RIYADH: Saudi Arabia joined the international community in observing the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster by participating in a two-day conference in the Ukrainian capital Kiev.

The Saudi delegation at the conference was led by Waleed Husain Abu Alfaraj, vice president of the King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy (KACARE), its media department said on Tuesday.

Ukraine commemorated with an event marking the 30th anniversary of the disaster with sirens sounding exactly at the moment when the first explosion at the nuclear reactor occurred in the early hours of April 26, 1986.

KACARE emphasized Saudi Arabia’s active role in nuclear safety and security issues at international forums.

The country recently took the initiative to establish an international center to combat nuclear terrorism and is currently coordinating with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to set up an International Center for Nuclear Safety at the agency’s headquarters in Vienna.

Saudi Arabia is also playing an active role with the international community to help Ukraine solve the problem of radioactive material leakage from the destroyed reactor.

The meltdown at the Soviet plant was the worst nuclear disaster in history, when an uncontrolled reaction blew off the roof, spewing out a cloud of radioactive material which drifted into other parts of the then-USSR including Russia and Belarus, and northern Europe.

The conference is aimed at assuring the importance of safety and security of nuclear facilities and to become acquainted with measures adopted by Ukraine to contain radioactive materials at the Chernobyl reactor and isolate it from the environment with international financial and technical assistance.

The conference is held at the invitation of the Ukrainian government to the donor governments which participated in the Chernobyl shelter which began construction five years ago.

The project consists of a huge engineering facility in the form of a steel dome rising 105 meters and covering an area of 15,570 square meters. For the next one hundred years, it will fully contain the current concrete building that encases the fourth unit reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear station which was destroyed as a result of the disaster, scattering contaminated nuclear fuel.

The project of constructing this huge steel dome aims at preventing the cracking of the destroyed reactor’s concrete casing and to prevent the spread of radioactive material by isolating it from the atmosphere and surrounding environment.