PHOTOS: Russia's Radioactive River

Brewing a Cup

Photograph by Denis Sinyakov, Reuters

Gelani Dombayev and his cat enjoy a cup of tea, and a moment of normalcy, in their Muslyumovo village home in Russia. A 50-year medical study has followed some 30,000 people who live near the Techa River in an effort to uncover the serious health risks, including cancer, caused by exposure to radioactive wastes from the nearby Mayak nuclear facility.

While use of the river for drinking, bathing, and agriculture were officially banned in 1953, Muslyumovo’s residents were kept in the dark for decades about their exposure to deadly radioactive materials. Water use continued, and environmental exposures mounted, even as serious illnesses became disturbingly common among the population.

The study has shown significantly higher occurrences of leukemia and other cancers among these people, in addition to many other adverse health effects.

Published December 20, 2010

Measuring Radioactive Waste

Photograph by Denis Sinyakov, Reuters

An anti-nuclear activist with Greenpeace Germany picks through discarded tires to measure a more insidious waste—high radiation levels on the banks of the Techa River in Russia’s Ural Mountains.

The Mayak nuclearl complex, one of the former Soviet Union’s secretive and closed “plutonium cities,” once used the river for disposal, making it one of the world’s worst dumping grounds for nuclear waste.

Mayak was established during the early days of the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons program and dumped an estimated 2.75 million curies of radioactive waste directly into the Techa River between 1949 and 1956.

(See photos of rivers around the world.)

Published December 20, 2010

Walking a Lonely Road

Photograph by Denis Sinyakov, Reuters

A villager walks near his old home in the village of Muslyumovo, where many such houses have now been abandoned.

The Mayak nuclear complex, located some 18 miles (30 kilometers) from the village, has made the river and its environs one of the most contaminated nuclear waste sites on Earth.

When the Mayak facility opened in the late 1940s more than three dozen settlements dotted the nearby Techa River basin, with a total population of about 124,000. The residents depended on the river as their primary, or only, source of drinking and household water.

(Read more about the connection between water and nuclear energy in "Nuclear Reactors, Dams at Risk Due to Global Warming.")

Published December 20, 2010

Alik Nuryshev at Home

Photograph by Denis Sinyakov, Reuters

Alik Nuryshev, 20, sits with a relative in his house in the village of Muslyumovo. Nuryshev has epilepsy and cerebral palsy, which may be the result of severe radioactive contamination in the region that began as early as 1949.

The poisoned Techa River was used not only for drinking but for raising livestock, irrigating crops, bathing, and supporting a local fish population. Its sediments remain highly contaminated and tainted floodplain soils that wash up during storms and floods have now become a source of radioactive materials.

Published December 20, 2010

Moving a Log Home

Photograph by Denis Sinyakov, Reuters

Men pull up stakes in the Russian village of Muslyumovo, literally disassembling an older home so that it can be moved from the heavily contaminated region to a new location.

A nearby nuclear weapons facility began poisoning the Techa River in 1949 and a 1951 flood moved the contamination on shore. Floodplain areas where cattle were raised, hay grown, and kitchen vegetable gardens tended were saturated—contaminating much of the local food supply.

Published December 20, 2010

Graves in a Grassy Field

Photograph by Denis Sinyakov, Reuters

The deceased rest peacefully in a new cemetery in the Russian village of Muslyumovo, where for more than half a century residents have paid the price for accidental and intentional releases of radioactive wastes into their water supply.

Published December 20, 2010