor Shares Story, Advice for Japan

Pulitzer Center, 2011. Web. 25 Sept. 2017.
Works cited