Differences delay any Chernobyl conclusions

SUCH is the disagreement over the true consequences of Chernobyl that a four-day conference organised to mark the disaster by the Ukrainian government on Friday was unable to agree on any formal conclusions.

More than 6,000 cases of thyroid cancer have been detected in people who were children or adolescents when exposed to high levels of fall-out in the period immediately after the blast, and at least 28 people have died of acute radiation sickness from close exposure to the shattered reactor.

But Mikhail Balanov of the UN Scientific Committee of the Effects of Atomic Radiation told the conference that other medical effects were difficult to project because the margins of error in various studies are too high to allow reliable assessment.

Balanov did say that radioactive contamination of mushrooms and berries - both popular delicacies in Ukraine - remain high "and we will face elevated levels for decades to come."

Around 115,000 people were evacuated from the plant's vicinity after the blast. A 19-mile area directly around the plant remains largely off-limits and the town of Pripyat, where plant workers once lived, today is a ghostly ruin of deteriorating tower blocks.

In the face of continuing uncertainty about the disaster's effects and debate about future measures, the conference delayed its intention of producing a final document.

"It is not possible to come up with crystal-clear conclusions," said moderator Volodymyr Holosha, director of the "exclusion zone" around the plant.