Small Chernobyl Leak Marks Eve of Anniversary

A worker at the Chernobyl nuclear plant disposed of some radioactive material Thursday in a container that was not completely sealed, raising new fears of contamination on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the world’s worst commercial nuclear disaster.

Officials said that it was a case of improper handling of nuclear waste and that the small leak had been cleaned up without incident.

Plant officials said the worker’s carelessness did not expose him or his fellow employees to higher levels of radiation than normal.

The source of the radiation was debris from a filtration system that is being dismantled, plant supervisor Valentin Kupny said.

The worker put the radioactive material in a container but didn’t make sure it was sealed.

As the scare about new contamination grew, relatives of the first victims of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident set off Thursday on a “mourning train” to visit the graves of their loved ones.

They were headed for the cemetery outside Moscow where the first Chernobyl casualties were buried in lead coffins to shield the world from their radioactive corpses. The graves are marked by a stone monument shaped like a mushroom cloud.

Thursday’s incident at Chernobyl ranked as a level one, the lowest on the seven-level scale of nuclear accidents developed by the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Andry Shatsman, an engineer at the plant.

The April 26, 1986, Chernobyl explosion measured seven; the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 was graded five.