Photographer captures human cost of nuclear testing

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

Photographer captures human cost of nuclear testing

TOKYO, July 26 (Kyodo) - By: Kakumi Kobayashi The single eye of a 
cyclops baby preserved in a jar of formalin gazes out, unblinking. 
Beside it, the eyeless face of a severely disfigured boy seems to 
melt from his head, the swollen eyebrows and cheeks blinding him 
permanently. 

These were some of the disturbing images of deformities at a recent 
exhibition in Tokyo by photographer Takashi Morizumi, who traveled to 
Kazakstan to document what he believes is the tragic legacy of four 
decades of nuclear weapons tests there by the former Soviet Union. 

''Is it right to show shocking photos of deformed children?'' 
Morizumi asked, standing by a shot of a hydrocephalus baby with a 
balloon-sized head, frozen in a silent, black-and-white scream. 

Since 1994, Morizumi has made six trips to villages near a Soviet 
nuclear test site located about 150 kilometers west of the eastern 
Kazakstan city of Semey, which was called Semipalatinsk by the 
Soviets. 

According to a 1998 U.N. report, the Soviet Union exploded about 500 
nuclear devices at the test site over a 40-year period, and 1.6 
million people were exposed to radiation from the tests. 

''Making and using nuclear weapons should be a matter for God alone, 
since they can affect and destroy human genes,'' said Morizumi, 49, 
who suspects the deformities have been caused by radiation from the 
site. 

On Aug. 30, 1994, Morizumi met Berik, the disfigured boy, in a 
darkened room in his home in the village of Znamenka, more than 2,700 
km southeast of Moscow. His professionalism was briefly overcome by 
the shock of Berik's appearance, and he was unable to photograph the 
boy until Yuri Kuidin, a Kazak photographer who took Morizumi to the 
village, reminded him why they had come. 

''That was the start of my coverage of deformed babies and diseases 
in the Semipalatinsk region (now the east Kazakstan region) 
apparently caused by radiation,'' said Morizumi, who returned in May 
from India, where he documented similar birth defects and illnesses 
among people living near a uranium mine. 

Morizumi said in an interview that he saw several deformed children 
born to miners there, including a boy with only one leg and another 
with a misshapen mouth. He believes the defects were due to radiation 
emitted by waste from the mine. 

In his trips to Kazakstan, Morizumi found that many Kazaks were 
ignorant about the dangers of radiation released over the 40 years of 
nuclear testing. Scientists have estimated the combined power of the 
explosions to be 1,100 times that of the atomic bomb that was dropped 
on Hiroshima. The genetic and health effects on locals of so many 
years of exposure are unknown. 

''I still don't know what the exact relationship is between radiation 
emitted during the tests and the physical effects on babies born near 
the site,'' said Morizumi, who has also documented the issue of U.S. 
military bases in Japan during his 17 years of freelance photography. 


''Those questions have driven me to visit Kazakstan many times. I've 
heard that most of the official documents on the testing were seized 
by Russian authorities after the Soviet Union dissolved.'' 

The exhibition, held in a public hall in the city of Tama, western 
Tokyo, featured about 10 photos, some of which simply showed 
ordinary, quaint aspects of rural Kazak life that Morizumi included 
for balance. 

''Recently, I began doubting whether the shocking photos I had taken 
could really help the movement to abolish nuclear weapons,'' Morizumi 
said, adding that he admires an understated 1997 film by a Japanese 
photographer about the aftereffects of Chernobyl, the world's worst 
nuclear accident. 

Yet in January last year, leading Japanese publisher Kodansha Ltd. 
awarded Morizumi a grand prize for his Kazakstan photos, which were 
reproduced in his ''Semipalatinsk,'' a 1999 book that served as a 
basis for the Tama show. 

Seiichi Motohashi directed the film ''Nadya's Village,'' the story of 
an 8-year-old girl living in a Belorussian village located more than 
100 km north of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine that 
exploded in 1986. 

''I found few direct messages blasting the accident or sloppy 
management of the nuclear reactor in the film. Yet I could understand 
Mr. Motohashi's anger over the accident,'' Morizumi said. 

The 118-minute film portrays the life of Nadya, her family and 
neighbors, who ignored government warnings and stayed on their lands 
despite contamination by high levels of radiation. 

''That kind of 'silent' work may be a way to move people,'' Morizumi 
said. ''You need lots of energy to see some of my photos of deformed 
children. I may have given people too great a shock for them to speak 
out and take action against nuclear weapons.'' 

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Sandy Perle					Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100   				    	
Director, Technical				Extension 2306 				     	
ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Division		Fax:(714) 668-3149 	                   		    
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