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Putting A Lid On Chernobyl
slicer622 writes "Chernobyl is finally getting a containment structure (Washington Post). Billed as the largest moveable structure ever built, its designed to help take apart the wreckage and keep most of the radioactive material from spreading. It will be 800 feet across, and 300 feet high and will cost $800 mil."
It will be 800 feet across, and 300 feet high and will cost $800 mil.
The dome itself will not cost $800 million, the whole project, including cleaning up inside the dome once it's there, will cost $768 million.
- Peter
About 7 years ago they built a huge concrete wall that goes underground and is meant to stop the flow of groundwater(to some extent) from the contaminated areas. The last I read of this said that the wall had begun to fail. The Pripyat River, which was Chernobyl's water supply, was severely contaminated.
This map shows the "hot zone." It actually covers quite a large area.
A lot of stories about the Chernobyl accident can be found here.
Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster On April 25th -26th, 1986 the World's worst nuclear power accident occurred at Chernobyl in the former USSR (now Ukraine). The Chernobyl nuclear power plant located 80 miles north of Kiev had 4 reactors and whilst testing reactor number 4 numerous safety procedures were disregarded. At 1:23am the chain reaction in the reactor became out of control creating explosions and a fireball which blew off the reactor's heavy steel and concrete lid.
The Chernobyl accident killed more than 30 people immediately, and as a result of the high radiation levels in the surrounding 20-mile radius, 135,00 people had to be evacuated.