People across the former Soviet Union offered their prayers yesterday to victims of the Chernobyl disaster, 15 years after the world’s worst nuclear accident occurred in Ukraine. The Ukrainian government says that more than 70,000 people were fully disabled by the accident and more than 4,000 who took part in the clean-up have died. At least 7 million people in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine suffer physical or psychological effects from the radiation released during the catastrophe. Meanwhile, half of Americans now say they support using nuclear plants to produce electricity, an increase over two years ago, according to an Associated Press poll. And the nuclear industry may soon seek its first permit in decades to build a new plant in the U.S.
