Radiation Leak from Chernobyl Reactor Confirm Safety Inadequacies: GreenpeaceKIEV, April 25, 1996 - A radiation leak overnight at the third Chernobyl reactor demonstrate the plant is not safe and should be closed immediately, Greenpeace said today.Greenpeace nuclear campaigner Antony Froggatt said the leak was another example of the lack of safety culture that exists at the Chernobyl station. "It is clear that the plant is not safe to operate and should not operate until the year 2000, but must be closed immediately," Froggatt said. The radiation leak occurred on Wednesday night when staff were changing filters used to pump air from inside the sarcophagus encasing the fourth reactor, which exploded on April 26, 1986 in what has been the world's worst nuclear disaster. Radioactivity from last night's accident reportedly fell in four places in the machine room of the third reactor. The incident rated one on the international scale for reporting nuclear incidents and levels of radiation were unofficially reported to be between two and seven times background. Froggatt said it is still unclear which isotopes were contained in the dust which contaminated parts of the unit 3 reactor building. The leak follows a fire which burnt 150 hectares of forest and grassland in the irradiated 30km exclusion zone surrounding the Chernobyl reactor site. Froggatt said fire is one of the main pathways by which radiation is spread from the contaminated zone. Ukraine has pledged to shut down Chernobyl's two remaining working reactors by the year 2000 but Greenpeace has called for the plant to be closed immediately as it poses a major international environmental hazard.
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