30 years since the Chernobyl disaster at the nuclear power plant near Pripyat, a giant arch has finally sealed off the reactor destroyed in the blast.
The disaster in late April 1986 in the then-Ukrainian Soviet Republic, sent a cloud of radioactive fallout over many parts of Europe and led to the evacuation of about 115,000 people living in close proximity to the plant. More than two dozen workers died from radiation exposure, and an unknown number of other personnel were injured while responding to the incident.
In one of the most ambitious engineering projects ever undertaken, the giant arch was slid into place over Chernobyl’s reactor no. 4 which was devastated in the disaster.
The design for the arch was conceived over 20 years ago with Novarka, the French construction consortium formed by VINCI Construction and Bouygues Construction, beginning construction in 2012.
With a span of 257m, a length of 162m, a height of 108m and a total weight of 36,000 tonnes equipped, the giant arch is the largest moveable land-based structure ever built.
The President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, described the structure as “the biggest moving construction that humanity has ever created.”
Due to its sheer size, the structure was constructed in two parts, which were successfully lifted and combined together last year.
The arch is designed to have a lifespan of at least 100 years but comes complete with its own overhead crane to make future dismantling of the seal and the remains of the no.4 reactor a less arduous task.
Work can now start on the dismantling of the initial ‘sarcophagus’ that was constructed within eight months of the disaster and used to seal the remains of the no. 4 reactor.
Funding has been administered by European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, who also contributed $500M to the project. More than $1.5Bn came from other Western countries including affected nations Ukraine and Russia.
Mr Poroshenko praised the spirit of international cooperation and community that led to project completion. He said: “Let the whole world see today what Ukraine and the world can do when they unite, how we are able to protect the world from nuclear contamination and nuclear threats”.
As the Head of International Atomic Energy Agency, Hans Blix was the first Western representative to inspect the consequences of the disaster on site and led the agency response. Now as chairman of the Chernobyl Shelter Fund, he said: “Thirty years after the accident, pains and costs are still there but the healing process has come a long way.”
“Moving together two halves of the huge arch and sliding the gigantic shelter in the position over the historic reactor is like closing a wound, a nuclear wound that belongs to all of us.”
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