MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Flowers, tears in memory of Chernobyl

Mourners laid red carnations -- symbols of grief -- in the shadow of the ruined Chernobyl power station on Wednesday as they marked the 20th anniversary of the world's worst civil nuclear accident.

Arriving by helicopter at the shuttered Chernobyl nuclear power plant for commemorations of the catastrophe's 20th anniversary, President Viktor Yushchenko said Chernobyl should be transformed into a beacon of hope, and he urged that nuclear energy not be feared.

"Chernobyl must not be a mourning place; it must become a place of hope," Yushchenko said after laying two red carnations beneath a monument to victims of the 1986 disaster.

There is intense disagreement over the health, environmental and social tolls two decades after the electricity-generating plant's Reactor No. 4 exploded during a pre-dawn test on April 26, 1986, spewing radioactive clouds over the western Soviet Union and northern Europe.

Bringing red carnations and flickering candles to Chernobyl memorials around the country, Ukrainians repeated a common mantra: It can't be allowed to happen again.

The shattered reactor, which spewed out radioactivity for 10 days, contaminated 77,220 square miles and forced the Soviet government to permanently evacuate more than 300,000 people.

A report from the U.N. health agency estimated last week that about 9,300 people will die from cancers caused by Chernobyl's radiation. Some groups, such as Greenpeace, insist the toll could be 10 times higher.

Some 5 million people live in areas where radioactive particles fell in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, and a U.N. report last year found that many suffer from a deep sense of gloom about the future.

Now, with experts saying radiation levels have fallen significantly in some areas, the United Nations is turning its attention to returning life to the region, saying it is time to overcome a culture of dependency and help transform the population from victims into survivors.

But before any rehabilitation can begin, the plant first must be secured, Yushchenko said. The concrete-and-steel sarcophagus hastily built to entomb Chernobyl is crumbling and dotted with holes.

A $1.1 billion internationally funded project to replace the sarcophagus remains on the drawing board.