- MUNICH, Germany (AFP) - The
stone casing entombing Chernobyl nuclear power reactor is in danger of
imminent collapse, a former director of security services has warned.
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- Quoted in the upcoming issue of the German weekly Focus,
Valentine Kupny said "the covering around the reactor could collapse
at any moment".
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- "The sarcophagus is so porous that radioactivity
escapes each day," he said. "We don't even have the ability to
measure the amount. If we could see the radioactivity there would be a
cloud of smoke above the sarcophagus."
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- "What would happen (if the cover collapsed) would
depend on the wind," Kupny said, but added that it was unlikely that
radioactivity would reach the West again.
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- The number four reactor at Chernobyl exploded on April
26, 1986, contaminating three-quarters of Europe in the world's worst civilian
nuclear accident.
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- Koupny was sacked from the centre last month for "violation
of duty", according to a Chernobyl spokesman.
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- But Focus said his dismissal came shortly after he had
been interviewed by the author of its article.
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- The covering, which was quickly built around the reactor
the day after the explosion, is covered with cracks.
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- Kupny said he did not know exactly what was happening
inside the reactor nor how the 160 tonnes of radioactive magma inside reacted
to rainwater, Focus reported.
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- "In September 1996 we recorded the last atomic chain
reaction," Kupny said. "But it is very possible that something
is happening now. We don't know."
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- The last of the four reactors at Chernobyl was closed
definitively last December.
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