Shultz Disputes Soviet Figures

Casualties from the Soviet nuclear disaster in Chernobyl are higher “by a good measure” than the Kremlin has acknowledged, Secretary of State George P. Shultz said today.

The Soviet Union has said that two people were killed in the accident and that 197 were injured. Shultz said that “the scope of the accident is certainly a major one” and that “the casualty rates are higher than those that have been announced by the Soviet Union by a good measure.”

Shultz, speaking in Bali, Indonesia, where he is accompanying President Reagan on a 13-day Far East trip, did not provide any figures but said the United States has “a fuller picture” of the accident’s dimension than has been presented by Moscow.