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Chernobyl: Greenpeace says fire is dangerously close to the plant

2020-04-13T20:52:07.031Z



More than 400 Ukrainian firefighters were fighting a major fire around the Chernobyl exclusion zone Monday, authorities were reassuring while observers said the fire was dangerously close to the plant.

"The Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the storage sites for radioactive waste and the other crucial infrastructures of the exclusion zone are not in danger," said Volodymyr Demtchouk, a senior official of the Ukrainian emergency services, in a video posted Monday on Facebook. He added that the main task of the firefighters was to locate the fire areas and limit their spread. Ukraine has in particular mobilized water bomber helicopters to extinguish the disaster which has been going on since April 4, sustained by strong winds.

Read also: The ghosts of Chernobyl

According to the ecological NGO Greenpeace, this is the worst fire ever observed in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, which forms a radius of 30 kilometers around the old power plant. Based on satellite images, Greenpeace states that the fire is only "approximately 1.5 kilometers" from the arch covering the reactor which exploded by accident in April 1986. The director of an association organizing visits Guided through the exclusion zone, Yaroslav Yemelianenko told him on Facebook that the fire had reached the ghost town of Pripyat, which had been evacuated after the disaster.

For several days, the Ukrainian authorities have not given recent estimates on the size of the fire. According to Sergiy Zibtsev, director of the Regional Fire Monitoring Center in Eastern Europe, based in Kiev and linked to a United Nations program, the fire is "gigantic" and "unpredictable" . "In the west of the exclusion zone, it has already covered 20,000 hectares according to our estimates," he said.

"Totally safe"

For his part, the Ukrainian Deputy Minister of the Interior, Anton Gerachtchenko, indicated on Facebook that the radioactive waste storage sites are "completely safe" . Ukrainian authorities say the fire did not increase the level of radioactivity. However, after the fire started, the acting head of the government’s ecological inspectorate, Iegor Firsov, said that the radiation levels in the epicenter of the fire were well above standards. He then returned to his words.

Read also: Pripyat, martyr city of nuclear

The fire was started by a young resident living near the Chernobyl area, who faces up to five years in prison for "destroying vegetation" . The 27-year-old said he set the grass on fire "for fun," police said.

One of the reactors at the Chernobyl plant exploded on April 26, 1986, contaminating, according to some estimates, up to three-quarters of Europe. The area within a radius of 30 kilometers around the damaged power station has been largely abandoned since then.

Read also: Chernobyl: how Europe in 1986 learned of the scale of the disaster

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2020-04-13

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