[NukeNet] $507 Million Pledged for Chernobyl Sarcophagus

[Bill Smirnow]

  http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Ukraine-Chernobyl.html
  $507 Million Pledged for Chernobyl
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By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 6, 2007
Filed at 2:38 p.m. ET

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) -- The European Bank of Reconstruction and Development
has pledged $507 million to help Ukraine build a new shelter for the
Chernobyl reactor, the site of the world's worst nuclear accident, officials
said Monday.

Chernobyl's reactor No. 4 exploded and burned on April 26, 1986, spewing
radiation over a large swath of the former Soviet Union and much of northern
Europe. An area roughly half the size of Italy was contaminated, forcing the
resettlement of hundreds of thousands of people and ruining some of Europe's
most fertile farmland.

A protective ''sarcophagus'' that was hastily erected over the reactor is
now crumbling, and a $1.2 billion project to replace it remains on the
drawing board. Ukraine has repeatedly asked for money from the European
Union and other Western sources to fund a new shelter.

More than $600 million has already been pledged by 28 donor governments.

Lyudmila Shcherban, an Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman, said the
money will go toward the new shelter as well as freezing the reactor
permanently to prevent further ecological damage.

Thirty-one people died within the first two months from illnesses caused by
radioactivity, but there is heated debate over the subsequent toll. A report
from the U.N. health agency last year estimated that about 9,300 people will
die from cancers caused by Chernobyl's radiation. Some groups, such as
Greenpeace, insist the toll could be 10 times higher.

The EBRD is the largest financial investor in Ukraine, having invested in 77
projects in sectors ranging from banking to infrastructure to small and
medium-sized enterprises.
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