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OOO! I know about Chernobyl! I raise money for an Orphanage there!

Article from my helpfeedachild site:

24 April 2003

Chernobyl shield collapsing
Speaking at a news conference on 22 April, nearly 17 years after the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant that turned out to be the worst such accident in history, Alexander Rumyantsev, Russia’s atomic energy minister, said he feared that the concrete sarcophagus erected immediately after the disaster to limit the amount of radiation escaping into the Ukraine and neighboring European countries is in danger of collapsing. "We can see a situation where the roof could fall in, or rather the supports that hold up the roof could fall down," he said.

Rumyantsev suggested that a new concrete barrier be built around the existing structure, which was put up hastily. "I know how the sarcophagus was built," said the energy minister. "It was built in difficult radioactive conditions for the builders. They had to work fast to get away from the danger." Many of the emergency and rescue workers who put out the fire, handled the cleanup, and erected the concrete shield died within weeks from exposure to radiation.

Rumyantsev is among the Russian government officials who continue to assert that the 1986 incident was not as bad as has been reported. Environmentalists and doctors put the number of radiation-related deaths in the thousands and the number affected in the millions, but the energy minister calls this an exaggeration. "When Greenpeace or other ecologists talk about a million victims, I am prepared to agree that a million people were scared. That was the main medical result of the disaster."