Ukraine has asked for international help in closing down its nuclear
reactors at Chernobyl. After the fire in the No 2 reactor last month, the
Ukrainian parliament last week voted to close down the station by 1993.
It has called on the UN to set up a special programme to decommission the
plant.
Yurii Shcherbak, the Ukrainian environment minister, proposed putting
the job of decommissioning the No 2 re actor out to international tender.
Shcherbak also suggested that bids from abroad should be invited to make
safe the No 4 reactor that blew up in April 1986. The concrete ‘sarcophagus’
that entombs the stricken reactor is already beginning to deteriorate.
