Invisible poison lies forgotten in Chernobyl-polluted Belarus

0 Comments | AFP, October, 2004

SIVITSA, Belarus (AFP) — "Radioactive contamination! Gathering mushrooms and berries allowed only if tested for radiation!" screams a billboard in front of the forest of Sivitsa, a Belarusian village within the zone polluted by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe.

But 18 years after the reactor explosion at the nuclear station in neighboring Ukraine, the warning falls on deaf ears.

Olga Baranova, a kindergarten teacher, certainly pays it no heed as she pulls on rubber boots and a violet anorak for a 70-kilometer (45-mile) trip from Minsk to the Sivitsa forest.

"Before they checked food for radiation. At first it was frightening. Now, we are used to it," she shrugged.

Olga would not take her basket to the village school's doctor, Marina Malyavskaya...