World powers, spurred by the nuclear crisis in Japan, pledged 550 million euros (US$780 million) on Tuesday to help build a new containment shell at the site of the 1986 Chernobyl accident.
Ukraine had hoped for 740 million euros from governments and international organizations at a conference in Kiev, marking 25 years since the world’s worst nuclear accident.
Officials at the conference were optimistic more funds would still be found to make the Chernobyl site safe.
“This is what we have been able to raise through joint efforts — and we consider this figure preliminary — 550 million euros,” Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych said at the end of the pledging conference.
The world community has already put up a portion of the 1.39 billion euros for the total cost of building a new containment cover and facilities for storing radioactive waste from the reactor.
Though the sums pledged fell short of the 740 million euros still outstanding, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said that when all the pledges were in, it was possible the conference’s “very ambitious goal” would be achieved.
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced US$123 million in new funding to help make Chernobyl environmentally safe, on top of US$240 million already committed by Washington.
“The completion of two nuclear safety projects, construction of a new safe confinement shelter and a storage facility for spent fuel will help finally close this difficult chapter for the people of Ukraine and the region,” she said.
Ministers and officials from the G8 industrial nations and the EU took the lead at the conference, saying they were ready to fund a new giant encasement over the Chernobyl reactor that exploded in 1986.
The plan is to build a 110m high shell over Chernobyl’s No. 4 reactor, which blew up after a safety experiment went wrong.
Delegates also expressed solidarity with Tokyo’s efforts to control the crisis at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.
Japan’s ambassador told the gathering that “under the challenging circumstances” Tokyo would not be able to pledge additional funds to the Chernobyl effort.
Both the Chernobyl and the Fukushima crises showed that “nuclear accidents respect no borders,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said.
Yanukovych said the disaster at Chernobyl in 1986 had left Ukraine with a “deep wound which it will have to cope with for many years.”
In all, the EU bloc was providing half the funds required for Chernobyl “shelter and safety” projects.
The European Bank of Reconstruction and Development said it would commit 120 million euros and French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said his country would provide 47 million euros.
The new structure will cover the present makeshift shelter that is now beginning to leak radioactivity from hundreds of tonnes of radioactive material inside.
The donors’ conference launches a week of commemorations in Ukraine marking the disaster.
The official immediate death toll from Chernobyl was 31, but many more died of radiation-related sicknesses such as cancer.
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