40 years after world's worst nuclear disaster: 'Death by a thousand cuts,' says Chornobyl survivor

KHUTORY, Ukraine - Petro Hurin says his health has never been the same since he was sent 40 years ago to clear the Chornobyl site in the wake of the world's worst nuclear accident.

He was among hundreds of thousands of 'liquidators' brought in to clean up after the explosion at reactor four of the Chornobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine on April 26, 1986. The disaster sent clouds of radioactive material across much of Europe.

Thirty-one plant workers and firemen died in the immediate aftermath, mostly from acute radiation sickness. Thousands more have since succumbed to radiation-related illnesses such as cancer, although the total death toll and long-term health effects remain a subject of intense debate.

At the time, Hurin worked for a business that supplied diggers and construction vehicles, which sent him to the Chornobyl exclusion zone in June 1986. Of the 40 people sent by his company, only five are alive today, he said.

"Not a single Chornobyl person is in good health," the 76-year-old said. "It's death by a thousand cuts."

Soviet authorities strove to conceal the extent of the Chornobyl disaster, refusing to cancel the May 1 parade in Kyiv, around 100 km (60 miles) to the south. Ukraine's current government has highlighted the Soviet authorities' bungled handling of the accident and attempts to cover up the disaster.

Hurin said some colleagues produced medical certificates to excuse themselves from serving in Chornobyl, but he was willing to help.

"I realised that, however small my contribution might be, I was doing my bit to help tame this atomic beast," he said.

HEADACHES, CHEST PAIN, BLEEDING

Working 12-hour shifts, Hurin used an excavator to load dry concrete mixed with lead – shipped to the site by river barge – onto trucks for transport to the reactor, where it was mixed to build a massive sarcophagus to contain the radiation.

"The dust was terrible," Hurin recalled. "You'd work for half an hour in a respirator, and it would end up looking (brown) like an onion."

After four days, Hurin said he began experiencing severe symptoms such as headaches, chest pain, bleeding and a metallic taste in his throat. Doctors treated him but after another shift, he could barely walk. He feared he had "a day or two" to live.

"I was brought to the hospital, and the doctors did a blood test first," Hurin said. "They pricked all my fingers and a pale liquid came out, but no blood."

Soviet doctors refused to diagnose radiation sickness, a finding he said was not permitted at the time. Instead, he was told he had vegetative-vascular dystonia, a nervous disorder often linked to stress.

Before the disaster, Hurin had never taken sick leave, but afterwards he spent around seven months going from one hospital to another to receive treatment, including a blood transfusion.

He says he has been diagnosed with anaemia - often linked to radiation sickness - angina, pancreatitis and a series of other conditions.

By the standards of his countrymen, Hurin has lived a long life. According to the World Health Organization, average life expectancy for men in Ukraine stood at 66 in 2021, having declined during COVID.

Now retired, Hurin lives with his wife Olha in central Ukraine's Cherkasy region. Although he suffers from health problems, he still plays the bayan – a type of accordion - and writes songs and poems.

He says he is fighting to access a special disability pension for 'liquidators' of the nuclear disaster.

Another catastrophe - Russia's 2022 invasion of his homeland - has come to dominate his life. He and his wife Olha regularly visit a memorial in nearby Kholodnyi Yar dedicated to their grandson, Andrii Vorobkalo, a Ukrainian soldier, who was killed three years ago in the war, aged 26.

After his daughter had left to work in Europe, Hurin and his wife raised Andrii from the age of four. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Andrii quit his job in Greece.

"He left everything behind and came to defend Ukraine," Hurin told Reuters, standing near the memorial stone dedicated to his grandson. "We think of Andrii all the time."

-Editing by Andrew Heavens/Reuters