Special report: A black memory: Chernobyl nuclear disaster

    VIENNA, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed ElBaradei said on Wednesday that the international community should strengthen cooperation to ensure the safe use of nuclear energy.

    In a special statement to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Chernobyl nuclear accident, the world's worst civil nuclear disaster in history, ElBaradei said IAEA has been studying the accident and its consequences in a number of ways in the past two decades.

    "First, through a variety of programs designed to help mitigate the environmental and health consequences of the accident; second, by analyzing the lessons of what went wrong to allow such an accident to occur at all; and third, by working to prevent any such accident from occurring in the future," he said.

    "Building a strong and effective global nuclear safety regime is a central objective of our work. We can not forget the lessons that we learnt from Chernobyl accident," he stressed.

    "The safety risks associated with nuclear and radiological activities extend beyond national borders. International cooperation on nuclear safety matters -- sharing information, setting clear safety standards, assisting with safety upgrades, and reviewing operational performance -- has therefore become a hallmark of IAEA activity, particularly at a time when we are witnessing an expansion of nuclear power to meet increasing energy demands in many parts of the world," ElBaradei added.

    In line with ElBaradei's initiative, the Chernobyl Forum was created in 2001, which consists of experts from IAEA, the World Health Organization (WHO) and seven other specialized UN agencies, as well as the governments of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.

    One of the most important purposes of this forum is to call upon better international cooperation to "focus more effectively on present and future needs."

    The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in April 1986 remains a painful memory in the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who were affected by the accident. But according to the authoritative reports issued by Chernobyl Forum last September, the living condition has been greatly improved in the former accident area. Enditem