Contamination checkpoint at the Chernobyl plant. At the end of the day, workers check their hands and feet for radioactive contamination one last time before boarding the train home.My Chernobyl photos will be screened tomorrow night (Feb. 21) at the Montshire Museum of Science, in Norwich, Vermont.
Sunday's event is a reading of the play Voices from Chernobyl, based on the powerful book of reportage by Svetlana Alexievich.
Alexievich, a journalist from Belarus, spent years interviewing Chernobyl evacuees, liquidators (veterans) and scientists. She weaved together an incredible collection of first-person stories. If you are interested in Chernobyl, or nuclear power in general, this is the first book to read. I recommend the 2006 English translation by Keith Gessen.
The play is part of the noisy debate Vermont is having about the future of nuclear power in the state. The Vermont Legislature will vote next week to either relicense or decommission the 40-year-old Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant near Brattleboro, VT. In the past two months, there have been revelations that radioactive tritium has leaked underground below the plant.
The Sunday event starts at 7 pm at One Montshire Road, in Norwich. More details here.
