Chernobyl Remembered

A group of relatives of people killed in the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster gathered in Moscow on Monday to commemorate their dead and pay their respects.

A protest rally called Chernobyl Way was also held in the Belarusian capital Minsk on Monday, which was the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster, Press TV reported.

Demonstrators demanded that the consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe not be concealed at the state level and demanded that benefits and allowances be paid to liquidators and persons affected by the disaster as radiation spread across Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus.

Also on Monday, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich asked for more international assistance to keep the Chernobyl site safely sealed. "We have seen now that the funds we expected to spend are not enough. Additional needs could total about 400 million euros," he said.

Thousands of metric tons of toxic nuclear dust billowed across Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus in the world's worst nuclear plant disaster on April 26, 1986.

Ukraine has already received hundreds of millions of dollars in Western financial assistance to build a new shelter over the reactor and to construct facilities to process nuclear waste.

New research conducted by the American Geophysical Union indicates that it will take between 180 and 320 years for the Caesium 137 - a radioactive isotope - to disappear from the local environment, much longer than the 30 years that had been expected.