It was April 26, 1986 , 38 years ago exactly, when the most serious nuclear accident in the history of humanity broke out in Chernobyl , with a number of victims that is still difficult to determine today due to the long-term effects of radiation and the difficulty in accurately tracking the illnesses and deaths associated with the accident.
A UN estimate speaks of 4,000 victims , but many experts speak of a substantial underestimate.
In the areas of radioactive contamination there were 3,678 inhabited settlements, with a population of 2.2 million people; as many as 479 of these settlements, mostly small villages, have ceased to exist.
137,700 people were evacuated from the areas affected by the Chernobyl catastrophe , but at the same time as the evacuation and organized resettlement it is estimated that around 200,000 people left the contaminated areas independently. Even today, almost forty years later, the exclusion zone around the nuclear power plant, in which it is no longer possible to live, is almost 3000 square kilometers.
And if Chernobyl was destruction, death and anguish, it was also the beginning of a broad solidarity movement aimed at temporarily hosting children from contaminated areas so as to encourage an exchange of air that would allow them to drastically reduce the absorption of radioactivity in the body, thanks to permanence in an uncontaminated environment and a diet free of radionuclides.
From the early 90s until 2020, Italy, doing more than all the other countries put together, welcomed around 600,000 Belarusian children and over 100,000 Ukrainian children, as part of the so-called "Chernobyl Projects", welcoming alone over 60 % of all children hosted abroad.
A page of concrete solidarity that arrives on the big screen in the docufilm " The Storks of Chernobyl " (Italy, 2024, 69') directed by the Cagliari director Karim Galici in a production of Citizens of the World Cinema for Social with the support of the Sardinia Foundation and with the collaboration of RAI TECHE.
The documentary brings to light a poetic reflection on what Chernobyl was by telling some of the beautiful stories born thanks to the welcome and solidarity of Italian families.
Starting from the accident of 26 April 1986, the documentary ventures a few kilometers from the power station, following the traces of a survivor who leads the crew towards his native home evacuated almost forty years ago, and then collects the testimony of a man intervened to put out the fires that broke out immediately after the explosion. And then the story of the rebirth stories of children, now young adults, forever marked by that April 26, 1986, the date of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
Different paths and figures alternate in the film: like the three brothers, who after growing up separated in three orphanages find themselves united by a large extended Italian family; the girl who, through training, finds work and stability in Sardinia , but decides to return to her homeland for love , or the two little girls who became best friends after being welcomed by Grandma Barbara, with whom they continue to remain in close contact as two real grandchildren.
(Unioneonline/vl)