60,000 Evacuated in Byelorussia, Soviets Say

Several “dirty spots” of high radiation were found outside the Chernobyl danger zone in the Republic of Byelorussia, forcing the evacuation of more than 60,000 children from the area, the Communist Party newspaper Pravda said Wednesday.

It was the first time the Soviet press has acknowledged that emergency measures were required to deal with heavy radioactivity more than 19 miles from the nuclear plant where an explosion occurred on April 26.

The Pravda account, though skimpy in details, indicated that the after-effects from Chernobyl were more widespread than the first government reports acknowledged. The report did not indicate when the evacuation took place.

Most of the Soviet reporting on the Chernobyl disaster, the worst nuclear accident in history, has centered on the plight of people living south of the reactor, in the Ukraine. The Soviet media has reported that more than 90,000 people had been evacuated from that zone. But Wednesday’s report in Pravda dealt with areas of Byelorussia a few miles north of the disaster site.

The newspaper said in a report from Minsk, the capital of Byelorussia, that some wells were closed off, new wells were dug and portable showers were provided for farm workers. Thousands of children were evacuated from southern parts of the Gomel region, 90 miles north of Chernobyl, to northern Byelorussia, officials were quoted as saying. It was not clear whether they came from the danger zone.

Warnings on Food

Residents were warned against eating locally grown vegetables, Pravda said, and roads were washed down repeatedly to prevent the spread of radiation by road dust.

Byelorussia was in the path of winds blowing northwest that carried radioactive substances from Chernobyl in the first few days after the explosion and fire at the reactor. Afterward, Pravda said, farm tractors were provided with hermetically sealed cabs to protect drivers from radiation as they worked in the fields.

“Operation Children” was organized to remove infants and school-age children from the areas of high radiation, the newspaper said. A total of 4,000 places in Black Sea resort areas were reserved for them, it said.

Many people were hospitalized for health checks in Byelorussia, Pravda said, but most were released soon afterward and none showed any sign of radiation sickness.