ECOLOGY AND NUCLEAR THREAT

 ECOLOGY AND NUCLEAR THREAT

The ecological consequences of the nuclear accident that took place in 1957 on the Russian nuclear plant “Mayak”, and its impact on the local residents - the Muslim Tatar population.

 The deadly armament race, launched by the Soviet Union and continued today by Russia, caused enormous damage to the lives of the indigenous peoples of Eurasia, most of them are the Muslims. 715 nuclear tests, made by the USSR, countless industrial accidents on the secret nuclear plants injured and killed so many people, that the average life expectancy in the radiation-contaminated regions today does not exceed 60 years. Russia left its own population to die by poisoning it with nuclear radiation. Each year Russia loses one million people; every hour one patient is being diagnosed with cancer disease. These numbers show the scale of the ecological damage, caused by the nuclear radiation.

  All around Russia there are numerous military plants, nuclear enterprises producing nuclear, chemical, biological weapons, abandoned nuclear storage facilities and dumps. But the most dangerous of them is the nuclear enterprise “Mayak”, that’s been producing military plutonium for the Russian nuclear bombs for 60 years. The nuclear wastes from all over Europe are also stored here. Today there are near 1 billion curie of nuclear wastes stored at the “Mayak” nuclear facility, 25 tons of plutonium-239 and near 200 tons of 90% enriched uranium-235. There are 30 tons of commercial plutonium, created from the recycling of nuclear fuel from the nuclear power plants and submarines. There are 331 nuclear dumps; 17 lakes heavily contaminated with hard nuclear wastes near the nuclear facility “Mayak”. Under the secret town of Ozersk, where the nuclear enterprise “Mayak” is located, there is a huge underground sea, overflowing with nuclear wastes. It is drifting towards the regional center Chelyabinsk with the speed 80 meters per year. The “Mayak” itself pours all its radioactive wastes into the river Techa, which through the bigger rivers Iset, Tobol, Irtysh and Ob reaches the Arctic Ocean. It means that the nuclear enterprise “Mayak” poisons with radiation the entire Ural region, Siberia, and the North Pole. The omissions of the inert gas krypton-85 stay in the atmosphere forever and cause deadly diseases. The photos made from the outer space showed that the nuclear plant “Mayak” is the most heavily polluted place on Earth. Considering the lethal danger caused by this kind of nuclear enterprises to the entire planet and humankind, it is vitally important to close the “Mayak” nuclear plant. 

 The terrible accident that happened in 1957 on the nuclear plant “Mayak”, when 150 million curies of nuclear radiation was thrown into the atmosphere, when 500 000 people got radiation, and 267, 000 square kilometers of land were contaminated, was a first serious warning to the mankind. This tragedy happened 30 years before Chernobyl and people didn’t know anything! During the years of perestroika the dreadful secrets of the soviet military machine were revealed, and people learned that all this time they lived in a deadly radioactive zone, and the cause of their strange diseases and numerous troubles was the nuclear plant “Mayak”. Today in the city of Ozersk, where the nuclear plant “Mayak” is situated, the level of cancer disease is 20% higher than around the country; 70% of the city residents and plant workers have psychiatric problems; the level of drug addiction here is 5 times higher than around the region. But the worst of all is that these inadequate people are engaged in the production of the weapons of mass destruction. 
The local population, mostly Muslim Tatars, living near the nuclear enterprise “Mayak”, suffered the most from its deadly activity. After several big nuclear accidents on the plant one part of the local residents was evacuated, while another part continued to live in the dead zone. It is the people of several Tatar villages of the Kunashak district of the Chelyabinsk region. The history of these large Tatar villages dates back to the ancient times.

One of them, once heavily populated Tatar village Muslyumovo, today is on the verge of extinction. The authorities started the evacuation of the village just recently, one year ago. In the village of Muslyumovo every fourth child has undergone mutation; every fifth child suffers from the heart disease and has respiratory problems; every sixth child suffers from the abdominal diseases; 70% of school children suffer from the mental retardation. Even those, born after 1997 have their blood marked with nuclear disease – leukemia. Almost all children in the Tatar village of Muslumovo are being born with some pathology - 90% suffer from anemia and zero immunity. In this village the death rate exceeds the birth rate: there are entire families that died from the radiation-caused diseases; the average life expectancy here is only 40-45 years.

 The residents of another Tatar village Tatar Karabulak live under the similar alarming conditions. Located only 30-40 kilometers from the “Mayak” enterprise, this village was the first to see the impacts from all nuclear accidents that took place on the plant. Once having 5, 000 residents this Tatar village has only 500 people left today - 90% of them suffer from cancer, the rest found peace in the nearby cemeteries. After the big 1957 nuclear accident on the nuclear plant “Mayak” the regional authorities of Chelyabinsk decided to evacuate the Tatar Karabulak village. The decision was made on September 29, 1959. However, the evacuation never took place. There is an assumption, that this village was left in the radioactive zone on purpose to experiment the influence of the nuclear radiation on human health. In the military archives of the USSSR the residents of the Tatar Karabulak village are called as “the experimental group to study genetic mutation caused by the chronic nuclear contamination”. In other words, these innocent people were used as guinea pigs in Russia’s nuclear lab. 

 Despite the fact that after the nuclear accident on the “Mayak” the nuclear cloud has passed over the Tatar Karabulak village, killing or poisoning almost everybody, the village people still can not convince the Russian authorities, that they are the victims of radiation. The Russian government does not want to recognize them as the victims and denies any help. According to the statistics in every family of the Tatar Karabulak village there are 5-6 people who died from cancer, stroke, heart attack, diabetes, or leukemia. Even young children have these diseases. It is the result of long living on the radiation-contaminated lands, where the radiation level reaches 100 curie per square meter! This terrible picture is seen all around the Kunashak district of the Chelyabinsk region.

 The residents of neighboring big industrial cities, such as Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Kurgan, Tyumen, where the number of the radiated and cancer-stroken people is over three millions, also suffer from the deadly activity of the “Mayak” nuclear enterprise! While the “Mayak” continues to work, the deafly statistics will increase, and radiation will endanger all the people of Eurasia. 




Therefore, the Tatar people, suffered from the deadly activity of the nuclear enterprise “Mayak”, demand:

• immediate closing of the nuclear enterprise “Mayak”;
• appointing international commission to monitor nuclear waste disposal in Russia;
• immediate evacuation of all nearby villages, including Tatar Karabulak, to the ecologically-safe place;
• providing displaced people with employment on the new place;
• all the residents of the contaminated villages, including Tatar Karabulak, should be recognized as victims of nuclear contamination, granted privileges equal to those of Chernobyl, and provided with state compensation.

We want to draw attention of the Muslim scientists and international community to this dangerous problem. Nuclear radiation is the cause of almost all ecological disasters on our planet, and it affects everybody. As the Muslims we carry full responsibility for the well-being of the planet Earth, left to us as a precious “amanah” by Allah. We should cooperate and help each other in solving the common problems. It is our religious and human duty. 

Dr. Fauziya Bayramova
Writer, Chairwoman of the Tatar National Independence Party “Ittifak”,
Executive Board Member of the World Congress of Tatars.


Contact information: Shamil Usmanova street, #49, Apt.81, Tatarstan, 423832, Russia.
Telephone: 7 (855) 235-26-31; 7 8 917 890 88 37 cell; e-mail: ittifak@yandex.ru