STORY:
Chernobyl Faces Y2K Bug Problem

A Reuters story appearing in Russia Today says the Chernobyl nuclear power station is likely to be affected by the "millennium bug" but officials say there was still enough time to deal with the computer problem.

Chernobyl, site of the world's worst civil nuclear disaster, has aging Soviet-era reactors. The story says nuclear experts are worried that computer problems linked to the year 2000 could cause trouble for such plants throughout the former Soviet Union.

"We have already started working on this problem and are sure that Chernobyl will be ready to come into the year 2000," Yury Neretin, Chernobyl's deputy chief engineer, told a news conference.

Earlier this year, local nuclear officials said the bug issue would not affect the ex-Soviet state's nuclear plants because of their unsophisticated computer equipment, but Neretin said this was incorrect.

According to Reuters, Neretin said the problem could threaten only secondary computer programs at Chernobyl, not linked directly with the electricity production or operating a nuclear reactor.

It was 13 years ago this month that Chernobyl exploded, spewing a cloud of poisonous radioactive dust over Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and part of Western Europe.

Source: Reuters / Russia Today

DATE: 4/28/99

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