Parts of Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear power station, the site of the world's severest civil nuclear catastrophe that occurred in 1986, will be sold as scrap in March 2005. The money raised will pay for constructing a 20,000-tonne steel case over the present sarcophagus of the plant's reactor (the dome shaped structure covering the reactor). The existing sarcophagus is now threatening to collapse. The international community is also providing aid for building the new sarcophagus system.
Chernobylskaya, the public company that operated the power station, recently declared that all the materials that will be put on sale have been tested for radiation and are "clean". It said the scrap has been taken from sections of the plant farthest from the reactor.
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