Chernobyl’s new US$1.7 billion radioactive dust shelter unveiled in Ukraine
- Giant structure was built to confine dangerous debris at the site of the 1986 nuclear reactor explosion
- Complex construction effort to secure the molten reactor’s core and 200 tonnes of highly radioactive material took nine years to complete
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday inaugurated a giant structure built to confine radioactive debris at the nuclear reactor that exploded in Chernobyl in 1986.
The confinement structure for the Chernobyl nuclear power plant’s Reactor No 4 cost €1.5 billion (US$1.7 billion) to build, and the entire project cost €2.2 billion (US$2.5 billion).
The complex construction effort to secure the molten reactor’s core and 200 tonnes of highly radioactive material took nine years to complete under the auspices of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
Officials have described the shelter as the largest movable land-based structure ever built, with a span of 257 metres (843 feet) and a total weight of over 36,000 tonnes.
Reactor No 4 at the plant in what was then Soviet Ukraine exploded and burned on April 26, 1986, spewing radioactive dust across Europe in the world’s worst nuclear accident.