A girl dozes during a protest rally organised by Ukraine’s green parties in front of the National Opera building in Kiev. The activists picketed the building where an international conference on the Chernobyl disaster was to take place.

VIENNA: Greenpeace activists tried to deliver samples of radioactive soil taken from Chernobyl to the headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna yesterday, on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the nuclear disaster.

The action was meant to “highlight the IAEA’s continued downplaying of the consequences of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster,” the worst civilian nuclear accident in history, and the continued risk of contamination in the area, Greenpeace, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), said in a statement.

About 30 activists brought the two one-kilogram samples, carried for safety reasons in a 250-kilogram concrete container, to the United Nations in Vienna, headquarters to the IAEA, but were turned away.

“The IAEA refused to accept the samples,” Greenpeace campaigner Jan Vande Putte told AFP, but they made it onto UN property — the visitor’s centre — even if they were not allowed in the building itself, he said. Vande Putte and another Greenpeace delegate also met with senior IAEA press officers Marc Vidricaire and Melissa Fleming, the IAEA press office told AFP.

“We agreed to have a further detailed discussion with (IAEA) experts on the issue,” Vande Putte said, describing the meeting as constructive.

Yushchenko seeks aid

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko urged donors yesterday to help tackle the enduring aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, especially the completion of a new cover for the plant’s devastated reactor.

Addressing a conference opening several days of events to mark the 20th anniversary of the world’s worst civil nuclear accident, Yushchenko called for an international conference to come up with funds that no single country could raise.

“It is clear that the resources needed to overcome the consequences of a catastrophe of this magnitude are far beyond the means of a single country. They require joint efforts by the international community,” Yushchenko told gathered dignitaries.