Chernobyl aftermath and its benefits
Something I did not mention in yesterday's post about the nuclear power accident of Chernobyl: the Chernobyl accident had a big impact on politics in Europe and on a much smaller scale a particular influence on the people of my city. Many will remember 1986 as a year of disasters: in summer 1986, after the Chernobyl incident, everyone was affected by the fear of radioactivity. The government had to take special measures to protect the population from radiation in contaminated food. And for the first time everyone - not only the enviromentalists - was concerned about safety of nuclear power technology. However, most people were simply blaming 'the Communists' or 'the Russians' for having bad technology and thus being responsible for an accident which according to then common belief would never have happened in the West.
Then, on 1st November 1986, we had a disastrous accident in a chemical plant near Basel [my city] which - in a global view - was nothing compared to Chernobyl, but to us Swiss, and to a lesser extent to the people living along the Rhine river in France, Germany and the Netherlands, that incident showed very clearly that disasters are not just happening in poorly maintained power plants in communist countries but also in Switzerland with its alleged highest safety standards. Similar to the Soviet people, we were lied to by the chemical industry and the government officials. They gave out wrong information about the incident and tried to cover it up.
1st November 1986
fire at chemical plant near Baseldead fish in Germany as a
consequence of the accident
Fortunately, those events led to a fundamental change in safety policies and crisis management on the part of government and corporations. Nowadays, the corporations are accurately informing the authorities even about the slightest incidents. There are sustainable safety concepts and measures. And the company responsible for the chemical accident in 1986 benefit a lot from the recovery from the accident. A subsidiary company took care of the contaminated soil and is now leading and very profitable in that field.
Nowadays, the incidents of 1986 look less dramatic and the enviromental movement of that time is often laughed at. But at that time, it was very shocking and for many people, it was the first time that they doubted government, big corporations and the reliability of corporate news. In Switzerland, life used to be calm and only few questioned the feeling of safety. After the shock of the chemical disaster, a lot of other scandals were revealed and there was a growing distrust in the people. Even if sometimes exaggerated, this widespread criticism and suspiciousness resulted in a analysis of safety, and led to more transparent communication and more political awareness.