Financial burden

The accident prompted former Socialist bloc nations to shut down reactors of the same design. But the Chornobyl plant itself kept running until 2000 when Ukraine agreed to shut it down in return for aid.

The European Commission and international donors have since committed about 2 billion euros to projects aimed at cleaning up the area and securing the plant. Another 740 million euros remains to be raised: 600 million for the new casement and 140 million waste storage. Holosha says Ukraine itself has spent much more. Since Ukraine gained independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union, $12 billion has been spent on dealing with the consequences of the accident, he said. "Most of the expenditures were linked to maintaining the exclusion zone and providing healthcare and social assistance to those who had lived in the affected area."

The key new project at the plant is the construction of the so-called New Safe Confinement – a massive convex structure which will be assembled away from the damaged reactor and then slid into place over the existing sarcophagus. The original concrete tomb was built hastily, is supported in part by the damaged walls of the reactor building, and has already had to be reinforced.

The new structure is designed to last 100 years and should allow the reactor to be dismantled without the risk of new contamination.

The project requires 600 million euros ($840 million) in additional financing and is likely to miss the 2012 completion target by a few years due to problems such as radioactive debris encountered during excavation works.

Ukraine hopes to raise most of the funds at an international donors con­ference set to take place in Kyiv next month.

Officials say Ukraine is likely to spend billions of euros on confinement upkeep costs before it finds a way to bury the reactor components, perhaps under layers of underground granite rocks. Even then the area around the plant will remain unsuitable for thousands of years. Asked how long before people can settle down at the site, Chornobyl power plant director Ihor Gramotkin said: "At least 20.000 years."