Chernobyl Closes for Good

The shutdown was broadcast from the plant to a somber ceremony at Ukraina Palace, officiated by President Leonid Kuchma, and rebroadcast live on television and the Internet. On stage with the president was a choir, singing a dirge-like hymn and the national anthem.

"The world will become a safer place," Kuchma declared before the emotionally charged ceremony. "People will sleep in peace."

The closure capped years of international anxiety over Chernobyl's reactor No. 3, which was repaired and returned to service less than one year after the April 26, 1986, explosion and fire in reactor No. 4. The plant's other two reactors were also restarted, but closed in 1991 and '96. The Ukraine first promised to close No. 3 in 1995.

Friday, it took the nuclear plant engineer a mere second to press the button that began a shutdown that had been refused or delayed since 1986 by authorities in the former Soviet Union and, later, the independent Ukraine.

Indeed, the Ukraine Parliament tried this week to delay the closure until April.

But the plant's decommissioning and cleanup will take 15 more years. What's more, invisible cesium and other radioactive particles have rendered a Kentucky-size area of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia uninhabitable for at least hundreds of years.

Chernobyl's human toll will mount for decades to come as well. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports 7.1 million people in Ukraine and neighboring countries need special health care for cancer, radiation sickness and other ailments.

Thyroid cancer among children is especially alarming.

The International Federation of Red Cross says the area's overall cancer incidence is 16 times higher than normal. A European Union study is under way to determine the health affects in countries far downwind from the disaster site. But scientists generally agree the radiation caused thousands of premature deaths in countries from Sweden to Spain. Some put the figure at more than 20,000.

The United Nations notes that Chernobyl's fallout spread – and affected lives – all over the Northern Hemisphere. The disaster changed life forever in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. Some 250,000 villagers and farmers were relocated to entirely new communities from their contaminated land. The Ukraine Ministry of Health says even the heroes of Chernobyl – the 600,000 soldiers and volunteer workers mustered to contain the radiation and seal the damaged reactor in a concrete sarcophagus – have suffered terribly, with about 12,500 dead and 119,000 disabled so far.

A recent U.N. report, noting growing cancer rates in the Chernobyl area, said, "It is 14 years since the accident, and yet the worst may still come."

The reports and figures underscore a massive effort by governments, scientists and international agencies to document the tragedy, help victims and find ways to prevent future Chernobyls.

Western nuclear experts and environmentalists have repeatedly cited dangers of the Soviet-design, RBMK-1000 reactor type used at Chernobyl. But, experts say, human error and a disregard for safety were critical ingredients in the accident. The disaster was compounded by the Soviet officials' days-long denial of a major radiation leak which, for example, left children to play unknowingly in the nuclear fallout.

On Friday, the environmental group Greenpeace called for the shutdown of 13 Chernobyl-type reactors in Russia and Lithuania.

"Some are even older and therefore more dangerous than Chernobyl," a Greenpeace statement said.

But the Ukraine and other former Soviet states have been reluctant to cut the nuclear cord. Nuclear plants provide low-cost energy and jobs for the struggling economies. The shuttered Chernobyl reactor, one of four built at the site, has been supplying 5 percent of the country's electricity. Ukraine has 13 operating nuclear plants providing half its power needs. Chernobyl's shutdown, for example, will eliminate 6,000 jobs in a country already grappling with massive unemployment. Last week, President Kuchma said only international aid could help his country of 52 million solve problems caused by the reactor's closing.

"Our people have already paid too high a price for the accident that occurred through no fault of their own, well before Ukraine was proclaimed an independent state," Kuchma said.

He said the plant would have been shuttered earlier, but "economic difficulties stood in the way."

Recognizing Ukraine's plight, the European Commission and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development last week committed $800 million in loans to help Ukraine build two new nuclear power plants. The plants, each more than half completed, will cost a total of $1.5 billion.

International efforts to help Chernobyl victims and the environment have cost billions of dollars. Ukraine, Russia and Belarus have also paid dearly – an estimated $13 billion since 1986 for various programs, from relocating villages to building clinics for sick children.

The spending is far from over. The next big project at Chernobyl will be replacing the concrete sarcophagus that entombs reactor No. 4, at a cost of nearly $800 million.

Copyright 2000 by United Press International. All rights reserved.