Born in a nuclear wasteland..Maria, first baby to survive after

BABY Maria is just five weeks old but her place in history is assured. She is the most incredible child on earth...the first new life to spring from the debris of the world's most terrible nuclear disaster.

Maria Savenko is taking her first breaths in the middle of a wasteland of death. Her home is Chernobyl, the now barren birthplace of the world's greatest nuclear tragedy.

As pregnant women queue for scans for radiation after Thursday's near-catastrophic nuclear leak in Japan, Maria's mother Lydia cuddles her baby in a wooden hut in the "Dead Zone" - a 20-mile exclusion area thrown around the nuclear power station.

It was 13 years ago that Chernobyl's reactor No.4 exploded. Radioactive material equivalent to 500 of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima in World War II escaped into the atmosphere.

Within an hour the evacuation of more than 100,000 people from surrounding towns and villages had begun. But for many there was no escape from the radioactive fall-out.

More than 167,000 people are feared to have eventually died, some quickly, some from the slow, painful results of radiation sickness. A further three million are still suffering from radiation poisoning while generations will reap the whirlwind of Chernobyl in unexplained cancers.

Even now, radiation hot spots in the Dead Zone remain 200 times above the normal level. Yet despite the flat, cropless fields, the empty villages and the rusting machinery, the people came back - driven by an irresistible urge to return home. One by one they came, crawling through gaps in the barbed wire fence at night or by bribing the guards.

Officials turned a blind eye to the 1,000 or so "Samosiolis" (homecomers) who returned, but there was an unwritten code that no children would be born there.

Yet no-one accounted for an illicit affair between an unemployed engineer and a married cafe worker.

And on August 25 this most secret of liaisons unexpectedly produced Maria, More miraculous still, she is perfectly fit and healthy, despite being born in the shadow of the ruined Chernobyl plant.

From the beginning, Maria had to battle for life. Only a one-in-a- million medical mistake stopped her mother having an abortion. Doctors were convinced Lydia was not pregnant. They even gave her a written diagnosis saying she wasn't.

It could have been Lydia's age that helped fool them. She is 46. Whatever it was, the pregnancy was allowed to run its course, instead of the doctors insisting on an abortion.

The region's hospitals are already crammed with dying children - their bodies ravaged by indescribable cancers.

Today, holding her daughter in her arms, Lydia, an attractive redhead, doesn't feel she is lucky, only that she has been blessed. "You're a beautiful girl," she whispers. "A beautiful, beautiful girl. Don't cry. You're a good girl. Don't cry." Then she plants a gentle kiss on Maria's forehead.

The thought that she might be pregnant hadn't occurred to Lydia when she visited the local hospital last April complaining of stomach pains.

"They told me I had an infection in my uterus," she says. The truth of the matter was that she was five months pregnant.

"I began to suspect it a bit, but the doctor was adamant. He was certain it wasn't a pregnancy. He even showed me a document with the diagnosis."

Lydia was still not sure she was pregnant on the day Maria was born. The doctors had delivered their verdict, who was she to argue? So it was her partner, Mikhail Vedernikov, who delivered their daughter on the table of their tiny cottage.

"I was at home working and I didn't notice anything unusual. I just thought I was sick," says Lydia. "Then, my girl was born. It was at night. I didn't call anyone. Who do you call at night here, anyway?"

But there could be another reason for keeping Maria's birth to themselves. If Lydia and Mikhail had announced it to the world, they knew they ran enormous risks.

Even to have Maria examined by a doctor could result in her being taken away from them.

Lydia and Mikhail became conspirators, helping each other through the early days."Mikhail took the baby when she was born, tied his bellybutton, washed her and wrapped her up," says Lydia. "Then he took care of me."

Maria's birth was the high point of their lives together. Love had already led Lydia to leave her husband and put her life on the line inside the 6ft high barbed wire fence of the exclusion zone.

Mikhail, 46, who began work at the Chernobyl power station in 1979, refused to leave when the mass evacuation began seven years later. "I can't explain what having Maria has meant to me," he says. "This is pure happiness. There are three of us. Everything is all right." He has nicknamed his daughter Santa Maria, perfect for a living miracle. Just how long the miracle will last is open to question.

Maria is growing up in the most hostile environment on earth, although at first sight it seems deceptively normal.

Her parents' wooden-built home is basic but comfortable. A wooden cot and baby buggy stand in the sunshine.

There is a plot of land outside where they grow their own vegetables. Chickens and a pig called Mashka forage in the yard.

But it's not what you can see that carries the threat. Even inside the house, radiation levels remain up to 30 times above normal, sometimes much higher.

All around are forests of fir trees which turned red after the catastrophe. Junkyards still pockmark the countryside, piled high with irradiated vehicles.

The reactor itself is only slowly being rebuilt; it stands in an ocean of rubble.

Death stalks the Ukraine like an invisible executioner. Only last week, Pavlo Parashkov, 29, a technician, was found dead inside Chernobyl - the station's latest victim. And only yesterday it was revealed that another reactor in the Ukraine, at Khmelnytsky, has been shut down for emergency repairs to its failed cooling system.

With their new baby, Lydia and Mikhail are torn by indecision. Should they go? Or should they stay?

Already they have put their future in doubt by taking Maria in for a medical examination. Doctors found her to be "normal and healthy." A doctor told us the baby is OK," says Lydia.

In their hearts, Mikhail and Lydia want to remain inside the wire, even though, for most people, the exclusion zone is a place they wouldn't enter for all the money in the world.

"I want to go on living and working where I am," says Lydia. "Our child was born here."

Although Mikhail lost his job in the aftermath of the explosion, Lydia has found work in a cafe and intends going back there when Maria is old enough.

Like many in the Dead Zone, she has persuaded herself that the risks of living here have been exaggerated. She points to Mikhail, whose health remains good, even though he helped in the clean-up in the immediate aftermath of the accident.

She claims that the food they grow in their little plot - potatoes, cabbages, apples, even grapes - is perfectly safe.

"Look how nice these potatoes are," she says, picking up a handful of soil and letting it run through her fingers.

Only a couple of years ago, this same soil was too radioactive even to touch.

The evidence in favour of leaving seems overwhelming. Yet like most things in life, nothing is simple and cut and dried.

To leave would mean almost inevitable hardship for the little family. Incredible as it may seem, life outside the fence can be much tougher than it is inside the zone."Here it is possible to survive," says Lydia. "Living in town you plant something on your plot and next time you come, someone has taken all your crop. Here it's different. Everyone knows each other.

"Health is the most important thing. But I don't want to be thrown out into the street."

In the event, the decision will probably be taken out of their hands.

We were fortunate to penetrate the barrier of silence that has already been thrown up by the authorities. Passes for outsiders into the tightly-secured zone have now been blocked for those wishing to see Lydia and Mikhail.

Ukrainian state officials have already offered Lydia, Mikhail and Maria a place in a hostel outside the zone. But up to last week the family had turned the offer down.

Lydia is afraid that one day, "the authorities will just take us out quickly".

The writing may already be on the wall. "Personally I think she should be forced out of the zone," said local official Nikolai Dmitruk. "Living here is bad for her baby and herself."

Another official went even further. "Adults are aware of the risks, but to risk the life of your child is extraordinary."

But in her little wooden house Lydia clings on to her child and her life here. "This is our home," she says. "And Maria's my perfect girl. She wasn't planned but now she is loved and healthy."

Copyright 1999 MGN LTD
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