The Rain of May 1, 1986
A sunny day in Herăstrău, an unexpected rainstorm and the personal echo of the Chernobyl disaster.
For many people, the Chernobyl disaster was a shock seen on television or heard about on the radio. For me, it also acquired a personal dimension, linked to a day I have never been able to forget.
A year earlier, in 1985, I had undergone thyroid surgery. Some nodules that had grown very large had become visible at the base of my neck, and the doctors had decided to remove one lobe of the thyroid. I was therefore going through a period in which, quite naturally, this issue concerned me more than it otherwise would have.
It was Thursday, May 1, 1986, a public holiday. The weather was splendid, and I decided to take my six-year-old son for a walk in Herăstrău. We took the tram from Piața Moghioroș to Ștrandul Tineretului, by Șosea, and from there, crossing Șoseaua Kiseleff, we entered the park. The landing stage was nearby, and renting a boat on the lake seemed like a good idea.
My son was delighted. I even let him row for a little while, mostly as a game, and we went around the island in the middle of the lake. Everything seemed calm, bright, almost festive.
But at around eleven o’clock the sky suddenly changed. Black clouds gathered, and it became clear that rain was coming. Like many others, we hurried back to the landing stage.
The first drops began to fall as we were trying to leave the park. Unfortunately, we chose a more roundabout route and reached the Arc de Triomphe just as the rain had become heavy. Running, we took shelter at the Cașin Monastery, together with many other people caught by the weather.
There, as people talked among themselves, I learned that the radio had advised everyone not to leave home, especially in the rain. It was not difficult to understand that those raindrops were considered dangerous. We did not know exactly what we were being contaminated with, or where the danger came from, but the suspicion was inevitable.
When the rain stopped and the sun came out again, we hurried onto an overcrowded tram, full of people who had gone out to enjoy the holiday and were now trying to get home.
At home, my wife was waiting for us in a state of extreme anxiety. A long shower was mandatory for both of us. Then the phone calls from New York began. Anca, following Tibi’s advice—he was a doctor—urged me to start taking iodine, precisely me, who had recently had serious thyroid problems. Naturally, iodine was nowhere to be found.
The reason for the recommendation was easy to understand. In a nuclear accident, radioactive iodine is among the substances that can be released into the atmosphere. The thyroid uses iodine to produce hormones and does not distinguish between stable and radioactive iodine. If radioactive iodine is inhaled or ingested, it can accumulate in the gland and increase the risk of thyroid cancer.
Stable iodine, taken at the proper time and on the advice of public-health authorities, can reduce the thyroid’s absorption of radioactive iodine. It does not, however, protect against other radioactive substances or protect the rest of the body. For me, having so recently undergone thyroid surgery, all this made the concern even greater.
I do not know, and probably never will know, to what extent that contaminated rain affected my health or my son’s. But the emotion of that day—the feeling that a distant catastrophe had literally fallen upon us—has never faded from my memory.
Years later, when I reached Brasimone and learned more about the history of the ENEA centre, Chernobyl returned to my memory not only as a major historical event, but also as that May Day rain in which I had found myself on the streets of Bucharest together with my child.