A week ago thieves stole a swathe of telephone cables connecting Anushaktinagar, (the residential complex in which most of the scientists working in various units of the Department of Atomic Energy live) with the outside world. The Banks at the premises and schools and a few other institutions did not have phone service for a week
Almost two weeks earlier the following news appeared in the Russian paper RIA Novosti 30 May
Chernobyl chopper café plan thwarted
A gang has been arrested in Ukraine for planning to smuggle contaminated wood and scrap metal, including a helicopter, from the 18-mile exclusion zone surrounding the damaged Chernobyl nuclear power plant. In a statement, the country's security service reported that it had "identified and put a stop to the unlawful activities of a criminal gang, which had been illegally removing from Chernobyl radioactive scrap metal, automobile spare parts and timber." The statement said that the timber was usually reprocessed at covert plants and later sold as construction materials, while the metal items were usually melted down for scrap. However, the security service said the gang had also "tried to take an Mi-8 helicopter out of the exclusion zone to use it as an original coffee shop in one of Ukraine's cities." The Mi-8 helicopter was the workhorse of the Soviet armed forces and is capable of carrying up to 28 people. It was not made clear how many customers the gang had been hoping to seat.
Interesting nuclear news!!
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