MOSCOW – The concrete-and-steel sarcophagus (which Has Blix determined to last 2000 years) containing the damaged Chernobyl nuclear reactor in Ukraine is in danger of collapsing, Russia's atomic energy minister said Tuesday.
"There may come a moment when the roof can no longer hold," Alexander
Rumyantsev said in Moscow.
Chernobyl was the site of the world's worst nuclear accident when a
reactor exploded April 26, 1986, spewing radiation across a vast swath of
then-Soviet Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Western Europe.
Rumyantsev said the shell over the damaged reactor was constructed hastily
"under the most difficult" conditions and has gaps that threaten to leak
radiation.
He also doubted that Ukrainian officials were carrying out the necessary
scientific monitoring of the site.
"No one is conducting tests on the damaged walls," Rumyantsev said, adding
that a stronger concrete shelter could be built over the existing
sarcophagus.
International donors have pledged hundreds of millions of dollars to build
a new shelter but construction is not expected to start before next year.
Rumyantsev said he was well acquainted with the deficiencies of the
Chernobyl shell because he worked for years at Moscow's Kurchatov nuclear
institute, which has monitored the plant since Soviet times.
