Chernobyl metal sold for scrap

Pieces of metal from the Chernobyl nuclear power station in northern Ukraine, scene of the world's worst civil nuclear disaster in 1986, are being sold for scrap.

Olexzandre Smyshliayev, director of the public company, Chernobylskaya, which ran the former power station, said that part of the plant would be cut up and sold by weight to help pay for reinforcing the sarcophagus of the damaged reactor. He was quoted by the ITAR-TASS news agency as saying all the material to be taken from the site had been tested by the authorities for radiation and had been found to be clean.

The scrap comes from sections of the plant farthest from the reactor, which is at the heart of the contaminated zone. The director said that no material from the reinforced concrete sarcophagus that surrounds the reactor would be sold.