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Ukraine marks 33rd anniversary of Chernobyl disaster

Published : 26 Apr 2019, 19:19

DF-Xinhua Report

Soldiers lay flowers to commemorate the victims of the Chernobyl disaster in Minsk, Belarus, April 26, 2019.(Xinhua/Efim Mazurevich).

Ukraine on Friday marked the 33rd anniversary of the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (NPP), when a combination of human errors and negligence caused one of the worst nuclear disasters in human history.

On April 26, 1986, a series of explosions ripped through the No. 4 reactor at the Chernobyl NPP, some 110 km north of Kiev, spreading radiation across Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and other European countries.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that the whole world still remembers the tragedy 33 years after the disaster.

"We are remembering," Poroshenko tweeted.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman paid tribute to people involved in clean-up works at the Chernobyl plant and around it after the disaster.

"You have managed to localize the accident and save hundreds of thousands of lives. We cherish the memory of the deceased heroes and wish good health to those alive," Groysman wrote on Facebook.

Meanwhile, Oleksandr Turchynov, secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, said that humanity should learn Chernobyl lessons.

"The pain of Chernobyl must unite the efforts of the whole world in order to prevent a repeat of a terrible catastrophe," Turchynov said in a statement.