
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, February 8, 1991                   TAG: 9102080235
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: MOSCOW                                LENGTH: Medium

CHERNOBYL CLEANUP FAULTY, SOVIETS SAY

Almost five years after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the Soviet prosecutor general conceded Thursday that there had been gross failures in the government's cleanup plan and said some officials would face criminal charges for failing to protect the public from fallout and continuing radiation contamination.

In a sweeping preliminary condemnation of the cleanup, the national government, prodded by private and local government complaints, charged that officials had failed to evacuate people as quickly and safely as they should have; ignored dangerous radiation readings; used slipshod methods to bury masses of contaminated wastes; and then built resettlement homes in contaminated regions.

For the national government, the action represents a significant concession to critics in the affected regions after years of insisting that the aftermath of Chernobyl has been handled relatively well.

Prosecutor General Nikolai Trubin announced that he had assigned the case to a team of investigators from Russia, the Ukraine and Byelorussia, the republics immediately affected by the nuclear reactor's accident on April 26, 1986.

The Soviet government has maintained that 31 people died in the accident, although some specialists have estimated lately that the toll may be in the hundreds if the effects of severe radiation carried by the fallout cloud are considered.

National authorities evacuated more than 100,000 people after the accident. Villages were shut, cattle slain and topsoil scraped away for burial.

Byelorussia and the Ukraine, where the most immediate fallout was registered, subsequently ordered tens of thousands more to evacuate, accusing national officials of setting dangerously low standards for radiation tolerance.

The republics have also voted to close the three remaining active nuclear generators at Chernobyl.

The announcement about criminal charges offered critics confirmation of their complaints of danger.

These included admissions that cleanup workers had been exposed to high doses of radiation; that contaminated farms had been permitted to continue to produce goods; and that "hasty decisions" had been made to build resettlement villages in areas later found to have dangerous radiation levels.

The prosecutor's office said officials would be charged with negligence and abuse of authority for having failed to evacuate people and ignoring "objective data about radiation levels."

The officials, not specified by name or in number, were also accused of violating health norms in hurriedly burying radiation debris.

by CNB