Courier-Post from Camden, New Jersey • Page 1

WEATHER Today: Cloudy Tonight: Cloudy Tomorrow: Sunny Details: Page 2A OOUMER-POST 35 CENTS A GANNETT NEWSPAPER SERVING SOUTH JERSEY TUESDAY, APRIL 29, 1986 TVTvCv end Mit from REACTION With few details coming out of the Soviet Union, scientists and oiriciais around the world are speculating on what happened: Lars Erik de Geer of Swe den's Defense Research Agency: "It must have been a relatively big accident, since we: have received such high levels of radiation from so far away. White House spokesman! Edward Djerejian: "It must be! very serious if the Soviets talk! about it." "'f Sto! 'Moscow hti fl Nuclear Plant I ll Sgl Accident ifeS i vKStJeastI POLAND v'-'mf 'yfl A GERMANY -A Kiev- Birgitta Dahl, Sweden's energy chief: "They should immediately have warned us. We must demand higher safety standards in the Soviet Union." Reports indicate injuries By KEN OLSEN Associated Press MOSCOW A Foreign Ministry spokesman warned today that travel to Kiev might be dangerous because of the Chernobyl nuclear plant accident. In Sweden, a nuclear expert said Soviet officials have sought advice on how to fight a fire in a nuclear plant. There was no confirmed word on deaths or injuries, although experts and officials in the United States said the nuclear accident was almost certainly a fuel meltdown that caused fatalities.

The official news agency Tass first reported the accident yesterday in a four-sentence dispatch saying one of the plant's atomic reactors was damaged and measures were being taken to "eliminate the consequences." It did not say how serious the accident was or when it occurred. Abnormally high radiation levels were reported in Sweden, Denmark and Finland, more than 750 miles northwest of the plant. In Stockholm today, Friedrich Reich, a reactor inspector at Sweden's State Nuclear Power Inspection Board, disclosed that Soviet officials Please see SOVIETS, Page 4A Frank Graham, Atomic Industrial Forum vice president: "We don't know enough to say. Ed Zebroski, chief nuclear scientist, Electric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto, "If the radioactivity is a few millirem 700 miles away, I'd hate to be within 10 miles" of the TURKEY damaged plant. Richard chief of ElHtA 1 V'fSK Iff' nuclear medicine division at i Associated Press Radiation spreads A worker at Sweden's Forsmark nuclear power plant is checked for radiation yesterday (left) before Soviet officials admitted high radiation levels detected around the Swedish plant were actually from an accident at a Soviet power plant 750 miles away in the Ukraine.

George Washington University Medical Center: "Radiation injury is really not going to be a major factor" to Soviets except those very near the accident. smttmr MI Accident believed far worse than Island, told Washington television station WJLA, "In the Soviet Union, we seem to ha ve something far worse." Soviet reactors are highly unusual in that most use graphite toslowdownneutronsanddon'thave "containment structures. It was not immediately clear whether the malfunctioning reactor at Chernobyl was of this type or the pressurized water type like Three Mile Island. Julius Goodman, a nuclear physicist who workedmanyyearsonreactorsafetyintheSoviet Union, was quoted in today's editions of the Los Angeles Times as saying the description of the Please see SOVIET, Page 4A NUCLEAR THREAT Nuclear expert says health threat to United States from fallout is minor. Soviet officials never acknowledged catastrophe during late 1950s.

Page 5A and operators made mistakes that resulted in loss of coolant water and the uncovering of the fuel core. Very little radioactivity was released, and most of that was in the form of unreactive gases that quickly lost radioactivity and dispersed. Most radioactivity was held in the giant, super-strong containment building of steel and concrete, which is standard for all U.S. power reactors. Thane Gustavson, a Soviet energy specialist at theCenterforStrategicandlnternationalStudies at Georgetown University, when asked how the Soviet accident compared with Three Mile an estimated 250,000 people fled, but no one was killed or directly injured.

