Professor Alan Bode points out areas with massive amounts of radioactive particles near the Chernobyl power plant. Bode gave a presentation on the radiation effects of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster at Riverland Community College Monday.

Professor talks about effects of nuclear accidents

Nuclear accidents don’t just affect one nation.

That’s what professor Alan Bode of St. Catherine University, told Riverland Community College students, staff and local residents during a presentation on the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster Monday.

“We’re a global society,” Bode said.

Bode, the Radiography program director at St. Kate’s, has studied Chernobyl for a number of years and visited the accident site in 2006. His presentation comes at an opportune time for Riverland radiography students who are interested in the effects the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster will have on Japan.

“It brings to light what effects there are,” said Sandy Nauman, head of Riverland’s Radiography department. Nauman had asked Bode to present before Japan was rocked by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake in early March, which set off a tsunami that leveled much of the country’s northeastern coast and led to complications arising at the Fukushima Daiichi (11) nuclear power plant as three of the plant’s six reactors would not shut down, emitting radioactive particles into the atmosphere.

Professor Alan Bode discusses what type of radiation affected people near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

Vadym Bezkvovnyi, a second-year student in Riverland’s Collision Repair department, grew up in Ukraine about seven hours away from Chernobyl. Growing up, he heard stories from his parents about the accident and the fears and tragedies that came with it. Thyroid cancer, a decreased birth rate and other health complications became more prevalent after the Chernobyl disaster, according to Bode.

“We still have some problems with the health of our people,” Bezkvovnyi said.

Japan is no stranger to nuclear accident, having been the only nation to have nuclear bombs used against them. There are many stories of the damage to the country’s collective psyche caused by two atomic bombs dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II in August 1945. Along with a rise in leukemia cases across the country, the Japanese have been among the most critical world powers in terms of nuclear proliferation and the rise in nuclear energy.

Asuka Suzaki, a fourth year Riverland student, was in the area at the time of the Japanese earthquake on March 9. She said last month that while her family was fine, she wasn’t expecting so much devastation from the earthquake and tsunami. She now fears for those who are near the Fukushima power plant.

“It’s terrible,” Suzaki said of the country’s experience with atomic bombs. “It’s been haunting the Japanese people. I feel just terrible for the workers who are working at the power plant. They are so brave, because they still continue working.”

Bode said he’d like to go to the Fukushima plant one day, which he expects will take a long time to clean up. Clean up efforts at Chernobyl have stalled, as the containment vessel used to encase the Chernobyl plant is cracked in places and a replacement dome construction project likely won’t take place for at least another five years. Some areas of Chernobyl may never fully recover, as the half life of some radioactive particles, which is the time it takes to decrease by half its mass, can go for thousands of years. The same thing could happen to Japan.

Bode’s trip to Japan likely won’t take place for several years, as the cleanup efforts continue. The biggest problem he’s experienced in his work is the amount of bad information that’s coming out of the area. The information coming out of Fukushima is much more accurate than what happened at Chernobyl, where among false government statements and poor news stories, initial reports falsely claimed 2,000 had died and were buried in mass graves.

Still, it will be hard to understand how Fukushima will impact Japan and the world until the area is cleaned up.

“Having good information is just key,” Bode said.