Ukrainians beg Britain to reject nuclear plants
By Steve Boggan and Fran Abrams
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/UK/Environment/2000-12/nuclear041200.shtml
4 December 2000

With a passion that comes from memories of suffering, Natalya Preobrazhenska's voice rose to reach levels of anger: "Please God," she said, "don't let it happen again!"

The 69-year-old biochemist was remembering the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986, but her words were not aimed at culpable physicists or politicians in Ukraine; she was pleading with London-based bankers and the British Government.

Mrs Preobrazhenska is one of a group of Ukrainian environmentalists who have been in London to persuade Britain and the World Bank for Reconstruction and Development not to provide funding for two new nuclear reactors in the former Soviet republic.

On 15 December, to the relief of Western Europe, the last reactor at Chernobyl will be shut down. In its place, the Ukrainian government wants to build the Khmelnitsky Two and Rovno Four reactors, known collectively as K2-R4. Ukraine has asked for £160m of funding for the project from the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and £440m from Euratom, the European nuclear agency.

The British Government, in contrast to Germany, Holland, Sweden, Belgium and Luxembourg, has told the EBRD it supports the project, but environmentalists say it would be disastrous. They say Ukraine is virtually bankrupt and maintenance and safety would come second to pumping out electricity to an energy-starved nation.

On Thursday, the EBRD meets in London to decide whether to back the project. There have been threats from the Ukrainians that if the money is not forthcoming, they will have to keep the Chernobyl plant open, but campaigners believe they are bluffing and argue that more nuclear power is not the answer to the country's energy problems.

Their efforts have been bolstered by a leaked report commissioned by the Austrian government, which described the two planned reactors as "particularly hazardous".

"The Viennese report is very alarming indeed and has serious implications for safety on three fronts," said Tobias Muenchmeyer, a Greenpeace campaigner co-ordinating the Ukrainian team. "First, it shows that the plans for the K2-R4 reactors have not adequately taken into account the possibility of earthquakes.

"Second, it has identified 29 safety issues that have not been adequately assessed; and third, it highlights plans for safety measures to be implemented after start-up – not before – leaving the plant in an even more dangerous state than it already would be for up to two years."

According to Greenpeace, more than 3 million people are now registered as direct victims of the Chernobyl disaster and up to 30,000 clean-up workers have died. Quoting Itar-Tass, the former Soviet news agency, Greenpeace claims that one in 10 of those called in to assist in making the site safe have now died – and of those, according to the Health Ministry in Moscow, 38 per cent committed suicide. According to Greenpeace, 1.26 million children are among those made ill by the radioactive fallout.

Before the accident, thyroid cancer was almost unheard of in the country. Now, the incidence of the disease is alarming. In 1997 there were 314.4 per 100,000 of the population, rising to 317.2 in 1998.

Mrs Preobrazhenska, who runs a medical centre for children affected by the fallout from the accident, believes thatfinancing the K2R4 project would be a disaster. She speaks with horror of tales of deformities, children born without hands and feet, but says she has no details of numbers because of state secrecy.

Among the scientific community, which requires cold facts, such tales are evidence of a kind of mass hysteria. They accept there has been a huge increase in thyroid cancer – which is curable if caught in time – but say there is precious little evidence of other problems or deformities caused by the fallout except in those directly involved in the clean-up.

Four years ago, Professor Sir Dillwyn Williams of Cambridge University led an international study to discover the true effects of the fallout. He concluded: "I know of no evidence that there has been any increase in congenital defects relating to Chernobyl, and I know of no evidence of any increase in childhood tumours apart from thyroid cancers."

* About 10,000 survivors of the Chernobyl disaster, many of whom helped clean up after the accident, demonstrated yesterday in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, to demand more government spending on social care and support. Victims protested last month at plans to cut their benefits.