Ljubljana, 24 April 2008

Press-Release on the 22nd Anniversary of Chornobyl Disaster

These days Ukraineand other countries of the world mark the 22nd anniversary of Chornobyl disaster – the worst nuclear accident in the history of mankind.

The accident at power unit no. 4 of the Chornobyl nuclear power station took place in the night of 25 to 26 April 1986, during a test. The operating crew planned to test whether the turbines could produce sufficient energy to keep the coolant pumps running in the event of a loss of power until the emergency diesel generator was activated.

Within fractions of a second, the power level and temperature rose many times over. The reactor went out of control. There was a violent explosion. The 1000-tonne sealing cap on the reactor building was blown off. At temperatures of over 2000°C, the fuel rods melted. The graphite covering of the reactor then ignited. In the ensuing inferno, the radioactive fission products released during the core meltdown were sucked up into the atmosphere.

The 600 men of the plant’s fire service and the operating crew, who were employed in firefighting, were the most severely irradiated group. 134 of them received doses of radiation between 0.7 and 13 sieverts (Sv). This means that within a few hours they received a quantity of radiation up to 13 000 times higher than 1 millisievert: in the European Union, 1 millisievert per year is the maximum effective dose of radiation to which individuals living near a nuclear power station should be exposed.

31 members of personnel died shortly afterwards. A total of around 800.000 men were involved in the clean-up operations in Chornobyl up until 1989. Today, they are still suffering from the damage to their health. 300.000 of them are believed to have received doses of radiation of more than 0.5 Sv. According to government agencies in the three former Soviet States affected, about 25.000 "liquidators" have so far died.

On 27 April, only 36 hours after the accident, 45.000 inhabitants of Ukrainian town of Pripyat, 4 km away, were evacuated. The town remains uninhabited to this day. In the period up to 5 May, people living within a radius of 30 km around the reactor had to leave their homes. Within 10 days, 130.000 people from the 76 settlements in this area were evacuated.

The territory has been declared an exclusion zone. Special permission is required to enter it. The aim is to prevent the spread of contamination. Despite the official prohibition on living in the exclusion zone, at least 800, mostly older, people have returned to their former villages.

Three years after the nuclear accident, the Soviet government halted construction of the fifth and sixth reactor units at the Chornobyl nuclear power complex. After prolonged international negotiations, the entire complex was closed on 12 December 2000.

Within seven months the ruined reactor building and its molten core had been enclosed within a reinforced concrete casing. This shelter, or sarcophagus, was supposed to absorb the radiation and contain the remaining fuel. The sarcophagus was considered to be an interim measure. It was designed with a lifetime of only 20 to 30 years in mind. The greatest problem is a lack of stability: it was hastily constructed, and there is a risk of beams rusting.

In 1997, the Shelter Implementation Plan (SIP) was launched by the G7 countries plus Russia, the EU and Ukraine together with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). The new shelter is intended to safely confine radioactive substances for at least 100 years.

On 17 September 2007, the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant signed two important contracts, one to build a new steel structure to seal off the damaged unit 4 with the Novarka consortium and another one to complete the spent nuclear fuel storage with Holtec International.

The “New Safe Confinement” will be an arch-shaped structure 105 m high, 150 m long and with a span of 260 m. It will be constructed on the site and later be slid over unit 4. Construction work is expected to take 48-52 months and the shelter will then create the conditions for the ultimate dismantling of Chornobyl’s unit 4 which still contains 95 percent of its original nuclear inventory.

The construction of the New Safe Confinement is the most visible project under the Chernobyl Shelter Implementation Plan (SIP) agreed between the Government of Ukraine and the international community in 1997. The plan contained many other elements which had to be completed over recent years in order to allow work on the confinement to begin. The total SIP cost is now estimated to be $1.39 billion.

A second contract which was signed with Holtec International is equally important. Holtec’s assignment is to complete the spent nuclear fuel storage facility for more than twenty thousand spent fuel assemblies generated during the operation of the Units 1-3 up to December 2000. An approximately 1.5 year design and regulatory approval phase will be followed by delivery and installation of the equipment. The facility, to ensure safe and secure storage of the Chernobyl spent fuel for one hundred years, is a key element of the overall Chernobyl decommissioning plan.

International donors have made significant contributions to finance these projects via donations to the Chernobyl Shelter Fund and the Nuclear Safety Account, which are managed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Together with the Government of Ukraine the Bank also ensures supervision of the effective implementation of the projects.

As of end-June 2007, the Chernobyl Shelter Fund has recorded total contributions of €739 million from the following donors: Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, European Community, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Donations have been made by Iceland, Israel, Korea, Portugal, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia.

The Nuclear Safety Account has so far received contributions of € 285 million from: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, the European Community, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Ukraine and the United States.

More info on Chornobyl may be found at:

http://www.chernobyl.info

http://www.chornobyl.net/en/

http://chernobyl.undp.org/english/