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Ukraine: Chernobyl's Radioactive Dust Shelter Unveiled

Associated Press

   KYIV, UKRAINE - Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy 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 euros (almost $1.7 billion) to build,
   and the entire project cost 2.2 billion euros (about $2.5 billion).

   The complex construction effort to secure the molten reactor's core and
   200 tons 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 moveable land-based
   structure ever built, with a span of 257 meters (843 feet) and a total
   weight of over 36,000 metric tons (over 40,000 tons).

   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.

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