Ahead of the 40th anniversary of Chornobyl, The Mirror visits Bala, Wales, where pollution from the horror blast caused years of upheaval for the peaceful farming community, and left a devastating legacy
Those living in the lush green mountains of Gwynedd, Wales, have a word for the chill winds that sweep from the East – Gwynt traed y meirw, which translates as “wind from the feet of the dead”.
So muses Gwyn Roberts, who, on April 26, 1986, was a young farmer of 26 years old, diligently filling out his diary with notes on the weather when a catastrophe unfolded more than 2,000 miles away.
Little did Gwyn know then that an explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Ukrainian SSR, would have devastating effects on his peaceful home of Bala, resulting in crippled livelihoods, and decades of fear over local health.
The explosion in reactor four at 1.23 am was a scene straight out of hell. As the plant went up in flames, deadly radiation poured into the night sky, drifting across Europe to affect parts of Scotland, Cumbria and Wales. It is estimated that Chernobyl released 400 times more radioactive material than the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
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Rainclouds carried radioactive particles of caesium-137, a synthetic isotope. The acidic, peaty soil of North Wales soaked up these particles, contaminating the vegetation. In the following weeks, the UK Government imposed a ban on sheep sales across parts of North Wales, Cumbria and Scotland. For the agricultural community, the impact was profound.
Locals in the historic market town of Bala, recall a biblical downpour, unaware of the invisible danger. “It was horrendous rain, heavy straight down rain that day,” Gwyn, now 66, who was working a ditching job at the time, tells The Mirror.
“We didn’t know anything about these accidents at the time. I couldn’t go outside, so I stood in the doorway of the machine and peed through the door. It’s only afterwards we knew that this rain was supposed to be from Chernobyl.”
While the memory of that rain remains frightening, experts suggest the immediate physical risk was low. Professor Jim Smith, of Environmental Science at the University of Portsmouth, says the external dose from rain on your skin and clothes would be extremely small.
He said: “If you drank a litre of rainwater at those levels, you would get a dose about the tenth of the annual natural radiation dose we get on average in the UK.”
While Professor Smith, who has worked for more than 30 years on the environmental impact of radioactive pollutants, would not advise drinking it, he says that even sipping down a litre of the stuff “wouldn’t have a really significant risk”.
The economic blow for farmers hit by the sheep sales ban was secondary to a growing fear locally: a potential rise in cancer cases. In 2013, the county’s local health board confirmed that Gwynedd had higher than average rates of breast cancer, as well as both rectal cancer.
Rectal cancer cases per 100,000 of population stood at 29.8 in the county compared with 19.2 for the rest of Wales, while the same cancer in women stood at 9.5 compared with 8.8 across the country. Breast cancer rates stand at 128.6 compared with 113.2 for Wales as a whole.
The late Dr Ian Roberts is a name that crops up repeatedly during the Mirror’s visit to Bala. The family GP, who served the community for more tha 30 years, was convinced of a hotspot in the area.
Former MP Elfyn Llwyd recalls Dr Roberts had a “list of cancer patients, especially women with breast cancer, which saw a huge increase in this area during that time”. When asked by the Mirror as to Dr Roberts’ thoughts on the connection between the radiation and the cluster of cancers, Mr Llwyd said: “He was convinced that was the cause.”
In 2006, Newcastle University researchers found increases in thyroid cancer rates among children in northern England. After looking at rates before and after the fallout, scientists determined there were increases across the area, including a 12-fold escalation in Cumbria, which was worst hit. Professor Louise Palmer, who led the study, asserted that these findings were “consistent with a causal association with the Chernobyl accident”.
And in 2013, an investigation by Wales This Week for ITV1 Wales claimed that over a 25-year period, cancer cases in the Trawsfynydd area, also in Gwynedd, were 25 per cent higher than the average for Wales and England. John Urquart, an expert in the spread of diseases, claimed the Chernobyl cloud was responsible for 1,000 infant deaths in Britain.
Farmer Huw Roberts, 71, worked in the so-called “dirty” or “dead zone” – an area of farmland in Bala contaminated by the deadly caesium 137 – and has had lymphoma and Non-Hodgkin’s. He said: “I did ask the oncologist at the time, and he said it could be Chernobyl. A lot of my friends and relatives have had losses with cancer.”
Despite local fears, experts remain sceptical of a direct link between Chernobyl and UK cancer clusters. Dr Andy Gaya, an oncologist from London’s Cromwell Hospital, says there has been “no documented increase in cancer as a result of the Chernobyl meltdown” within the UK, adding: “There was an increase in cancer cases after Chernobyl but this was largely limited to nearby cities in Ukraine and Belarus.
