Chernobyl's Messy Legacy Lingers

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Chernobyl's Messy Legacy Lingers

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By SERGEI SHARGORODSKY Associated Press Writer

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - Chernobyl radiation victims are still praying for better treatment. The leaky concrete-and-steel shelter covering the ruined reactor still needs repairs. And Ukraine says the plant won't be closed unless the West gives it $1.2 billion for two new reactors.

On the 13th anniversary of the world's worst nuclear accident, a grim legacy lingers from the explosion and fire at reactor No. 4 of Chernobyl's atomic power plant.

The accident - on April 26, 1986 - sent a radioactive cloud over much of Europe and contaminated large areas in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. The government now says 4,365 of those who took part in the hasty and poorly organized Soviet cleanup have died due to the disaster, and more than 70,000 Ukrainians are considered fully disabled by it.

At first, the downfall of the Soviet Union in 1991 provided hope for victims, offering promise that better treatment would be made available, that the protective cover would be made environmentally sound, and that an independent Ukraine would close the plant for good.

Years later, those hopes have been unfulfilled.

Ukraine has a terrible health legacy and scant finances to cope. Nearly 400,000 adults and 1.1 million children are entitled to government aid for Chernobyl-related health problems.

Yuriy Shcherbak, a medic who wrote a book on Chernobyl and later served as Ukraine's ambassador in the United States, said the anniversary today brought him a sad feeling of continuity.

``As an undefeatable evil ... Chernobyl will continue to exist for an indefinite period of time, posing ever new problems for mankind,'' he said.

Urged by the West, Ukraine pledged to shut down the plant by 2000. Now it seems unlikely that pledge will be carried out.

Last week, President Leonid Kuchma said it flat out: Chernobyl will continue to operate until the West provides Ukraine with the estimated $1.2 billion necessary to complete two new nuclear reactors to compensate for the loss of the electricity Chernobyl provides.

The Group of Seven richest nations promised aid in 1995 to help Ukraine close Chernobyl, but the nation, strapped for energy and cash, has complained that the money has been slow in coming.

Kuchma says the G-7 also should help Ukraine build nuclear waste depositories and compensate the 6,200 Chernobyl employees who will lose their jobs.

Ukraine's arguments seem to be linked more to its desperate financial position than on energy problems.

The nation is heavily dependent on its five nuclear plants - but of its 14 working reactors, only one is at Chernobyl.

The plant once had four reactors and plans for more. After the accident, reactor No. 4 was out of action. Another of the plant's Soviet-made reactors has been inactive since a 1991 fire and a third was stopped in 1996.

The working reactor, No. 3, has its own troubles. It underwent repairs for nearly three months and was restarted in March, only to suffer a daylong shutdown over a turbine generator malfunction later that month.

Work is slow on making the shelter over the exploded reactor environmentally safe, although international donors have pledged $400 million. Safety concerns also have delayed construction.

That work ``might take 50 and even 100 years,'' according to Shcherbak, who is Ukraine's coordinator at Chernobyl talks with the G-7.

The Ukrainian government says it is increasingly unable to bear the long-term costs of the disaster after spending $5.7 billion to deal with its consequences during Soviet times and more than $4 billion from 1992-97.

With Ukraine's economy declining since the Soviet collapse, state funding covered only an average 51.6 percent of Chernobyl relief needs from 1996-98. This year's budget allocation of $443 million is only a third of what is needed, according to Emergency Situations Minister Vasyl Durdynets.

In neighboring Belarus on Sunday, 7,000 protesters marched through the capital of Minsk demanding more attention for accident victims.

In eastern France, 400 people gathered Sunday near a nuclear reactor in Thionville to mark the Chernobyl anniversary and protest France's heavy reliance on atomic energy.

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