Debate over the Chernobyl death toll, the benefits of "people-centred" early warning systems, the risk of more displacement in W. Africa, and one very good reason to clean your plate...

Today’s the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster - the world’s worst nuclear accident - which was triggered by a faulty safety test and made worse by a design flaw. In the past week or so, one hotly debated topic has been the international and scientific communities’ inability to agree on a likely death toll from the tragedy. Estimates range from 9,000 (the United Nations) to 93,000 (Greenpeace).

Last year, there was some surprise when a U.N. report estimated that up to 4,000 of the 600,000 people exposed to high levels of radiation could ultimately die as a direct result of the disaster, along with another 5,000 of 6.8 million who received a lower dose. This was way below previous predictions. So far, 62 deaths have been directly attributed to the Chernobyl accident.

Last week, environmental group Greenpeace issued a report saying that the death toll is likely to be much higher – 93,000 from cancer alone, and 200,000 if other illnesses are included. This has stirred up a row with political implications for nuclear power.

A spokesperson for the World Health Organisation told the BBC that the discrepancy between the figures arises from a key difference in the geographical area used for calculation – the Greenpeace report looks at the whole of Europe whereas the U.N. focused on the most affected areas in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.

Another recent report from independent researchers and commissioned by a German member of the European Parliament recommended that the WHO should study how the disaster has impacted on nations beyond those directly affected, predicting that cancer deaths this century could reach 30,000-60,000.

Blake Lee-Harwood, campaigns director at Greenpeace, acknowledged the technical discrepancy between the studies, but also accused the nuclear industry of having a "vested interest in playing down Chernobyl because it's an embarrassment to them".

Former Chernobyl director Viktor Bryukhanov seems to concur that professional interests have got in the way of people learning the truth. Speaking in a rare interview with Russia's Profil magazine this week, he alleged that official investigations into the cause of the disaster had been a whitewash designed to exonerate the nuclear industry.

Nature magazine has dedicated a special report to looking at the argument over the death toll, in which one scientist said it will be virtually impossible to assess the total correctly, due to the difficulty of determining the cause of cancer deaths. But putting aside the numbers game, the United Nations Development Programme argues in the magazine that the most serious impact has been on the mental health of the some 7 million people labelled as accident victims.

The U.N. report on Chernobyl said myths about the threat of radiation have created a “paralysing fatalism” among inhabitants of the affected areas, and UNDP argues that government aid has created a culture of dependency. “We go to communities where people have just given up,” Louisa Vinton, who manages Chernobyl projects at UNDP, told Nature. The best way out of this situation is to invest money in local regeneration projects and infrastructure projects, the U.N. believes.

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Sticking with disasters – this time natural ones – meteorology researchers have been meeting at the American Meteorological Society's annual Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology to chin-wag about how better to get people to react to warnings about severe weather events. One academic pointed to the difference in language and terminology between “the scientists and the risk-management folks”.

Telling people what kind of destruction a storm could actually bring – for example, that it could wreck mobile homes – is one way of making people understand, said a Florida weather forecaster. On the other hand, delegates agreed that dire warnings should be used with caution.

A trip to Cuba could help devise a more effective strategy for the U.S. authorities – when a series of hurricanes raked the Caribbean in 2004, at least 2,000 people were killed and hundreds of thousands left homeless. The worst hit country was Haiti, whereas in Cuba, the death toll was four.

The Red Cross puts this down to the excellence of Cuba’s meteorological institute, its system of civil protection committees and high levels of education and hurricane awareness. It stresses that the technology of early warning is the easy part – making it “people-centred” is the real challenge. The response to Hurricane Katrina highlighted what can happen when some people are left out of the loop.

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The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre is ringing the alarm bell on West Africa, where it says conservative estimates put the current number of people displaced in their own countries by conflict at around a million. In a report released today, it says urgent efforts are needed to address the region’s “acute potential for spiralling instability and massive population movements”.

It calls on both West African governments to improve their response to displacement and on the international community to help prevent and end conflicts. While major wars have now stopped in Liberia and Sierra Leone, smaller-scale conflicts and violence are ongoing in many West African states.

Peace remains fragile, and factors that could trigger renewed violence in the region include: political volatility in Ivory Coast and Guinea, the inequitable distribution of the proceeds from natural resources amid poverty and the widespread availability of arms.

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If you like to frequent ‘all you can eat’ buffets and often leave food on your plate, an initiative at the Obalende Suya Express restaurant in northeast London might make you think twice. At this Nigerian restaurant, anyone who doesn’t eat up is required to pay a £2.50 ($4.50) fine, which goes to the local Oxfam shop.

Restaurant owner Toks Odebunmi told Britain’s Guardian newspaper: “Lots of people in Africa don’t have the opportunity to see this amount of food, let alone buy it.” His wife added: "We came up with the charge to make customers think about poverty." Unsurprisingly, food wastage at the restaurant has stopped since the surcharge was introduced. But that, of course, means less money for Oxfam...

Megan Rowling
AlertNet journalist