Soviets to Start Two Chernobyl Reactors

MOSCOW--Officials in charge of cleaning up the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster plan to start up two of the power plant's four reactors in October, local Communist Party official Alexander Domanyuk said yesterday.

Domanyuk, party head in Prepay, the town adjoining the Chernobyl plant, said the government commission investigating the April 26 accident in the plant's No. 4 reactor wanted to get reactors No. 1 and No. 2 going in October. Speaking in an interview on the national television evening news, Domanyuk did not say when the No. 3 reactor might be operating again.

Reactors No. 1 and No. 2, shut down immediately after the accident, are in a separate building from No. 4. Soviet media accounts said the roof of the No. 3 reactor was damaged by fire, but that the third reactor itself was intact.

Domanyuk gave no indication that the estimated 25,000 residents of Prepay, who are among 92,000 people evacuated from an 18-mile zone around the Chernobyl plant, would be returning home when the two reactors start up in the fall.

No new information emerged on the casualty toll from the Ukrainian disaster, which killed at least 23 people, including two workers killed on the spot.

Dr. Robert P. Gale, a U.S. bone marrow specialist helping care for Chernobyl radiation victims in Moscow, arranged to go to Kiev yesterday to check on patients hospitalized there and discuss long-term medical care and case follow-ups. At least 299 people were hospitalized immediately after the accident. Kiev is 80 miles from the disaster site.

Soviet scientist Valery Legasov yesterday said that lessons must be drawn from the Chernobyl nuclear accident, including the need for better skills in dealing with sophisticated technology.

Legasov, deputy director of the Soviet Union's Atomic Energy Institute, said in an interview with the Communist Party newspaper Pravda that the emergency work during the disaster was done correctly, even though it was impossible to foresee the gravity of the disaster.

Legasov said trouble-free operation of nuclear power plants depends on the qualifications and skills of work crews. His remarks seemed to imply some criticism of the Chernobyl staff.

"We live in the century of technology but often we forget about this," he said. "The 20th century demands education, discipline and high culture of work."

He added that the needs are even more acute in nuclear plants.

In Geneva, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency yesterdays said the Chernobyl disaster set back the industry, but will not halt expansion of nuclear power.

Hans Blix, IAEA director general, also said Chernobyl would lead to better international cooperation, guaranteeing high safety standards.

He told the opening session of an international conference on atomic energy that following the disaster, estimates on the nuclear share of electricity production in the next decade may fall.

But nuclear power "is not a luxury we can drop like a garment," said Blix, who visited the Soviet disaster area immediately after the accident.