A report yesterday by the official Soviet news agency Tass provided no details on injuries, but government-run radio in Hungary reported that the accident had caused injuries. The Hungarian report also noted that Chernobyl was located at the conjunction of two rivers, near the reservoir that supplies Kiev, a city of 2.4 million people and the capital of the Ukraine. Three Mile Island is considered the worst commercial nuclear accident that occurred in the UnitedStates.It.too, involved a partialmcltingof the nuclear fuel after valves and indicators failed By GUY DARST Associated Press WASHINGTON From the little that is known, U.S. scientists and officials are concluding that the Soviet Union's nuclear accident is a full-fledged fuel meltdown and far worse than Three Mile Island. The four-reactor complex at Chernobyl, about 1 00 miles north of Kiev, probably has caused fatalities, U.S.

officials concluded yesterday on the basis of reports from Swedish diplomats. At the March 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, IN SOUTH JERSEY Nidal group claims killing of British tourist J' 'B'l 1p vv Bristol.England.wasonaspymissionSundaywhengunmen of Abu Nidal's Fatah-Revolutionary Council shot him down. Appleby, who carried a Bible in his knapsack, was shot once in the back of the head with a small-caliber pistol near believe is the site of Christ's crucifixion and burial. "The Monzer Kadry squad that operates in the Jerusalem district has carried out the death sentence against Briton Paul Appleby in the heart of Jerusalem while he was on an intelligence mission disguised behind a false (tourist) pretense," said the terrorist statement, which was in Arabic. Please see TERRORIST, Page 6A By FAROUK NASSAR Associated Press BEIRUT, Lebanon Followers of radical terrorist Abu Nidal claimed responsibility yesterday for killing a British tourist in Jerusalem.

Abu Nidal's group claimed it killed British tourist Paul Appleby in Jerusalem in revenge for the U.S. air raids on Libya two weeks ago. The United States blames the Palestinian faction leader for the Dec. 27 massacres at the Rome and Vienna airports, in which 20 people were killed, and accuses Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy of harboring him. A typewritten statement delivered to a Western news agency in Moslem west Beirut claimed that Appleby, 28, of Prankster faces charges By KEVIN RIORDAN Of the Courier-Post "Captain Midnight," the prankster who literally stole the show from Home Box Office (HBO) Sunday, played a sophisticated electronic joke that has not amused the federal government, HBO or representatives of the satellite dish industry.

"If we apprehend the person causing this (interference), we will prosecute fully we are looking (for him) very actively," Maureen Perintino, a spokeswoman for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), said yesterday. "Captain Midnight" could face a maximum fine of $10,000 and a one-year prison sentence for violating the Federal Communications Act of 1934, which makes it illegal to interfere with a broadcast signal, Perintino said. (HBO's programming signal is sent from earth to a satellite called Galaxy 1 and then to cable television companies or private customers with receiving dishes on earth. Its signal is protected by the communications act). "Captain Midnight" struck shortly after midnight Saturday, when HBO viewers in the Eastern two-thirds of the nation saw the film "The Falcon and the Snowman" disappear from their television screens.

In place of that spy movie came a message, in white letters against a color-bar background, protesting HBO's policy of scrambling its signal Please see OFFICIALS, Page 6A Courier-Post photo by Evangelos Oousmanis Warm glow Beth Palmer and her 9-month-old son, Eric, bask in the warmth of each other's company and the summer-like temperature of 79 degrees yesterday while playing in their back yard in Collingswood. Uniformity: County workers to dress alike ft Philadelphia, Delaware Valley: 2A Police notebook: Page 9B Section A State-Nation-World Section South Jersey-Living Section Sports-Money Astrology 4B Experts 4B Classified 10B Movies 8B Comics 5B Obituaries 9B Crossword 5B People 9C DearAbby 3B Television 6B Editorials 12A Weather 2 A I School closing Page IB Barrington council decides to close elementary school to save money. Landfill tett Pag2B Cherry Hill OKs ordinance to fund water testing, gas venting at landfill. I Beloved church Pge9C Merchantville woman publishes history of church in Cape May Point. navy and yellow.

The employees, mostly women, won't dress like flight attendants or sheriff's officers. "There will be no police uniforms, no stripes," he said. Nor will the uniforms have any emblem or logo. Several styles will be available for the individual employee to select -skirts or slacks, long or short jackets, vests, even jumpers for pregnant workers. Men will wear a suit or color-coordinated sports jacket and slacks.

Please see WORKERS, Page 6A By RENEE WINKLER Of the Courier-Post CAMDEN Camden County Clerk Michael Keating says he wants to give his office a more professional appearance to outsiders. Insiders say it was a one-shouldered, sequined sweater that made up the clerk's mind. Whatever the reason, Keating has notified the 74 employees of the clerk's office that beginning in September they will be wearing uniforms. The color is still up in the air, although Keating has ruled out both MICHAEL KEATING professional appearance 4.