New safety dome moved over Chernobyl

UKRAINE yesterday unveiled the world’s largest moveable metal structure over the Chernobyl nuclear power plant’s doomed fourth reactor to ensure the safety of Europeans for future generations.

At a height of 108 metres, it is taller than New York’s Statue of Liberty – while its weight of 36,000 tons is three times heavier than the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The $2.2 billion structure sponsored by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has been edged into place over an existing crumbling dome that the Soviets built in haste when disaster struck three decades ago.

“We welcome this milestone in the process of the transformation of Chernobyl as a symbol of what we can achieve jointly with strong, determined and longterm commitment,” EBRD president Suma Chakrabarti said.

Radioactive fallout from the site of the world’s worst civil nuclear accident spread across three-quarters of Europe and prompted a global rethink about the safety of atomic fuel.

The UN estimated in 2005 that around 4,000 people had either been killed or were left dying from cancer and other related diseases. But Greenpeace envi believes the figure may be closer to 100,000.

Authorities maintain a 30-kilometre-wide exclusion zone around the plant in which only a few dozen elderly people live.