- this is an old article and quote... the problem is decades old and has gotten much worse.
Independent Outside the administration building there is a statue of Prometheus. Prometheus, according to Greek myth, stole fire from the heavens, gave it to humans and was punished severely for his deed.
After seeing the consequences of a nuclear disaster, 14 years after Chernobyl exploded, Prometheus seems an appropriate metaphor. As one observer remarked: ``The nearest safe nuclear reactor is 93 million miles away - it's the sun.''The World Health Organisation estimates that the blast released 200 times more radioactive material than the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. According to the WHO, large areas of land are still unusable and up to nine million people in the three most affected countries have been affected.
Perhaps most tragically, the children exposed to radiation are showing huge increases in certain types of cancer and other illnesses.
We are no closer to detoxifying nuclear wastes today than we were in 1945.