The leaders of Russia and Ukraine marked 25 years since the world’s worst nuclear disaster yesterday as they paid an historic visit to Chernobyl, dogged by new fears over atomic energy.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, making the first-ever visit by a Russian president to the now-defunct Chernobyl Atomic Power Station, and Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych paid tribute to the victims of the 1986 catastrophe.
They also called for greater security at atomic power stations after leaks at Japan’s earthquake and tsunami-damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant sparked new concerns over the potentially apocalyptic consequences of nuclear power.
Photo: Reuters
“We are marking a tragic date. Twenty-five years have passed and we have understood that nuclear accidents have colossal consequences for the population,” Yanukovych said. “The world has understood that such catastrophes cannot be fought by one country on its own.”
Medvedev, meanwhile, announced he had forwarded to international partners proposals for a new global nuclear safety convention to ensure the disasters of Fukushima and Chernobyl are not repeated.
However, he said nuclear power remained an essential energy resource.
“No one has offered so far new sources of energy,” Medvedev said.
He praised the sacrifice of the Soviet rescue workers, known as liquidators, who sought to minimize the effects of the disaster despite the risk to their own health.
“The consequences of this accident could have been extreme. They were huge as it is. We must remember this,” he said.
In extraordinary scenes, -Yanukovych and Medvedev spoke to dozens of reporters on a brilliant spring day as the birds sung and the disused hulk of the power station loomed in the background.
Earlier, at a nighttime service led by Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill in Kiev, a bell struck at 1:23am — the moment when the explosion struck — and tolled 25 times for the years that passed since the disaster.
Chernobyl continued producing energy until well after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Reactor No. 2 shut after a fire in 1991, reactor No. 1 closed in 1997, but reactor No. 3 went on working right up until December 2000.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko yesterday toured regions in Belarus contaminated by the Chernobyl fallout, staying away from ceremonies attended by his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts at the site.
Lukashenko had conspicuously decided to stay away from the joint commemorative ceremonies, choosing instead to tour his country’s farmlands polluted by the radioactive fallout.
“Visiting the country’s contaminated regions during the days of the Chernobyl tragedy has become a tradition,” Lukashenko’s press department said.
“The leader of the country spends several days every year here,” it said, noting Lukashenko visited the Brest region on Monday and was set to tour the Gomel region yesterday.
His spokespeople did not say why Lukashenko, who is known for his frequent public outbursts and walkouts, chose not to join his Russian and Ukrainian colleagues.
More than a quarter of Belarus’s territory was contaminated by the nuclear disaster and more than 460 villages had to be evacuated in its aftermath.
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