End looms for tragic Chernobyl

Chernobyl will finally close 14 years after it was the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster.

CHERNOBYL, Ukraine -- Engineers at Chernobyl nuclear power station are preparing to press the plant's closedown button for the last time.

Control rods will then be lowered into Chernobyl's last functioning reactor, heralding the start of a long process of decommissioning the plant, which caused the world's worst nuclear accident in 1986.

Chernobyl is due to close on Friday despite last-minute efforts by parliament to keep the notorious nuclear power station open.

Politicians, supported by plant workers, adopted a Communist-sponsored resolution on Thursday urging the government to postpone the shutdown of Chernobyl, the site of the world's worst nuclear accident in 1986, until April 2001.

But President Leonid Kuchma went ahead with preparations to close the power plant in a ceremony to be broadcast live on television, dismissing the politicians' step as "political games."

VIDEO CNN's Jill Dougherty reports the workers want jobs, not unemployment checks Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media) Go inside the damaged structure on a tour showing rubble, exposed wiring and dripping water Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)

But the closure will be purely symbolic because the last operating reactor, number three, was effectively shut down last week.

It was later fired up again to minimum output levels for the ceremony, but the reactor will not be linked to the national grid.

Kuchma, who will give the command from Kiev, said: "For the entire world, Chernobyl stands as negative symbol that should have no place upon the earth.

"I want to re-affirm once again that we've taken the only right decision, from all points of view and first of all moral."

Earlier, Kuchma took foreign dignitaries including the prime ministers of Russia, Belarus and Georgia on a tour of the ill-fated plant.

Chernobyl has provided Ukraine with around five percent of its electricity from its last working reactor ever since the 1986 explosion and meltdown in reactor four that killed 30 firemen and released a radiation cloud that has claimed thousands of lives since.

About 6,000 jobs will go when the plant is shut down completely at around midnight (2400 GMT), though some workers will stay on.

At Slavutych, dozens of people silently held placards that said "December 15 is a tragedy for Slavutych" and "No to tomorrow's show in Ukraine."

Some people at the site said Chernobyl was safer than many Russian nuclear power stations and it was only being closed on political grounds.

Kuchma later said he heard "many bitter and mostly just words about myself and the government. The energy workers were absolutely right, I had almost nothing to tell them."

For years, Ukraine resisted international calls to close Chernobyl, saying it could not do without the electricity and demanding foreign aid in return. Kuchma pledged to close the plant during a visit by U.S. President Bill Clinton earlier this year.

The European Commission last week approved a $585 million loan to help Ukraine build two new reactors to generate electricity.

The Chernobyl tragedy began on April 26, 1986, when reactor four exploded and caught fire, contaminating vast areas in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus and spewing a radioactive cloud over Europe.

More than 4,000 Ukrainians who took part in the hasty clean-up effort have died and 70,000 were disabled by radiation, according to government figures.

About 3.4 million of Ukraine's 50 million people, including some 1.26 million children, are considered to have been affected by Chernobyl.

Even after the shutdown, Chernobyl will not be considered safe until all nuclear fuel is removed from its reactors, which will take years, and the leaky sarcophagus will take decades to make environmentally safe.

Kuchma told CNN's Moscow bureau chief Jill Dougherty: "When you shut down the last block the nuclear danger doesn't go away.

"It is a fact that there is a huge amount of nuclear fuel still left there."

Kuchma's spokesman, Olexander Martynenko, added: "This event will resonate not just this year, but for the whole century. It is highly symbolic that we enter the new millennium without Chernobyl."

Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

December 15, 2000
Chernobyl limps towards shutdown
December 13, 2000
Chernobyl victims demand 'dues'
December 3, 2000
Chernobyl workers march on Kremlin
October 25, 2000
Ukraine sets Chernobyl shutdown date
September 15, 2000
Clinton, in Ukraine, applauds shutdown of Chernobyl plant
June 5, 2000
Chernobyl: An unthinkable disaster
June 5, 2000

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
Parliament of Ukraine
European Union
Chernobyl - the accident and progress since 1986

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