KIEV, DEC 15: Engineers at Chernobyl nuclear power station prepared on Friday to press a button marked BAZ - "rapid emergency defence" - for the last time, laying to rest a chilling symbol of the dangers of atomic power.The button will slowly drop control rods into Chernobyl's last functioning reactor and herald the start of a long process of decommissioning the plant which caused the world's worst nuclear accident in 1986.Facing unemployment, staff at the plant said their mood was funereal, but environmentalists hailed the closure and called for 14 remaining reactors similar to Chernobyl's to be taken out of service at power stations around the former Soviet Union.Fourteen years after the accident, the concrete entombed, burnt-out and highly radioactive remains of Reactor Number Four, which exploded after a controversial experiment, loom over a small monument to 30 firemen who died fighting its flames.Thousands are thought to have died as a result of radiation which spewed from the reactor's burning shell. One in 16 Ukrainians, and millions of Russians and Belarussians suffer health disorders, including thyroid cancer and respiratory problems.Chernobyl is encircled by a poisoned 30 km (20 mile) no-go zone, which scientists say will be uninhabitable for centuries.Reactors One and Two have already been stopped - Two was shut down after a huge fire in 1991 and One passed its expiration date five years later.But the third reactor has, on-and-off, been providing Ukraine with five per cent of its electricity. Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma agreed earlier this year to shut the reactor down in return for Western financial aid to complete replacement reactors elsewhere.Technical glitches forced the reactor to shut down twice in the past two weeks. It was restarted for its final day on Thursday, only to be shut down again by engineers when Kuchma toured the control room.It was restarted for Friday's ceremony, at its minimal power output, so there would be something to turn off at the ceremony."We restarted the reactor at 3.47 a.m. and plan to turn it off around 1.30 p.m. (1130 GMT)," said the shift leader in the reactor's control room, 125 km (70 miles) North of Kiev. "Our mood is funereal."Representatives of all Ukraine's religions were due to pray together during a morning service in St Sophia's church, followed by a gathering of representatives of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, along with others in Kiev's cavernous National Palace.The environmental group Greenpeace hailed the occasion, but called for more closures of Soviet-designed nuclear plants, especially those built around the same notorious RBMK-1000 reactors used at Chernobyl."We cannot wait another 14 years before the remainder are shut down," Greenpeace campaigner Tobias Muenchmeyer said in a statement from London.But the 6,000 workers at Chernobyl have indicated they will not be joining in the champagne cork-popping as they face their uncertain future.During the eight years it will take to remove all fuel rods from reactor Three, jobs will gradually be shed, and many workers have said they do not trust government assurances of pensions and social benefits.Kuchma sought again to reassure the workers that the economically battered state would provide for them."I want you to know from me and the government: nobody will be ignored," he said during his visit on Thursday."I don't believe him," said one worker in the audience. "This pension will be paid in kopecks."
