UKRAINE: THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE HOLD CANDLELIT CEREMONY IN SLAVUTYCH TO COMMEMORATE 14TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CHERNOBYL NUCLEAR DISASTER

Record ID: 646500

  • Title: UKRAINE: THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE HOLD CANDLELIT CEREMONY IN SLAVUTYCH TO COMMEMORATE 14TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CHERNOBYL NUCLEAR DISASTER
  • Date: 26th April 2000
  • Summary: SLAVUTYCH, UKRAINE (APRIL 26, 2000) (REUTERS (A)) 1. WS: CANDLELIT CEREMONY MARKING THE 14TH ANNIVERSARY OF CHERNOBYL DISASTER/ PHOTOGRAPHS OF PEOPLE WHO DIED IN DISASTER 0.07 2. SV'S: PEOPLE PLACING FLOWERS ALONGSIDE CANDLES AND PHOTOS OF RELATIVES AND COLLEAGUES WHO DIED IN THE DISASTER (2 SHOTS) 0.25 3. SCU: SOUNDBITE (Russian) UNIDENTIFIED MAN "I come here every year because those were my people, my folks. Emotionally, it is very hard that a thing like this could have happened - the accident, the disaster, at Chernobyl." 0.37 4. CU/SV: CANDLES/ WOMAN CRYING AS SHE LIGHTS CANDLE (2 SHOTS) 0.50 5. SCU: SOUNDBITE (Russian) UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN "This is our fate. This is our bitterness, and in a way, it is our luck that those people (the rescuers who went in to shut down the plant and who subsequently died from radiation sickness) took the blow for us so that we and our children could live." 1.06 6. SV/WS/SV: MORE OF CEREMONY/ WOMAN WIPING AWAY TEARS FROM HER EYES (3 SHOTS) 1.27 KIEV, UKRAINE (APRIL 26, 2000) (REUTERS (A)) 7. WS: COMMEMORATION SERVICE FOR VICTIMS OF CHERNOBYL 1.33 8. VARIOUS: UKRAINE PRESIDENT LEONID KUCHMA AT WREATH-LAYING SERVICE AT MONUMENT COMMEMORATING THE DEAD OF CHERNOBYL (4 SHOTS) 1.55 9. SV/WS: ORTHODOX PRIEST LAYS FLOWER (2 SHOTS) 2.06 10. WS/MV: PRESIDENT KUCHMA AND OTHERS WATCH DRIVE-BY OF EMERGENCY AND RESCUE VEHICLES (2 SHOTS) 2.21 11. WIDE OF CHURCH WHERE SERVICE IS TAKING PLACE/SV TOWER (2 SHOTS) 2.35 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 11th May 2000 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: SLAVUTYCH AND KIEV, UKRAINE
  • Country: Ukraine
  • Reuters ID: LVA2AXKFI9C5ECDQN9SP4TJCTF5J
  • Story Text: Thousands of people have held a candlelit ceremony
    commemorating the 14th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear
    disaster.Many of those at the ceremony in the Ukrainian town
    of Slavutych, which is near Chernobyl, lost relatives or
    colleagues in the disaster.

    Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma has also attended a
    wreath-laying ceremony in Kiev to mark the disaster, which was
    the world's worst civil nuclear accident.

    Slavutych is a purpose-built town that houses the
    workers at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.Many of those
    who took part in the candlelit ceremony at the town square
    early on Wednesday (April 26) had either relatives or friends
    who died in the Chernobyl fire or who died from radiation
    sickness later.

    Chernobyl's number four reactor exploded at 1:30 a.m.

    local time on April 26, 1986, spreading a poisonous
    radioactive cloud over much of Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and
    parts of Western Europe.

    Thousands of workers drafted in from many parts of the
    Soviet Union struggled to erect a concrete "tomb" over the
    shattered reactor, dumping sand and chemicals on the fire and
    building a rail line to bring in building materials.

    One man who attended the candlelit vigil in Slavutych said
    he comes every year.He said: "Those were my people, my folks.

    Emotionally, I find it very hard."
    Another woman paid tribute to the workers who were sent in
    to fight the fire and clean-up and who subsequently died of
    radiation sickness.She daid: "Those people took the blow for
    us so that we and our children could live."
    As well as the commemoration in Slavutych, which was built
    after the disaster, there were also ceremonies in the capital
    Kiev, 120 kilometres (75 miles) to the south.

    President Leonid Kuchma visited a Kiev church honouring
    victims and laid a wreath at the monument to the victims of
    the disaster.

    The explosion in Chernobyl remains the world's worst
    nuclear accident to date with tens of thousands of square
    kilometres of adjacent territory contaminated and tens of
    thousands of people affected.

    The Ukrainian government promised to shut down the only
    remaining operational reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear plant
    this year, but has appealed to the world community to help to
    pay the bill.


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