Nuclear Safety Plan for Russia Eludes G-7 Leaders

The specter of another Chernobyl-style nuclear disaster threatens the industrialized world as much as inflation or slow growth, but the rich states cannot agree how to prevent it.

Officials speaking as the Group of Seven opened its annual summit Monday said the world’s industrial powers are ready to help ex-Soviet republics with urgent steps to improve safety at their often-shaky atomic power plants.

But they are split between the Europeans, who want a broad and expensive multilateral effort, and pressure from the United States, Canada and Japan to limit aid to bilateral programs.

Germany would be in the front line if radioactive clouds again drifted from the east, and Bonn spokesman Dieter Vogel said the West must move fast.

“A real time bomb is ticking there,” he told journalists, reminding them of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

Chancellor Helmut Kohl has taken the lead in pushing for a broad-based safety program to shut down old Chernobyl-type reactors and refurbish the more modern types.