On December 8, 2016, the UN General Assembly, by its resolution 71/125, proclaimed April 26 as the International Chernobyl Disaster Remembrance Day.
The General Assembly noted the serious long-term consequences of the Chernobyl disaster, as well as the ongoing needs of affected local communities and territories, so far, three decades later, and invited « all Member States, relevant United Nations agencies and other international organizations, as well as civil society to celebrate this day».
On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant became a symbol of the largest man-made disaster in human history.
As a result of the Chernobyl accident, a nuclear reactor was completely destroyed, radioactive substances entered the environment, and the resulting cloud carried them to significant areas of the territory of the Soviet Union, which are currently part of Belarus, Ukraine and the Russian Federation. There was radioactive contamination of an area with a total area of 207.5 thousand square kilometers.
The risk group included Chernobyl nuclear power plant personnel, participants in the liquidation of the consequences of the accident, evacuated people and the population of the affected areas. Almost 8.4 million people in the three affected countries were exposed to radiation, hundreds of thousands of them evacuated from contaminated areas.
The Chernobyl accident was not only a huge tragedy and the biggest environmental disaster of the 20th century, but also a lesson to all of humanity, showing that nuclear energy out of control does not respect borders. Unfortunately, its echoes will sound for a long time and will affect more than one generation of people.
It was only thanks to the courage and dedication of workers, scientists, military personnel and volunteers who risked their lives and health, who then, in 1986, carried out work unprecedented in its scale and complexity to urgently eliminate the consequences of this tragedy, that more horrific consequences were avoided. Residents of all republics of the USSR took part in eliminating the consequences of the Chernobyl accident.
Paying tribute to the memory of the victims, the heads of state of the Commonwealth of Independent States at the summit in June 2001 decided to appeal to the — member states of the United Nations (UN) to declare April 26 as the International Day of Remembrance for Victims of Radiation Accidents and Disasters.
On December 17, 2003, the UN General Assembly supported the decision of the Council of Heads of State of the CIS to proclaim April 26 as the International Day of Remembrance for Victims of Radiation Accidents and Disasters, and also called on all UN member states to celebrate this International Day and hold relevant events within its framework. And in December 2016, it proclaimed April 26 as the International Day of Remembrance of the Chernobyl Disaster.
For many years now, the UN has been assessing the consequences of the Chernobyl accident, supporting efforts to improve public and environmental safety and helping to restore areas affected by the disaster.
An important achievement was the completion in 2019 of the installation of a new sarcophagus over the old «Shelter» facility; More than 45 donor countries allocated funds in the amount of 2.2 billion euros for the implementation of this project, managed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). The new sarcophagus was handed over to the Ukrainian government on July 10, 2019. This project is one of the largest international cooperation projects in the field of nuclear safety.
Despite widespread emergency measures to eliminate and mitigate the consequences of the disaster, taken both immediately after it and in subsequent years, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant continues to be a potential source of danger.
Let us recall that also every year on April 26, Russia celebrates the Day of Participants in the Elimination of the Consequences of Radiation Accidents and Disasters and the memory of the victims of these accidents and disasters, and in Ukraine, the Day of Honoring Participants in the Elimination of the Consequences of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Accident is celebrated on December 14.
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