Member News
By Tony Grew - 19th April 2011
Energy minister Charles Hendry will visit Kiev today to mark the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
It has been announced ahead of his visit that the UK will contribute to a fund to ensure the permanent safety of the site of the disaster.
The Chernobyl nuclear reactor, located 370 km (231 miles) south-east of Minsk, Belarus, exploded on April 26, 1986 spewing fallout across Europe.
Chernobyl was the world's only level 7 nuclear event, the most serious level, until the situation at the Fukushima plant developed after earthquakes and a tsunami hit Japan earlier this month.
The UK has made contributions totalling £28.5m in this donor pledging round to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)-managed international funds.
The funds will go towards the construction of a 257 metre-wide and 105 metre-high steel arch over the damaged Reactor 4 and a facility to safely and securely store the spent nuclear fuel from Reactors 1 to 3.
There will also be repairs to the "increasingly unstable sarcophagus over the damaged Reactor 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant".
Hendry said: "The disaster at Chernobyl had a profound effect on the Ukrainian people, their neighbours and their environment, and on the world.
"Many countries, including the UK, were affected by the radioactive material from the Chernobyl disaster.
"As a result governments across the world continue to work vigorously to ensure the utmost standards of safety.
"The funding we are pledging today will go some way to international efforts to ensure the permanent safety and stability of the Chernobyl site, to prevent it from posing any further hazard to health and the environment."
Since the Fukushima incident there have been calls for the UK to abandon civil nuclear power.
Energy secretary Chris Huhne put on hold plans for new nuclear power stations while a report on the implications of Fukushima is compiled by the UK's chief nuclear inspector Mike Weightman.
He is due to publish his findings in September.
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