MINSK, 26 April (BelTA) - Victims of the Chernobyl disaster were commemorated in Minsk on 26 April. The leaders and employees of various ministries and departments laid flowers at the Chernobyl Victims and Hiroshima Peace Stone memorial signs in the People’s Friendship Park, BelTA learned.
The first to lay flowers at the memorial signs were the Chernobyl clean-up workers. Among them was Nikolai Varaksa, who took part in the clean-up efforts in July and August 1986. Four years before the explosion of the reactor, the man graduated from the institute where he studied radiation hygiene. In the first months after the accident, Nikolai Varaksa worked in the settlements that were to be resettled.
The first to lay flowers at the memorial signs were the Chernobyl clean-up workers. Among them was Nikolai Varaksa, who took part in the clean-up efforts in July and August 1986. Four years before the explosion of the reactor, the man graduated from the institute where he studied radiation hygiene. In the first months after the accident, Nikolai Varaksa worked in the settlements that were to be resettled.
“We used mobile radiological laboratories, which had modern equipment, both stationary and portable,” Nikolai Varaksa recalled. “In the settlements that were being resettled, we worked to reduce the radioactive dose. We worked voluntarily because we thought we were prepared. But it turned out that we were not prepared at all for those doses, that level of contamination.”
The man said he was grateful to the state, which had taken care of the Chernobyl clean-up workers: “As our president said, Belarus and the Belarusian people had nothing to do with the plant or the accident but were badly affected by it.”
Chairman of the Minsk City Council of Deputies Artem Tsuran noted that the Committee on Labor, Employment and Social Security of the Minsk City Executive Committee lists 4,200 people as clean-up workers. “It was a feat in peacetime. It was accomplished thanks to the selflessness of those people, who in the first hours of the accident did their best to avoid even greater consequences.”
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