Photographer captures human cost of nuclear testing
By Kakumi Kobayashi
TOKYO, July 26 Kyodo - 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.''
==Kyodo
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