Chernobyl needs costly new dome

An extra 110 million euro donation for Chernobyl, to build a new containment structure… The promise from the European Union coincides with the opening this Tuesday of a conference being held in Kiev. The EU has already donated 470 million euros toward Ukraine’s clean-up of the nuclear reactor which exploded in 1986.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said, after meeting Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich in the capital, he hoped that other partners would also contribute. The conference comes just ahead of the 25th anniversary of the April 26 disaster.

A shell built over the damaged reactor in the eight months that followed the world’s worst nuclear accident has developed cracks and holes. Ukraine says it needs about 740 million euros more to cap Chernobyl’s radioactivity properly.

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