BEIJING, April 26 -- Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko appealed to the international community for financial help on Monday, days before the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, to help regenerate the surrounding region.

    "We need to get rid of the Chernobyl stereotype as an incurable inflammation on the body of Ukraine," Yushchenko said, opening an international conference of radiation and health experts in the Ukrainian capital. "This is land, land we should recover and put back to life ... A new day should come to the Chernobyl area, a day of its recovery."

    That will require money far more than this cash-strapped ex-Soviet republic can afford, Yushchenko said, noting that Ukraine had already spent US$15 billion on Chernobyl-related projects.

    The April 26, 1986, explosion at Chernobyl's reactor No. 4 spewed radiation across much of northern Europe over a 10-day period, resulting in the evacuation of more than 100,000 people and the contamination of more than 200,000 square kilometres of European land.

    Death tolls connected to the explosion, which released about 400 times more radiation than the US atom bomb dropped over Hiroshima, remain hotly debated, though at least 31 people died as a direct result of trying to contain the fire.

    Thousands have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and the UN health agency said that about 9,300 people were likely to die of cancers caused by radiation.

    "The toll of the accident was huge, that is clear. And we can never forget the problems it caused, but there is a way forward," said UN Assistant Secretary-General Kalman Mizsei, defending last year's UN Chernobyl Forum report that found the biggest obstacle to recovery was a sense of malaise and fear among residents rather than lingering radiation.

    The UN report concluded that most of those affected received such low doses of radiation that it was unlikely to have had any significant health effects.

    "The 5 million residents of contaminated areas need not live in fear of radiation and that is a hopeful finding," Mizsei said.

(Source: China Daily)