Victims of Chornobyl Disaster Remembered in Ukraine

Hundreds of Ukrainian mourners holding candles and red carnations gathered on Monday, April 26, 2010, to mark the 24th anniversary of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster. President Viktor Yanukovych laid wreaths at the monument to Chornobyl victims and visited the Cheornobyl Nuclear Power Plant on the same day, reports the presidential website.

Yanukovych pledged to take better care of the Chornobyl victims and those who still suffer from related diseases. The president said that some 2 million people suffer illnesses caused by the radiation.

"Our economy is gradually recovering, and we will find the funds to improve the social protection of Chornobyl clean-up workers," Yanukovych said in a speech delivered at a memorial gathering.

The president promised to accelerate clean-up work at the plant, saying the Chornobyl nuclear reactor remains a serious threat to Europe.

In Slavutych, some 50 kilometers away from the wrecked nuclear power plant where many of the plant's staff used to live, Ukrainians gathered for an overnight vigil.

On April 26, 1986, the world's worst nuclear catastrophe in history occurred at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant, causing widespread radioactive pollution that has left places in Ukraine and Belarus uninhabitable.