Contaminated Belgium

Once there was life, today the social dessert in abandoned: this is Doel, a small town not far from Anversa, symbol of a Belgium contaminated from where pollution from the ghosts of a nuclear past risk the disappearance of an entire community. Giovanni Masini visited Doel at the end of 2017, together with photographer Ivo Saglietti. The reality of the situation immortalised by their reporting is disturbing: new piping and infrastructure projects, which serve to threaten Doel’s survival, raising alarms as to the safety of one of the reactors at the local nuclear power plant.

In Aquisgrana, which is located in Germany, in 2017 the authorities ordered that entire population of the area be administered with iodine: this was done in order to be protected from possible nuclear incidents, done in response to the alarm raised by the Doel nuclear plant. In the Belgium town there is almost no one left, with almost everyone having moved elsewhere. The construction of a new pier could literally remove it from the map. In the meantime, those left behind, live within a polluted nightmare: the report therefore details how, in the last few years, this Belgium pollution threatens the existence the existence of an entire community.