The United Nations has said that serious long-term consequences persist more than 30 years after the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in modern-day Ukraine.
The warning came as April 26 was designated by the UN as the International Chernobyl Disaster Remembrance Day.
Last Sunday, which marked the 34th anniversary of the accident that spread a radioactive cloud over large parts of the former Soviet Union, more than a thousand firefighters were working to put out the fires that tore through forests around the nuclear plant.
According to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service, the firefighters on April 26 were focusing on the “containment of two cells” of smouldering trees and brush, amid a three weeks-long effort to contain the wildfires burning within the 30-kilometer exclusion zone around the plant.
Despite rising concerns about the potential release of radioactive ash due to the fires, Ukrainian officials have assured citizens that the radiation levels in the capital, Kyiv, are within the acceptable norm.
Similarly, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said that the fires have only led to a very small increase in levels of radiation and posed “no risk to human health.”
The meltdown and explosion at Chernobyl in 1986, considered to be the worst nuclear disaster in human history, killed dozens of firefighters and other first responders. It is estimated that some 8.4 million people in modern-day Belarus, Ukraine and the Russian Federation were exposed to the radiation.
In December 2016, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution designating April 26 as the International Chernobyl Disaster Remembrance Day.
In its resolution, the General Assembly recognised that three decades after the nuclear disaster there are still persistent serious long-term consequences and that the affected communities and territories are experiencing continuing related needs. “There is still a great deal of work that needs to be done in the affected region,” its statement read.
The UN launched its involvement in the Chernobyl recovery by adopting a resolution in 1990 calling for “international cooperation to address and mitigate the consequences at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.”
UN agencies are supporting international, national and public programmes targeted at the sustainable development of the regions and communities affected by the disaster, as they focus on revention, recovery, remediation and capacity development.
