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U.N. "ignoring" Chernobyl

John Vidal

London: United Nations nuclear and health watchdogs have ignored evidence of deaths, cancers, mutations and other conditions following the Chernobyl accident, leading scientists and doctors have claimed in the run-up to the nuclear disaster's 20th anniversary next month.

In a series of reports about to be published, they will suggest that at least 30,000 persons are expected to die of cancers linked directly to severe radiation exposure in 1986 and up to 500,000 persons may have already died as a result of the world's worst environmental catastrophe.

But the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the World Health Organisation say that only 50 deaths can be directly attributed to the disaster, and that, at most, 4,000 persons may eventually die from the accident on April 26 1986. They say only nine children have died of thyroid cancers in 20 years.

— © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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