Marking the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Ukraine renewed its calls for international donors to provide hundreds of millions of dollars to contain waste at the still dangerously radioactive site.
Viktor Yanukovich, Ukraine’s president, met on Tuesday with Dmitry Medvedev, his Russian counterpart, at the “sarcophagus” that was built to enclose the Chernobyl site in 1986.
Mr Yanukovich called upon the world to remember the terrifying days of April 1986, when one of the four nuclear reactors at the plant exploded, sending a cloud of radioactive particles across the western Soviet Union, Europe, Scandinavia and the eastern US.
“The events of this day showed that nobody, no matter where they are, can be assured of their safety … and the [recent] events at Japan’s Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant only confirmed this bitter truth,” Mr Yanukovich said.
Ukrainian authorities say the Chernobyl tragedy caused up to a million deaths, but estimates of the death toll vary dramatically. A United Nations report in 2006 estimated there could be up to 9,000 excess cancer deaths as a result of the disaster.
Victims included Soviet recovery workers who helped put out the initial fire and built a temporary confinement, as well as many ordinary citizens said to have died prematurely from diseases triggered by radiation.
Mr Yanukovich used his speech to underline the need to raise funds to build a long-term shelter for nuclear waste at the site. The existing sarcophagus is dilapidated and could leak or even collapse, triggering a large-scale radiation release.
“Chernobyl became a challenge of planetary proportions, a responsibility which lies on a united world community,” said Mr Yanukovich.
During an international donor’s conference held in Kiev last week, Ukraine raised €550m ($870m), short of the €740m that is needed to build a new shelter.
Officials from the Group of Eight industrial nations and the European Union took the lead in making pledges, with the EU offering €110m, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development €120m, and France €47m.
Cash-strapped Ukraine was hit particularly hard by the 2009 global recession, with gross domestic product plunging 15 per cent.
“We are thankful to you, Dmitry [Medvedev], that Russia made an honourable decision to donate €45m,” Mr Yanukovich said on Tuesday.
Without going into detail, Mr Yanukovich said that Ukraine had made progress closing the funding gap, and that guarantees of further support should help complete a new containment shelter encompassing Chernobyl’s reactor No. 4 by 2015.
The country still has four nuclear power plants in operation, from which it gets nearly half of its electric power. Environmental activists have criticised government plans to build two more new nuclear reactors in coming years based on Russian technology.
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ft.com