By Amie Ferris-Rotman
CHERNOBYL POWER PLANT, Ukraine (Reuters) - Work is expectedto start this year at Chernobyl on a new structure to entombits shattered reactor and stop radiation leaks at the site ofthe world's largest nuclear disaster.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)pledged 135 million euros (107.5 million pounds) to make safethe nuclear power plant more than two decades after theexplosion and fire that dumped radiation over much of Europe.But it will be 100 years before people can resettle the area.
The cash, about 10 percent of the bank's net profit in2007, will go into a fund to build a new containment vessel atthe plant, in thick woodland near Ukraine's border withBelarus.
Reactor four, which blew up on April 26, 1986, is to becrowned by a steel arch which will measure 257 metres acrossand 105 metres high and will lock in radioactive dust. Aseparate facility will house spent nuclear fuel now undergrassy mounds.
Radiation levels near the plant still hit 300microroentgens -- 30 times levels acceptable for humans.
The existing "sarcophagus" covering the reactor was hastilybuilt in the weeks after the blast. Helicopters dumped sand andchemicals on the blaze and workers built a rail line to bringin concrete and steel for the construction.
EBRD governors, Ukrainian officials and journalists werekept several hundred metres from the reactor during a visit --any closer is considered too dangerous without protection --and later subjected to radiation checks.
But Chernobyl general director Nikolai Dmitruk plays downany suggestion of harmful radiation levels.
"It's not dangerous," he told visiting reporters. "Spendinga day at the plant gives you the same amount of radiation astaking a transatlantic flight."
Around 1,500 workers, most Ukrainian, will be brought in towork on the projects and will be bussed in to the plant fromoutside a 30-km (19 mile) exclusion zone.
Around 300 people have illegally settled in the zone indefiance of a government ban.
Laundry hanging to dry and the occasional slow-movingSoviet-era car are stark reminders of the towns that oncebustled while providing the plant with workers.
The main town of Pripyat, whose population of 49,000 wasevacuated one day after the explosion, stands deserted. Alooted hotel, restaurants and apartment buildings with treespoking out of their windows frame the main square, overgrownwith shrubs.
FUNDING FIGHT
Funding for the arch was a long time in coming.
Ukraine first asked the West to help make Chernobyl safe in1992 after Soviet rule collapsed.
Debate proceeded through the 1990s, with Ukraine accusingthe West periodically of indifference and some Westerncountries balking at Kiev's repeated calls for more money.
The arch, to be built by the French-led Novarka consortium,should be complete in 2012. The work will cost around 1.05billion euros in total, the EBRD says, and 975 million euroshave been raised including this week's donation.
While the shortfall is easily achievable through donationsfrom EBRD members, the bank still has worries.
"The main contributor to complications is currency exchangefluctuation," said Balthasar Lindauer, Deputy Director ofNuclear Safety at the bank. Ukrainian labour, he said, wasbecoming much more expensive.
The last working reactor at Chernobyl, which is 160 kmnorth of the capital Kiev, was closed in 2000 under pressurefrom the international community, which helped complete tworeactors elsewhere to make up for lost generating capacity.
The blast spilled radiation over most of Europe, withBelarus, downwind from the plant, affected most acutely.
Estimates of the number of deaths directly related to theaccident vary. The World Health Organisation estimates thefigure at 9,000 while the environmental group Greenpeacepredicts an eventual death toll of 93,000.
Though highly radioactive, the lush surroundings around theplant are teeming with wildlife, which thrive after beingunmolested by human encroachment for more than two decades.
Birch trees and bright meadows in the exclusion zone aroundthe plant are home to boars, wolves and deer. Ecologists wonderat their ability to survive on a spot hit by several times moreradiation than the bombed Japanese cities of Hiroshima andNagasaki combined.
"After the accident the zone became a huge zoo. Withouthumans, they have multiplied," said Alexander Novikov, deputydirector for technical safety at the plant.
The long-term health impact on people and animals isunknown.
(Editing by Keith Weir)