About 3,000 residents of the Vitebsk region participated in the cleanup of the Chernobyl disaster
The first liquidation detachments from the Vitebsk region were led by police colonels Alexander Tomashev, awarded the Order of the Red Star for courage and selfless actions, Dmitry Avseevich, Veniamin Nareiko, Olgert Peterson, Vladimir Shcheglov, police lieutenant colonel Leonid Rapoport, and internal service major Nikolai Prusov, who was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honour and the Medal "For Courage".
In various years, a total of about 3,000 representatives from the Vitebsk region worked to eliminate the consequences of the Chernobyl accident – firefighters, military personnel, medical workers, and other specialists.
Today, 1,886 people with the status of victims of the Chernobyl disaster and other radiation accidents live in the region. Among them are 30 disabled individuals due to radiation exposure, 1,146 who worked at the power plant itself and within the 10-kilometer evacuation (exclusion) zone, and 710 from the primary and subsequent exclusion zones. Over the 30 years since the accident, the Vitebsk region has accepted 1,500 resettlers from contaminated areas.
In 2015, over 27 billion rubles were spent on implementing measures of the State Program to overcome the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster in the region, about 24 billion rubles for benefits and compensation payments, and in the first quarter of the current year – 6.1 billion rubles for preferential pensions and allowances. At the "Zhemchuzhina" children's rehabilitation and health resort, located in Borovka, Lepel district, about 7,000 children underwent health improvement last year, more than half of whom were from contaminated areas of the Gomel and Mogilev regions.