MOSCOW, April 26 (UPI) -- Solemn commemorative events were held in Ukraine and Russia Wednesday to mark the 20th anniversary of the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl.
Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko visited the site of the accident, which is now a ghost town after about 135,000 people were evacuated in the three days after the blast, the Novosti news agency reported.
Ukraine parliamentary Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn said more than 2 million people in his country, including 643,000 children, had been classified as being affected by the disaster.
A core meltdown and explosion at the plant's reactor No. 4 in Soviet Ukraine during the early hours of April 26, 1986, spewed radioactive clouds over the Soviet Union and Europe. Soviet authorities sent about 600,000 "liquidators," or emergency responders from all over the former Soviet Union to deal with the blast and to build a concrete containment sarcophagus.
The United Nations has said about 9,000 people have died as a result of the accident, but environmental groups claim the real toll is at least 10 times higher.
