The World - News from Jan. 15, 1988

The ruling Soviet Politburo said the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power station cost the equivalent of about $14 billion, four times what had been reported earlier. The Tass news agency said in its report on the Politburo’s weekly session that direct costs of the accident were about $6.9 billion. “And considering the losses involved in a decline in the volume of output in those areas, and other expenditures, (the total cost was) nearly 8 billion rubles ($13.8 billion),” the Politburo reported. Last year, a government report estimated the cost of the accident at 2 billion rubles.