Long Island Tour Group Back From Ukraine: ‘Kiev Was a Blast’

A suburban New York tour group that visited within 60 miles of the Chernobyl nuclear accident cut short its trip and returned home Friday, greeted by T-shirts emblazoned with “Kiev Was a Blast” and a battery of radiation tests.

The 18 teen-agers and 13 adults from the Long Island communities of Garden City and Roslyn arrived at Kennedy International Airport shortly before 5 p.m. aboard a Finnair jetliner from Finland. Radiation tests were begun immediately, since the travelers had gone to Kiev in the Ukraine about the time of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, 60 miles to the north.

In a large airport room, officials from the state Health Department and Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y., passed radiation meters over the tourists’ skin, hair, clothing and shoes. Their thyroid glands were also tested to determine if there was any concentration of radioactive iodine.

A state Health Department spokeswoman said it was expected that the tests would reveal only minute quantities of radioactive material.

During the testing, there was almost a party atmosphere in the airport room. Judith Cashman of Garden City, waiting for her 17-year-old daughter, Debbie, had T-shirts made up for all 18 youngsters. On the front was printed, “Chernobyl U,” and on the back, “Kiev was a Blast 1986.”