BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

20/04/2006

Belarus to Reduce Chernobyl Risks

Minsk, Apr 20 (Prensa Latina) Belarus has redoubled efforts to reduce radioactive risks to public health and create optimal conditions in lands contaminated by the Chernobyl disaster, a government committee informed Thursday.

Reconstruction and sustainable development of the affected regions are central to the government strategies, said Vladimir Tsalko, committee chair, a week before the 20th anniversary of the nuclear catastrophe.

Tsalko said some 138,000 people from 470 different locals in Belarus were relocated to cleaner regions of the nation, with schools, children?s nurseries, and hospitals.

Another problem is to guarantee the population purified and qualified fuel and water in the contaminated areas.

The World Health Organization fears that in the coming years 9,000 people will die of cancer in the Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, including rescue personnel, evacuees and those still living in these territories.

Nearly 5,000 cases of thyroid cancer among children and adolescents, from parents who were affected by the radiation, are predicted.

The contaminated strip covers one-fourth of the southern territories in Belarus (3,678 small cities and villages and 20 percent of the population).

Nearly 23 percent of the Belarusian national territory, 4.8 in Ukraine and 0.5 percent in Russia received radioactive iodine rain.

Between 1989 and 2005, the government paid 17.7 billion dollars for the programs on Chernobyl, of which 0.4 billion correspond to international financing, said Belarusian Prime Minister Serguei Sidorski Wednesday.

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the number of victims is calculated at 4,000, but Greenpeace, environmental activist organization, asserted the numbers may exceed initial UN estimates.

Source:

http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7B30BFE4F4-1599-4D0E-B35F-C0FCA5CEE865%7D&language=EN