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Cancer victim's family sues Russian nuclear facility in international court

The family demands $90,000 from Mayak, the site of one of the worst nuclear disasters in history

YEKATERINBURG, June 5. /TASS/. The family of a girl who died from cancer four years ago has filed a 5-million ruble ($90,000) lawsuit at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) against Mayak, one of the biggest nuclear facilities in Russia, a human rights official said on Friday.

Mayak, located in the Urals region at Chelyabinsk, was the site of one of the worst nuclear disasters in history. In September 1957, a Mayak storage tank exploded, contaminating some 23,000 square kilometres and affecting 270,000 people.

The girl, Regina Khasanova, was a granddaughter of one of the clean-up workers called on to deal with consequences of the disaster kept secret for about 30 years. She died of liver cancer in 2011.

Nadezhda Kutepova, an aide to Chelyabinsk human rights envoy Alexey Sevastyanov, said she had "helped the girl's parents to file a lawsuit with the ECHR". They were also planning a lawsuit at the Russian Supreme Court, she added.

Sevastyanov says expert examination proved the girl's death was connected with the disaster.