Plea to world on Chernobyl anniversary
Ukraine marked the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster yesterday by renewing calls for help in building a new shelter over reactor ruins, saying the tragedy was too great for one nation to cope with.
“We have paid for the peace of the planet with the lives and health of thousands of compatriots,” President Viktor Yanukovych said. “But not a single nation, even the most powerful, can overcome the consequences of a catastrophe of such a scale by itself.”
Ukraine still needs to raise some £180m for the project.
In Kiev, Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill led a memorial ceremony at a monument, pictured, to workers and firefighters who were sent to the station immediately after one of the reactors exploded and who died shortly after from acute radiation poisoning.