CHERNOBYL The disaster at the Chernobyl plant haunts not only Ukraine but also neighboring Belarus, which bore the brunt of the fallout. Over 1 million Belarusians still live on contaminated land. In the southeastern Gomel region, where the damage was greatest, regular thyroid checkups are a fact of life.
In the regional capital of Gomel, Svetlana Zaitseva was relieved to get the results of a recent ultrasound. "Your thyroid has some swelling, but it's stable," a doctor at the Republican Research Center for Radiation Medicine and Human Ecology informed her.
