Ukrainians on Friday lit candles and laid flowers to remember the victims of the world’s worst nuclear disaster at Chernobyl 27 years ago, as engineers pressed on with efforts to permanently shield the stricken reactor.
On April 26, 1986, an explosion during testing sent radioactive fallout into the atmosphere that spread across Europe, particularly contaminating Belarus, Ukraine and Russia.
Dozens of people laid flowers and set lit candles in front of portraits at the monument to the Chernobyl victims in the small town of Slavutych, about 50km from the accident site, where many of the power station’s personnel used to live.
Photo: AFP
At the same time in the capital Kiev, officials and relatives of the victims also held a pre-dawn remembrance ceremony in front of a memorial.
“The memory of the tragedy calls for unity and consolidation of the efforts of the government and society to solve the problems in implementing projects to create an environmentally safe system at Chernobyl,” Ukranian President Viktor Yanukovych said in a statement.
“The countless women, men and children affected by radioactive contamination must never be forgotten,” UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said in a statement, urging worldwide “generosity” to the affected regions.
Ukraine last year launched the construction of a permanent shelter to replace the temporary concrete-and-steel edifice that was hastily erected after the disaster and which has since developed cracks.
“A new confinement is our future, this is something that we awaited for many years,” Alexander Novikov, deputy technical director for security at the Chernobyl power plant, told reporters on a visit to Chernobyl this week.
The 20,000-tonne arched structure that spans 257m, known as the new safe confinement, is designed to last for a century, and will contain high-tech equipment to carry out safe decontamination work inside the ruined reactor.
The construction of the new structure is expected to cost 990 million euros (US$1.3 billion), while the decontamination work on the site will push the total cost up to 1.5 billion euros.
Completion of the new shelter is expected in October 2015.
The plant’s management said it will also soon begin construction of a temporary cover over the section of Chernobyl plant where a part of the roof collapsed this winter under the weight of fallen snow.
Novikov emphasized that the section, which collapsed in February, was not the part of the sarcophagus structure covering the exploded reactor.
“The project work is almost completed and we will start construction of temporary cover to close the hole that appeared,” he said.
The general manager of the Chernobyl plant, Igor Gramotkin, added the collapse of the roof section once again underlined the need for the rapid completion of a new arch over the stricken reactor.
Chernobyl is only about 100km from Kiev and lies close to the borders with Russia and Belarus.
The area around the plant is still very contaminated and is designated as a depopulated “exclusion zone.”
The Soviet Union ordered thousands of people to take part in the clean-up in Ukraine following the Chernobyl accident, working without adequate protection.
Although only two people were killed in the initial explosions, the UN atomic agency says that 28 rescue workers died of radiation sickness in the first three months after the accident.
According to Ukrainian official figures, more than 25,000 of the cleanup workers, known as “liquidators” from then-Soviet Ukraine, Russia and Belarus have died after the disaster.
However the true scale of the death toll directly attributable to the disaster remains the subject of bitter scientific debate.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the