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Brussels (AFP) April 18, 2011 The EU executive will on Tuesday mark 25 years since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the former Soviet Union with a pledge of another 110 million euros ($156 million) towards safety work. European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso will announce the funding -- which takes to 470 million total EU contributions -- at the Kiev Nuclear Safety Summit, the European Commission said on Monday. The money will help "ensure that the Chernobyl site is made stable and environmentally safe," a statement said. It will be funnelled into "nuclear safety, but also on programmes to help the local population and provide affected families with access to quality healthcare." Fallout from Chernobyl remains a poorly-investigated hazard for the environment with funding having slumped and many Russian-language studies never translated into English, experts say. The commission said a further 740 million euros are needed to meet commitments through to 2015, and Barroso said he will be pressing international partners to cough up. "The recent accident at Fukushima in Japan shows that nuclear safety remains a critical issue," underlined EU development commissioner Andris Piebalgs, accompanying Barroso. Radioactive dust and ash spewed over more than 200,000 square kilometres (77,000 square miles) after Chernobyl's No. 4 reactor exploded and caught fire on April 26 1986. Ukraine, Belarus and Russia were most affected, although deposits reached as far north as Scotland and as far west as Ireland, requiring in some places long-term restrictions on cattle grazing.
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Trauma and controversy: Chernobyl's health legacyKiev (AFP) April 18, 2011 Every year, Volodymyr Palkin spends at least two months in a Kiev hospital. He was one of hundreds of thousands of rescue workers sent to fight the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear plant and says his health has been permanently ruined by his work. Yet 25 years after the world's worst nuclear disaster on April 26, 1986, huge controversy remains over the true extent of the damage caused to he ... read more |
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