“The cancer increase was mainly thyroid cancer, often in children, from contaminated radioactive iodine in food, after the explosion. There was also a small increase in leukaemia. In addition, workers at the plant who were exposed to very high levels of radiation do have an excess risk of cancers.”
Professor Jones says disentangling a cancer cluster is “really difficult”, nothing that factors like social deprivation, smoking, or even organophosphate sheep dips could be the true culprits. He notes: “Although it is theoretically possible that caesium fallout did cause a cluster, the probability or likelihood is really quite low.” He continued: “The bottom line is we will never know for sure, but Chernobyl fallout would not be top of my list, rather I’d look closer to home for the answer.”
Gwynn tells us that he knows many people who have died of cancer in the area, including many instances of throat and breast cancer. His mother had liver cancer, while his grandfather had prostate cancer.
Glyn also struggled with his health in the years that followed Chernobyl. He told us: “I remember about 10 years after, I went through a spell, where I was very stiff for about three months. I lost some weight. So I think the doctor was adamant that there was something in my body that shouldn’t be there.”
In true Welsh tradition, Glyn had been visiting the local church ahead of a friend’s wedding on that ‘misty, showery night” when Chernobyl exploded. It was towards the end of May when, while taking sheep to the market, he learned his animals were unsellable.
The farmer, now 71, said: “There was concern because if we could not sell our animals, that would have a devastating effect on an already strained cash flow. And another important thing was that we, as agricultural farmers, didn’t want to sell our lamps or beef if they were contaminated because our prime objective was to make sure that the meat that our customers are eating is of prime quality and safe.”
Thousands of sheep were slaughtered after the incident to prevent any contamination from entering the food chain. Each lamb or cow had to be scanned for caesium before being deemed safe for human consumption, and could only go to the market for slaughter if they passed.
Glyn explained that the moss and the peat soil found in the mountains meant that lambs grazing there tended to contain more caesium. “The price was poor, obviously. The dealers could take advantage of this; they’d take them to the lowlands, fatten them, and they could sell them.”
Forty years on from the disaster, the link between the Welsh mountains and Chernobyl remains a haunting piece of history. Former MP Elfyn Llwyd, who has visited the site, remembers breaking down at the sight of children’s dolls left scattered at desolate evacuation sites.
He went on to chair a group that invites children from Ukraine to Wales for a holiday, and believes the tragedy serves as a permanent warning. “I think it also shows that radioactivity and toxins don’t observe boundaries,” he notes. “One mistake, and a huge swathe of countries will suffer. That’s the lesson.”
At the time of the disaster, reports emerged in Bala of sheep born with unusual birth defects, while farmers conducting their own at-home experiments claim they came across some startling findings.
According to Gwynn, a local man by the name of Ned, now in his 80s, became known as the ‘radiation man’ in the area after he found radiation in the milk from his own cow, which he had been using at his own kitchen table. While The Mirror was unable to track the mystery man down on our visit, it’s clear that serious concerns remain among Bala locals about potential health implications of the tragedy.
Chornobyl Children International reports that by 2015, experts had noted a 200 per cent rise in birth defects among children born in the Chernobyl fallout area since 1986, plus a 250 per cent increase in congenital birth deformities. The organisation also reported a 38 per cent hike in malignant tumours, a 43 per cent rise in blood circulatory illnesses, and a 63 per cent increase in bone, muscle, and connective tissue system disorders.
While talk of radiation might sound alarming, Professor Smith believes the doses in Wales are likely to have been too mild to have had horrifying impacts.
Smith said that while the average dose to the UK population from Chernobyl is estimated at about 0.1 mSv, the more affected areas, including North Wales, saw around six times this on average, although he notes that this doesn’t necessarily mean some people didn’t receive higher doses.
Putting this into perspective, the professor, who authored the book Chernobyl: Catastrophe and Consequences, explained: “If you get a CT scan, you get about 10 mSv.” Smith also pointed to the example of Cornwall, where “high natural uranium in the rock they can get up to say five, six, seven MsVs per year”.
Meanwhile, Dr Dyfed Huws, director of public health for the Gwynedd Local Health Board, previously blamed Gwynedd’s higher levels of social deprivation for the country’s higher rates for certain cancers.
He said: “We are concerned about quite high levels of smoking and alcohol use, which are just above the average for Ceredigion and Gwynedd. We have a slightly higher rate in several different cancers, breast and male and female rectal – these are the major ones.”
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