You're reading: Belarus could allocate $2 billion for mitigation of Chornobyl consequences

Implementing the new five-year Belarusian governmental program for mitigation of consequences of the 1986 accident at Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant will cost the country about 30 trillion Belarusian rubles (approximately $2 billion) during 2016-2020.

The amount was voiced by Vladimir Chernikov, the head of the Department of Mitigation of Chornobyl Accident Consequences at the Emergency Situations’ Ministry when he spoke to the board of the department on July 29.

“We are not ready to give the total figure yet, but about 30 trillion Belarusian rubles will be assigned for implementation of the program,” Chernikov said.

According to the representative of the ministry, a priority set within the program adopted for the next five years is welfare – benefits, compensations, providing of free meals to school children, etc.

The secondary complex of planned measures will include support for agriculture and forestry.

Efforts for social and economic rehabilitation of areas hit by the accident are also supposed to continue.

Chernikov said that in the last five years, background radiation level in Belarus has returned to normal in 200 towns and villages hit by the accident at Chornobyl nuclear plant.

Meanwhile, according to the specialist, about 2,500 towns and villages of the country are still contaminated with radiation.

An explosion at unit 4 of the Ukraine’s Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant occurred on April 26, 1986. About 70 percent of the radioactive fallout was on the territory of Belarus. Due to the fact, the level of contamination there is the highest among all countries affected.

The accident resulted in radioactive contamination of almost one quarter of the Belarusian territory (23 percent), 7 percent of the territory of Ukraine, and 1.5 percent of the territory of Russia, while the remainder spread among the Eastern European countries.