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Workers cleaning up the site are dressed like surgeons, with white gowns, caps and mouth guards. They can spend no more than a few minutes in close proximity to the reactor. Crane and bulldozer operators are protected by lead shielding, while other equipment is operated by remote control. The work is so stressful and dangerous that cleanup crews labor for two weeks and then are given two weeks off at a rest camp called Lesnaya Polyana, which means "clearing in the woods."
Workers are still scooping up hundreds of acres of contaminated topsoil and trees, but the government is reportedly having trouble finding places to bury all the radioactive detritus. Water pollution remains a serious worry. Concrete barriers are being built to prevent contaminated water from streams and reservoirs near Chernobyl from seeping into the Dnieper River, which supplies half the drinking water for the Ukrainian capital of Kiev (pop. 2.4 million), 80 miles south of the reactor site. Bread and milk factories in the city are now getting their water from recently drilled artesian wells.
People evacuated from Chernobyl continue to be under close medical watch, and are subject to periodic examinations for signs of cancer and other radiation-caused illnesses. In addition, anyone who travels within 100 miles of the reactor site is tested for radioactivity.
It will be decades before all the effects of the world's worst nuclear- reactor accident, on both people and the environment, are known. Scientists are not sure of the total damage already done, and even less sure of what problems caused by the disaster will appear years from now. Indeed, Chernobyl is certain to cast a shadow across both the Soviet Union and the whole world for a long time to come.
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