Greenpeace opens photo exhibition on nuclear waste dumping

One day before the 19th anniversary of Chernobil Greenpeace opens a photo exhibition in Budapest on Mayak, the largest and most polluted Russian nuclear facility. The pictures present the life in the nearbying villages. The opening ceremony is attended by two Mayak vilagers, both seriously demaged by the radioactive sewagewater of the nuclear reprocessing plant.

Hungary is also responsible for those people’s sufferings. It transported it’s spent nuclear fuel to Mayak for dumping until 1998 and wants now to renew this dirty practice. Until 1998 the waste of Paks NPP Hungary’s only nuclear powerplant was sent to Mayak. Than the Surpreme Court of Russia ruled the practice of radioactive waste import illegal according to the Russian laws. Since that time the spent fuel of Paks Nuclear Plant is stored in an intermediate storage next to the powerplant. Having still no final solution for the high radioactive waste Hungary seeks again for dumping possibilities in Russia. 4 days before Hungary’s EU accession the two countries made an agreement on further radioactive waste transports to Russia. The timing speaks for itself. This agreement heavily hurts several EU regulations.

Mayak is located in the South of Ural mountains near Cheljabinsk - some 1400 Kilometres from Moscow. Mayak has started as military plutonium production plant after the Second World War. Later it become the center of spent nuclear fuel reprocession from commercial nuclear powerplants. Reprocession is the dirtiest and most dangerous part of the nuclear industry. During its 40 years operation Mayak realised 350 millions Curie radioactive material to the nearbying Techa river. It is four times more than the radioactive realise at the Chernobil catastrophy. Every second woman is infertile and every third baby is born with inborn abnormality.

Gosman Kabirov and Raimzis Faizullin - two vilager of Muslimovo near Mayak - arrived to Budapest to be there at the opening ceremony. They have got a haircut forming the symbol of radioactive danger. "I have got radioactive material in my body. I am radiating. That is why I wear this warning sign. I am myself a radioactive waste." He added:"The other reason to come here is that on Tuesday the 26th we try to meet Mr. Ferenc Gyurcsány, the Prime Minister of Hungary. We already collected 5000 protest signatures, againts the hungarian radwaste transport to Majak, what the Prime Minister got through the organisation Eco defense.We are in Budapest, because people have to know that the waste of their power-stations would kill us.” >>

The exhibition can be seen in the container of a truck specially built for accommodating exhibitions. The exhibition-truck allowed Greenpeace to reach a wide public by moving the pictures along the route of the nuclear waste transports from Paks to the Ukrainian-Hungarian border at Zahony. After a week long stay in Budapest from 25th April until 1st of May the exhibition-truck continues its work in the Czech Republic.

Greenpeace pushes for a switch for renewable energy sources and demands the shut down of Paks Nuclear Powerplant as soon as possible.