Ukraine's officials offer mixed response to fears that Chornobyl sarcophagus is crumbling (05/04/03)

Ukraine's officials offer mixed response to fears that Chornobyl sarcophagus is crumbling

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Ukrainian officials have sent mixed signals in response to charges made by the head of Russia's atomic energy ministry that the protective shell covering the damaged fourth reactor is in imminent danger of collapse.

While several Ukrainian nuclear specialists said the statement by the Russian government official was nonsense, Chornobyl facility officials responded that while misleading, it is substantially true.

On April 22 Russia's Minister of Atomic Energy Aleksandr Rumianstev told the newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta "the possibility that the roof of the sarcophagus could collapse is absolutely real."

"There may come a moment when the roof can no longer hold," explained the minister, who added that he is familiar with the topic from his former work as a scientist at a Moscow atomic research facility.

Volodymyr Kholosha, the previous director of the Chornobyl nuclear facility, rejected the possibility on April 30.

"If we are referring to a danger that the ceiling of the covering could collapse at any time and that there exists no control over the covering, then this is not based on reality," explained Mr. Kholosha, who is currently assistant minister of emergency situations and Chornobyl affairs.

Mr. Kholosha noted that he could agree with the statement if the charge referred to the fact that not even a new sarcophagus, as the cement covering over the reactor is often called, could assure with complete certainty that the facility would be leak-proof and danger-free.

On April 23 the Chornobyl Nuclear Facility released its response to the assertions made in Moscow in which it generally agreed that there is a danger that the shelter could come down. The press release emphasized, however, that monitoring of the situation by an international team was of such a magnitude that it was not realistic that a calamity could occur at the site suddenly or unexpectedly.

The shelter, which was quickly erected within six months after Chornobyl's fourth reactor exploded 17 years ago on April 26, in what is still the largest nuclear accident ever, has been disintegrating from about the time it went up. Experts at the site admit that the construction has many fissures leaking radioactive material and that its main supports need more reinforcement.

Mr. Kholosha accented the extensive and highly technical state of the monitoring going on and preparations for the construction of a new superstructure by an international team that are under way. But Russian Minister Rumiantsev said he doubted that Ukrainian officials were carrying out the necessary scientific monitoring.

"No one is conducting tests on the damaged walls," asserted Mr. Rumiantsev.

International donors have raised $768 million for a new outer shell for the fourth Chornobyl reactor in a project called the Shelter Implementation Plan (SIP). Construction of the new shelter is expected to begin early next year.

On April 26 the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development announced that later this year it expected to begin accepting tenders for the construction of the new shelter. Vince Novak, director of the EBRD's Nuclear Safety Department, which manages the Chornobyl Shelter Fund, stated on the EBRD's website that while the design phase of new confinement structure is scheduled to conclude this summer, international support is still needed.

"Chornobyl is a global responsibility. Ukraine can't do this alone," said Mr. Novak.

He explained that the central aspect of the new design now nearing completion would be a 100-meter high steel arch with a span of about 250 meters that would slide along rails into place over the old sarcophagus.

In Ukraine, state leaders, including President Leonid Kuchma and Verkhovna Rada Chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn, gathered at the Chornobyl memorial in Kyiv a day before the official date to commemorate the tragedy and its victims. Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan issued a statement on the anniversary date in which he called on the world to remember the Chornobyl victims. He requested that international donors continue to provide for all aspects of the aid that is still needed.

While 27 Chornobyl "liquidators" died immediately as a result of their efforts to extinguish the raging fires, which continued to release radioactive plumes into the Earth's atmosphere for weeks, another 1,400 firefighters, soldiers and volunteers eventually succumbed. Hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia were contaminated and millions of people have been affected since. According to medical studies, thyroid diseases, including cancer, have skyrocketed in the contaminated regions in the last 17 years, and people living there show a 25 to 30 percent higher morbidity rate.

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