Ukraine President Renewing Chernobyl Area

Ukraine President Renewing Chernobyl Area



   
April 2007 - Today, on the 21st 
anniversary of the explosion and fire at Chernobyl that sent a 
radioactive cloud across Europe, the president of Ukraine 
urged the country to support renewal of the uninhabited, 
contaminated region around the closed reactor. 
"As chief of state," said President Viktor Yushchenko, "I 
insist that all executive bodies make it their priority to 
develop the contaminated territories, rehabilitate those 
affected by the accident and create favorable conditions for 
their activity." 
Yushchenko and a group of mourners prayed and lit candles 
before dawn to mark the precise time of the world's most 
devastating nuclear catastrophe, which occurred at 1:23 am on 
April 26, 1986. 
President Yushchenko addresses the nation from a school 
outside of Kiev. 
Speaking Wednesday at a school outside Kiev, Yushchenko said 
it is vital to introduce healthcare and economic reforms in 
that area and attract investment to revitalize it. 
"Chernobyl has no past tense in Ukraine. Its revival has been 
and will be our paramount goal," he said in an address that 
was broadcast live on Ukrainian television. "Our common 
obligation is to take care of the people touched by the 
Chernobyl sorrow." 
Twenty-one years ago, Chernobyl reactor No. 4 experienced a 
catastrophic steam explosion that resulted in a fire, a series 
of additional explosions, and a nuclear meltdown. 
A plume of radioactive fallout drifted over parts of the 
Western Soviet Union, Europe, and eastern North America. Large 
areas of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia were heavily 
contaminated, resulting in the evacuation and resettlement of 
over 336,000 people. 
A 30 kilometer (18 mile) zone around the plant remains closed 
to the public. It is located at Prypiat in northern Ukraine 
about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Kiev. The reactor is now 
crumbling beside an abandoned city that once housed some 
50,000 workers and their families. 
"This land must be revitalized," Yushchenko said. "We should 
look at it as having prospects, not with the feeling that this 
is a territory of Ukraine that has been erased from the map 
and which we must forget." 
Chernobyl reactor No. 4 after the accident showing the 
extenvironment newsive damage to the main reactor hall 
Prypiat and the surrounding area will not be safe for human 
habitation for several centuries, scientists say. The 
radioactive isotopes caesium-137 and strontium-90 released by 
the accident will take 300 years to decay to one thousandth of 
their present level. Scientists say that after the radioactive 
isotopces have reached this level, the area may be used for 
most human activities again. 
A project to build a new shelter to cover reactor No. 4 will 
begin "in several months," Yushchenko said. Work on the US$1.1 
billion (885 million euro) internationally funded project has 
been delayed repeatedly, although the hastily built current 
shelter of concrete and steel is crumbling. 
Yushchenko thanked the country's international partners for 
their assistance in dealing with the aftereffects of the 
blast. 
"We are deeply grateful for this support. We hope all the 
obligations assumed by the international community will be 
fulfilled," he said. "I am convinced we will succeed and see 
Ukraine prosper if we unite, particularly to resolve our 
Chernobyl problems. This is our obligation and our 
responsibility for posterity." 
President Viktor Yushchenko lays a wreath at a new monument 
commemorating those who died at Chernobyl. 

Thirty-one people died within the first two months of the 
Chernobyl disaster from illnesses caused by radioactivity. 
There is debate over the longer-term toll. 
The UN's World Health Organization has estimated that 9,300 
people will die from cancers caused by Chernobyl's radiation. 
Some groups, such as Greenpeace, believe the toll could be 10 
times higher. 
To mark the anniversary today, 30 Greenpeace activists from 
six European nations halted construction of the Electricite de 
France's proposed new European pressurized water reactor at 
Flamanville, France. 
Activists occupied cranes and used trucks to block the 
entrance at the construction site because they view the new 
type of reactor as "dangerous." 
"The proposed construction of such new reactors, which are 
likely to be the most dangerous in the world, is an insult to 
the memory of those who died in the immediate aftermath of 
Chernobyl, and the hundreds of thousands of people whose lives 
continue to be blighted by the disaster," said Frederic 
Marillier of Greenpeace France. Greenpeace activists lock
 themselves to a truck at the site of 
Electricite de France's European pressurized water reactor at 
Flamanville, France. 
"We're occupying the construction site to highlight the risk 
to all of Europe," said Marillier, "and we call upon the two 
candidates for France's presidential election to cancel the 
EPR project at Flamanville." 
A recent study commissioned by Greenpeace, shows that the new 
generation of EPR reactors have an inherently higher risk of 
serious radioactive contamination in the event of any 
accident. 
The study, produced by John Large Associates, found that the 
number of people affected and requiring evacuation following 
the 'most likely' of nuclear incidents at the Flamanville 
reactor would be about 660,000. 
In a worst-case scenario, the number of people requiring 
evacuation would increase to more than three million. 
Based on a nuclear industry document leaked last year, 
Greenpeace warns that European pressurized water reactor 
plants are vulnerable to terrorist attack. 

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