KIEV – Azerbaijan has allocated $1 million to Ukraine, joining world powers in their efforts to remove the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster, the world's worst nuclear accident, Ukrainian media reported.
President Viktor Yanukovich, who is visiting Baku, on Thursday thanked Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev for the funds provided under a 1 billion euros project aiming to build a new containment shell for No. 4 reactor at the Chernobyl power plant. The reactor exploded in 1986 after a safety experiment went wrong, billowing radiation across Europe. Yanukovich told the press that implementation of the project will allow to completely eliminate the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster by 2015.
On April 19, Ukraine sought 740 million euros from governments and international organizations at a conference in Kiev, marking 25 years since the Chernobyl disaster. World powers, spurred by the nuclear crisis in Japan, pledged 550 million euros to help build a new containment shell at the site.