LONDON - Donor countries gathered here Thursday to pledge an additional 200 million dollars (157.4 million euros) towards a "safe confinement" steel shelter for Chernobyl nuclear plant, destroyed in the world's worst civilian nuclear disaster in 1986.
The sum would be added to the 600 million euros already promised by 28 international governments, said Ian Downing, the British chairman of the Group of Eight (G8) industrialised nations' nuclear safety and security group.
He spoke at a London press conference organised by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), ahead of its annual meeting in Belgrade from May 22-23.
"We pledged more money to complete this important task," Downing said.
The EBRD-ran Chernobyl Shelter Fund (CSF) hopes to raise more than 1.0 billion dollars to build a huge steel shelter over the former Chernobyl plant.
Chernobyl's number-four reactor, in what was then the Soviet Union and is now Ukraine, exploded on April 26, 1986, sending a radioactive cloud across Europe.
The pledges made in London would "contribute significantly to the construction of a new safe confinement for Unit-4" of the plant, the EBRD said in an official statement.
The largest donation came from G8 countries -- with 185 million dollars -- while Russia for the first time promised to contribute to the fund, it added.
Following the disaster, a concrete sarcophagus was built over the stricken reactor but the new 20,000-tonne steel case will cover the whole plant.
EBRD officials hope that construction of the gigantic steel shelter would be completed by 2008/2009.
"We welcome the new donations as a signal for the international community's strong commitment to complete the shelter," EBRD president Jean Lemierre said in the statement.
05/12/2005 18:46 GMT