Pictures: Race Against Time to Build a New Tomb for Chernobyl
Steel Skeleton at a Deathly Site
Photograph by Sergey Dolzhenko, European Pressphoto Agency
Visitors
gaze overhead at the steel lattice that will underpin the new
protective shelter at Chernobyl, site of the worst nuclear accident in
history. The so-called New Safe Confinement,
designed to seal the destroyed reactor and contain the radioactive
material inside, is the latest step in a more than 26-year cleanup at
the desolate plant site in Ukraine. (Related Quiz: "What Do You Know About Nuclear Power?")
On April 26, 1986, an explosion in one of the plant's reactors spewed large amounts of radioactive material
over Ukraine, Belarus, and western Russia. The immediate area was
evacuated, but the cloud that rose from the burning reactor spread
iodine and radionuclides over much of Europe. Some 30 workers were
killed immediately, and as many as 4,000 people are expected to die
eventually as a result of radiation exposure from the Chernobyl plant,
by the World Health Organization's reckoning. Some estimates of the excess cancer toll
are far higher. Immediately following the accident, workers braved
dangerous conditions to build a steel and concrete structure to contain
the uranium, plutonium, and other radioactive materials at the ruined
plant. Known as the "sarcophagus," the structure was never meant to be a
permanent solution. It is supported by faulty beams and has developed
cracks, causing experts to worry it could collapse and once again allow
radioactive material to escape.
A plan for a more
permanent protective solution, developed more than 15 years ago by
European and Western experts, finally is being put into action. The $2
billion (1.6 billion Euro) effort, funded by more than two dozen
nations and the European Union, is "an unparalleled project in the
history of engineering," says the European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development, the project administrator.
After
shoring up the sarcophagus, workers raised the first section of the new
structure’s arched roof, seen here in November. The new shelter will
eventually cover the damaged reactor. The mammoth structure, which is
slated for completion in 2015, will weigh 29,000 tons and stand tall
enough to house the Statue of Liberty.
—Joe Eaton
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