Ukraine pays homage to Chernobyl catastrophe victims

[struggle4progress]

Source: Economic Times

UNITED NATIONS: UN chief Ban Ki-moon marked the 22nd anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine by pledging UN assistance for the stricken region's renewal ...

On April 26, 1986, reactor number 4 at Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, contaminating large parts of Europe but especially the then-Soviet republics of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.

Over 25,000 "liquidators" who worked on the ruined reactor and constructed a concrete sarcophagus enclosing it, have died since then, according to official figures ...

Read more: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/PoliticsNation/Ukraine_pays_homage_to_Chernobyl_catastrophe_victims/articleshow/2985504.cms

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22nd anniversary of Chernobyl disaster
Saturday, 26 April 2008 22:50

... The Irish-based Chernobyl Children's Project International has called on each of the 32 counties on the island to raise funds for victims of the Chernobyl disaster.

The founder of the project, Adi Roche, says her organisation wants to raise €1.6 million to build 32 homes that will house more than 300 children in Belarus.

The UN estimates that seven million people, half of them children, in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia were affected when a reactor exploded at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986.

Ukraine has being paying homage to victims of the Chernobyl nuclear explosion, described by Kiev as a global catastrophe ...

http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0426/chernobyl.html

22 years on, Welsh farms still under Chernobyl shadow
Apr 26 2008 by Darren Devine, Western Mail

UP to 359 Welsh farms are still operating under restrictions imposed in the wake of Chernobyl, more than two decades after the Soviet nuclear plant went into meltdown.

The Food Standards Agency Wales revealed the figure before today’s 22nd anniversary of the largest nuclear accident in history.

Upland farms in Wales were caught out by unfortunate circumstances in the wake of the disaster. Heavy rain washed radioactive material from clouds onto fields ...

For the hundreds of Welsh farmers still living with Chernobyl’s legacy, the restrictions mean their animals are only allowed to enter the food chain after rigorous safety tests ...
http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/news/wales-news/2008/04/26/22-years-on-welsh-farms-still-under-chernobyl-shadow-91466-20822842/

Belarusian graduates sent to work in Chernobyl zone against their will
The Associated Press
Published: April 26, 2008

MINSK, Belarus: Several thousand supporters of the beleaguered Belarusian opposition marched through the capital on Saturday to mark the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear accident and protest an alleged government cover-up of the disaster's consequences.

Many of the approximately 3,000 marchers expressed particular dismay over the government's policy of assigning recent university graduates to work in areas contaminated by the 1986 nuclear reactor explosion ...

Statistics about illness in the contaminated parts of Belarus — about 23 percent of its territory — are kept under wraps by the government of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko ...

"The government has abolished our benefits in order to bury us and the problems together. Lukashenko is simply burying those people who liquidated the disaster," said 56-year-old Valery Yagur, a protester who had been among the clean-up workers ...

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/04/26/europe/EU-GEN-Belarus-Chernobyl-Protest.php

Chernobyl 'reopened'
Article By:
Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:18

Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko on Wednesday inaugurated a nuclear waste storage and processing centre in the contaminated zone around the Chernobyl nuclear station ahead of the catastrophe's 22nd anniversary, his press service said.

The centre's first module, constructed with the European Commission's aid, would be launched by the end of the year, Valentin Melnichenko, a project official, told AFP.

He said it would be able to store up to 75 000 cubic metres of nuclear waste from Chernobyl and its surrounds.

The entire complex, which is due to be completed in "five to 10 years," will also allow storage and processing of radioactive waste from four nuclear power stations currently operational in Ukraine, he added ...

http://technology.iafrica.com/news/science/738728.htm

Chernobyl safety shelter planned

... For years, the original iron and concrete shelter that was hastily constructed over the reactor has been leaking radiation, cracking and threatening to collapse ...

The new shelter is just part of a broader $1.4 billion effort financed by international donors that began in 1997. The project involves fixing the current shelter, monitoring radiation, training experts and building a massive new steel shelter that will slide over the current structure ...

The old shelter, called a "sarcophagus," was built in just six months to cover the demolished reactor. But intense radiation has weakened the shelter, according to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It has also been damaged by the rainwater and snow that got inside through cracks in its roof, experts say.

Officials say that were a tornado or an earthquake to hit the area the shelter could collapse, releasing clouds of poisonous radioactive dust ...

http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5g4DIi3VPyftERsyxZUskOMs6ZuUA

Chernobyl Victims Struggle With Consequences of Radiation Exposure
On the 22nd anniversary of the nuclear-plant disaster, former workers say the Russian government adds to their suffering
By Alastair Gee
Posted April 24, 2008

MOSCOW—When the first explosion tore through the Chernobyl nuclear plant, at 1:23 a.m. on April 26, 1986, engineer Pyotr Palamarchuk was spun around by a shock wave. The second blast deafened him. Ceiling panels crashed to the floor, and the halls were filled with radioactive vapor. Nearby he found a coworker, Vladimir Shashenok, who had been doused in boiling water and radioactive steam from burst pipes. Palamarchuk carried him out and was burned on his back and arms where their bodies touched.

Shashenok died the same day. Palamarchuk, now 57, received over 800 roentgens of radiation—more than the level considered to be a fatal dose. He survived, though he has had over 15 operations, including skin grafts and a bone marrow transplant. His hair fell out, and his legs are covered in pitted scars.

And today he complains that he and others injured in the accident and subsequent cleanup, when emergency workers entombed the reactor in a concrete sarcophagus, must battle for benefits from the Russian government. They have already been stripped of many, notably the right to free healthcare. "In spite of all that we suffered, the health we sacrificed, the government doesn't deal with us with enough understanding," says Palamarchuk, who has formed a lobbying organization, Our Right ...

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/world/2008/04/24/chernobyl-victims-struggle-with-consequences-of-radiation-exposure.html

[LakeSamish706]

1. Somebody needs to figure out how to get the above post to the Bush Administration....

Between the Japan bombs and this it might wake these dumb asses up to what would happen if a Nuclear war were to break out.

[Mika]

2. Ukraine Thanks Cuba For Chernobyl Children Care

Ukraine Thanks Cuba For Chernobyl Children Care
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/30132/story.htm

Cuba has treated 18,153 children victims of the radiation fallout from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster, Ukraine's Health Minister Nykola Polischuk said on Tuesday.

For 15 years, children from Chernobyl have traveled to Cuba to be treated free of cost by Cuban doctors at the beach resort of Tarara, on the eastern outskirts of Havana.
The pale, sometimes bald, strikingly beautiful children can often be seen playing joyfully on the beach and splashing in the warm Caribbean sea.

They have been treated for cancers, kidney and thyroid ailments, digestive and nervous disorders, and the loss of hair and skin pigmentation.

"At a difficult moment for the people of Ukraine, Cuba was one of the first to extend a helping hand with health care for the children," Polischuk said at a ceremony marking the 15th anniversary of the Cuban program.

Ukrainian parents and children thanked Cuban President Fidel Castro, danced on a theater stage and recited poems by Cuban independence hero Jose Marti.

Communist Cuba began the program in 1990 and kept it going through its own economic meltdown following the collapse of its international sponsor, the Soviet Union.

Figures have never been released for the cost of the program, which Havana says is part of it international solidarity efforts that have sent tens of thousands of Cuban doctors to work in poor Third World countries.

Polischuk praised the quality of Cuba's medical system and its warm climate, which some specialists say has played a psychological role in the recovery of the children.

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