Natalia Manzurova, “liquidator”, Chernobyl survivor
Audio 03:42
Chernobyl: reactor number 4 which exploded on April 28, 1986. Getty
By: Sophia Khatsenkova
8 min
Just 20 years ago, on December 15, 2000, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine closed, 14 years after humanity's most serious nuclear disaster.
More than 250,000 people were evacuated after the nuclear power plant accident while thousands of "liquidators" tried to contain the radioactive fallout.
Natalia Manzurova was one of them.
This is our European of the week.
Publicity
“
I haven't slept all night.
I replay all the scenes in my head.
As a professional, I now know what mistakes were made.
I think back to what could have been done differently, to all the people who died ...
"
34 years later, memories of the Chernobyl disaster still haunt Natalia Manzurova.
She is the only survivor of her team of liquidators, responsible between 1986 and 1991, to bury radioactive waste, without protection, but well paid.
All died from radiation-related cancers.
Declared disabled at only 42 years old, she has since suffered an ablation of the thyroid, a brain tumor, two clinical deaths ... Not to mention the psychological trauma.
“
I forgot what it was like to live without suffering.
Every day, every second something hurts me.
For two years, when my brain tumor was discovered, I sleep sitting up because lying down hurts so much.
"
Born into a family of nuclear workers, Natalia Manzurova was born in 1951 in the secret town of Oziorsk, created in the nuclear arms race in the aftermath of World War II.
She decides to become a researcher in a nuclear institute.
That is why she and her colleagues were sent to Chernobyl directly after the disaster.
But after four years as liquidator, Natalia Manzurova was dismissed because too often hospitalized.
Single mother of a little girl, she decides not to have any more children because she risks giving birth to a malformed baby because of radiation.
In the 1990s, she created an association that defends the victims of the Chernobyl disaster.
Then she joined forces with the NGO Planète d'Espoir, to defend the rights of radiation victims in Russia.
Its founder, lawyer Nadejda Koupetova, has been a political refugee in France since 2015, accused by the Russian government of being a foreign agent.
For her, the story of Natalia Manzurova goes well beyond Chernobyl.
“
This is the story of a person who did everything for society, but the government let go.
When a government or an industry needs human capital, they recruit people under the guise of patriotism.
Then they abandon them, and these people are left alone to face themselves.
"
Today Natalia Manzurova only receives the equivalent of 100 euros per month from her disability pension.
She feels betrayed by the state.
“
I am torn between two fights.
On the one hand, it was my job and I had to be there to help after the disaster.
But I have done my duty to society, so why am I being treated like this?
Among nuclear scientists, we have an expression when someone receives large doses of radiation
: we say: "to be burned".
Me, I was burned, I was used, and I was abandoned.
"
On each anniversary of the disaster, on April 26, Natalia Manzurova visited schools to warn young people of the risks of nuclear power.
For her, it is not a fight but rather an awareness.
“
Yes, nuclear power is the cleanest energy.
But nuclear power is also unpredictable.
It's like a monster that can come out of nowhere and cause a lot of damage.
And the nuclear lobby is doing everything to silence the number of victims, the damage done to nature, and to carry out its energy policy.
"
Since last year, Natalia Manzurova no longer has the right to teach in schools.
But the 69-year-old is not giving up.
His new project: to write a book to honor all the forgotten heroes of Chernobyl, sacrificed to save millions of other lives.
Newsletter
Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
Ukraine
On the same subject
Chernobyl drama survivors testify, 20 years after nuclear power plant shutdown