
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, October 22, 1993                   TAG: 9310220101
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: KIEV, UKRAINE                                LENGTH: Medium

CHERNOBYL CLOSING REVERSED

Confronting chronic energy shortages, Ukraine's parliament Thursday reversed its decision to close the Chernobyl power station, scene of the 1986 nuclear accident that became a byword for fear of nuclear power.

The 221-38 vote was taken by a parliament desperate to maintain electricity supplies for the country's battered post-Soviet economy through the winter.

"We are alarmed and concerned by this," said a Scandinavian diplomat based in Kiev, "and will put whatever pressure we can to get the decision reversed."

Germany's environment minister, Klaus Toepfer, said the Ukrainian move ignored "international safety considerations."

A moratorium also was lifted on building nuclear power stations, which are unpopular in this country of 52 million people. Ukraine's leaders reportedly are set to order the completion of three reactors whose development was halted by the Chernobyl disaster. The country has 13 working reactors.

"We cannot afford to reject the development of nuclear power in Ukraine," President Leonid Kravchuk told parliament.

Until Thursday's action, Chernobyl's two functioning generators were to have shut down by the end of this year - a decision taken 18 months ago. A third was turned off with hopes for revival, while the fourth has been entombed.

Ukrainians are still paying heavily for the accident at Chernobyl, when an explosion at reactor no. 4 threw a radioactive cloud over Ukraine, the surrounding republics of the former Soviet Union and much of Europe.

Ukrainian authorities hold the disaster responsible for 8,000 deaths in the country. More than 10 percent of this impoverished nation's national budget goes toward the continuing cleanup. Among persistent technical problems, the sarcophagus encasing the stricken reactor is leaking radioactivity into the beautiful but now poisoned Pripyat marshland around it.

Environment Minister Yuri Kostenko said the power station still lacked a containment building. "Any accident will involve the release of radioactive waste into the atmosphere," he warned.

Energy supply is Ukraine's Achilles' heel. The country, which stretches from the Russian Caucasus mountains to the Polish border, has few energy resources.

by CNB