Ukraine remembers Chernobyl disaster
KIEV, Ukraine — With flowers, candles and tears, Ukraine today marked the 30th anniversary of the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, the world’s worst nuclear disaster. Some survivors said the chaos of that time is etched in their minds forever.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko led a ceremony in Chernobyl, where work is under way to complete a $2.25 billion long-term shelter over the building containing Chernobyl’s exploded reactor. Once the structure is in place, work will begin to remove the reactor and its radioactive waste.
“We honor those who lost their health and require a special attention from the government and society,” Poroshenko said. “It’s with an everlasting pain in our hearts that we remember those who lost their lives to fight nuclear death.”
About 600,000 people, often referred to as Chernobyl’s “liquidators,” were sent in to fight the fire at the nuclear plant and clean up the worst of its contamination. The initial explosion on April 26, 1986, at the power plant killed at least 30 people, exposed millions to dangerous levels of radiation and forced a wide-scale, permanent evacuation of hundreds of towns and villages.
But since the Ukrainian government has scaled back benefits, many for Chernobyl survivors feel betrayed.
“I went in there when everyone was fleeing, we were going right into the heat,” said Mykola Bludchiy, who arrived in the Chernobyl exclusion zone just days after the blast. “And today everything is forgotten. It’s a disgrace.”
He spoke today after a ceremony in Kiev, where top officials were laying wreaths at a memorial.
At midnight on Monday, a vigil was held in the Ukrainian town of Slavutych, where many former Chernobyl workers were relocated.
The final death toll from Chernobyl is subject to speculation, due to the long-term effects of radiation, but ranges from an estimate of 9,000 by the World Health Organization to a possible 90,000 by the environmental group Greenpeace.
