The Associated Press reported that construction workers assemble a gigantic steel arch to cover the remnants of the exploded reactor at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. It will replace a sarcophagus built after the 1986 blast.
Workers have raised the first section of a colossal arch shaped structure that eventually will cover the exploded nuclear reactor at the Chornobyl power station.
Project officials hailed the raising as a significant step in a complex effort to clean up the consequences of the 1986 explosion, the world's worst nuclear accident. Upon completion, the shelter will be moved on tracks over the building containing the destroyed reactor allowing work to begin on dismantling the reactor and disposing of radioactive waste.
Mr Suma Chakrabati president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development which is leading the project, called Tuesday a very significant milestone which is a tribute to the ongoing commitment of the international donor community and an important step toward overcoming the legacy of the accident.
The shelter shaped like a gargantuan Quonset hut will be 257 meters by 150 meters when completed and at its apex will be higher than the Statue of Liberty. The April 26th 1986 accident in the then Soviet republic of Ukraine sent a cloud of radioactive fallout over much of Europe and forced the evacuation of about 115,000 people from the plant's vicinity. A 30 kilometer area directly around the plant remains largely off limits and the town of Pripyat where the plant's workers once lived is a ghostly ruin of deteriorating apartment towers.
At least 28 people have died of acute radiation sickness from close exposure to the shattered reactor and more than 6,000 cases of thyroid cancer have been detected in people who as children or adolescents were exposed to high levels of fallout after the blast.
Officials who showed that reporters around the construction site Tuesday were clearly delighted at the colossus taking shape but concerned about the challenges ahead. The shelter is to be moved over the reactor building by the end of 2015 a deadline that no one wants to miss, given that the so called sarcophagus hastily built over the reactor building after the 1986 explosion has an estimated service life of about 30 years.
The arch now under construction is only one of two segments that will eventually form the shelter and so far it's only been raised to a height of 22 meters. More structural elements have to be added before it reaches its full height of 108 meters and the work so far has taken seven months.
