radioactive Christmas trees, reports said Monday, December 30.
Officials seized the trees at local markets in the southern town of Rovno, the Itar-Tass news agency reported.
Itar-Tass quoted local police as saying the fir trees were cut in the forest of neighbouring Zhitomir region, which was contaminated by radiation following the world’s worst ever nuclear disaster in 1986 at the Chernobyl plant.
Tree- cutting in the contaminated forest has been banned for the past 15 years, several media said. However the ‘businessmen’ reportedly used forged documents to sell the trees at local markets for the upcoming Orthodox festivities.
TRACING PEOPLE
The authorities are now trying to trace people who have already bought the trees, amid apparent health concerns in an already troubled region.
Chernobyl’s vast areas of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia and sent a radioactive cloud across Europe. Thousands of people are believed to have died from the effects of radiation.
CONTAMINATED AREAS
The United Nations and people living in Ukraine say thousands of people are still living in contaminated areas, in many cases because of poverty.
Several foreign mission organizations have launched social projects and started to preach the Gospel in the mainly Orthodox country of over 50 million people since it became independent when the Soviet Union broke up in 1991.
