Monday March 19 1:54 PM ET
Key Director at Chernobyl Fired
Key Director at Chernobyl Fired
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - The director of the concrete-and-steel
sarcophagus that encases Chernobyl's ruined nuclear reactor has
been fired, an official said Monday. Following international pressure, Ukraine closed down the
Chernobyl nuclear plant for good in December, but work to prevent
further environmental damage is continuing at the station. The chief of the sarcophagus, Valentyn Kupny, was dismissed on
Thursday due to a ``gross violation of labor duties,'' Stanislav
Shekstelo, Chernobyl's spokesman, said, without specifying what
Kupny allegedly did. Chernobyl was the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster,
when its No. 4 reactor exploded and caught fire in April 1986,
sending a radioactive cloud over much of Europe. The reactor was later covered by a haphazardly constructed
concrete-and-steel sarcophagus, a leaky structure believed to
contain tons of nuclear fuel and dust. A $750 million international
project to make the structure environmentally safe is presently
under way.
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