International Leaders Visit the Chornobyl Site in Ukraine

By Worldwide News Ukraine, PRNE
Tuesday, April 19, 2011

KYIV, Ukraine, April 20, 2011 - Today, the Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych together with
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Director of International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA), Yukiya Amano visited Chornobyl nuclear power plant and
examined the exact model of its 4th reactor in its current state.

Ban Ki-moon thanked Viktor Yanukovych for making such a
far-sighted decision to host a nuclear energy Summit in Ukraine. "One of my
priorities in office is creating a world free of nuclear weapons," emphasized
Ban Ki-moon.

The IAEA Director General noted that, despite the bitter
examples of Chornobyl and Fukushima 1, the world would not abandon nuclear
power. "So now, the most important task of the international community is to
provide safety of such plants," he said.

25 years ago the nuclear reactor No 4 of the Chornobyl Nuclear
Station exploded releasing dangerous radioactive elements into the air and
spreading across millions of square miles, polluting many European nations.

Today, Pripyat and Chornobyl are two towns closest to the
reactor, and, previously, home to more than 60,000 residents, have been
included in the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant exclusion zone - 30 km/19 mi
area around the site of the reactor, administered by the Ministry of
Emergency Situations of Ukraine. Since 2002 Chernobyl Exclusion Zone has
become tourist destination for a limited number of tourists.

Public interest to visit Chornobyl has grown so much recently,
that Ukrainian government had to streamline the procedures for signing up for
the tours.

Visitors come in groups for a one to three-day tours that
include visiting the observation point, located about 200m from the reactor
sarcophagus, vehicle scrap yard, city of Pripyat and the surrounding
villages. The radiation level in the exclusion zone, for the most part, is a
little higher than in the rest of the area, but it is still lower than the
level of sun radiation one would get from the transatlantic flight. The
typical dose at the site in winter does not usually exceed 0.5 - 0.9 mR/h.

For more information, contact Maryna Khorunzha +380443324784, news at wnu-ukraine.com, Project Manager at Worldwide News Ukraine

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