Wednesday, October 19 2016 14:02

ArmInfo. The Russian Embassy in Armenia has awarded medals of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations to the Armenian citizens, who helped liquidate the consequences of emergency situations.   

Russian Ambassador to Armenia Ivan Volynkin awarded the medals and  said that Russia remembers the citizens who extended a helping hand  during the Chernobyl disaster and provided their support in  liquidation of the disaster consequences.   

The Russian Ministry's medals were awarded to President of Chernobyl  Union of Armenia Gevorg Vardanyan, Vice of the President of Chernobyl  Union of Armenia Yerem Avagyan, members of the Coordination Council  of Chernobyl Union of Armenia Khachatur Klijyan and Gevorg Melkonyan,  Chairman of the Regional Branch of Chernobyl Union of Armenia Arthur  Harutyunyan. 

Ambassador Volynkin noted that he has never been to Chernobyl and  when the disaster occurred in 1986 he was on a business trip in  Yugoslavia, while his wife and children were returning from Belgrade  to Moscow by train through Ukraine and the train was in Kiev on April  26. He stressed that the scale of the disaster was huge. He also  pointed out the significance of the rescuers, servicemen and ordinary  citizens, who arrived at the scene to help liquidate the  consequences.  

The Russian diplomat also stressed the need to be careful with the  nuclear power engineering. "It is clear that it is impossible to do  without nuclear power engineering, but it is necessary to handle the  nuclear power plants and other nuclear facilities very carefully,"  Volynkin said, noting that the damage was immense and the  consequences harmed the health of the people living not only in that  region, but also in neighboring Belarus.      

For his part, Ambassador of Belarus to Armenia Igor Nazaruk told  ArmInfo's correspondent that Armenian, Georgians, Azerbaijanis,  Tajiks, Russians and Ukrainians participated in the operations aimed  at liquidating the consequences of that dreadful man-triggered  disaster.     

"My brother was also among those liquidating the disaster  consequences, so I am well aware what it was.  The radioactive  fallout also affected the territory of my country Belarus. We are  still fighting the consequences of the disaster. The state budget  annually provides huge funds for rehabilitation of the population and  nature affected by the disaster. We are very grateful to the  international community that gave shelter to the children of  Chernobyl. And it is very important that the Russian Embassy has  assumed such a lofty mission," the diplomat said.       

The Chernobyl disaster was a catastrophic nuclear accident that  occurred on 26 April 1986 in the No.4 Light water graphite moderated  reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the city of Pripyat,  in what was then known as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic of  the Soviet Union (USSR). During an impatient late night power-failure  stress test, in which safety systems were deliberately turned off, a  combination of inherent reactor design flaws together with the  reactor operators arranging the core in a manner contrary to the  checklist for the stress test, eventually resulted in uncontrolled  reaction conditions that flashed water into steam generating a  destructive steam explosion and a subsequent open- air graphite  "fire", that "burned" for 9 days releasing plumes of radioactive  isotopes into the atmosphere, spreading over much of the western USSR  and Europe. The Chernobyl disaster was the worst nuclear power plant  accident in history in terms of cost and casualties. It is one of  only two classified as a level 7 event (the maximum classification)  on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the other being the  Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan in 2011.  On 15 December  2000, the plant was decommissioned.