A contract to build the shelter over the damaged Chernobyl reactor, which exploded in 1986 in the world's worst nuclear disaster, has been signed with France's Novarka. A contract to build a "dry storage" facility for spent nuclear fuel on the site of the plant has been signed with U.S. company Holtec International.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said during the signing ceremony: "Ukraine has completed the conservation of the facility and has ensured for 15 years its safe existence and normal conditions for the work of international and national specialists."
The plant's reactor No. 4 has been protected by a concrete Soviet-designed "sarcophagus" since the disaster occurred 21 years ago. The replacement of the crumbling structure, now long overdue, has been repeatedly put off over funding difficulties.
On July 17 the Assembly of Chernobyl Shelter Fund Donors decided to give its approval to the contract with Novarka to build the shelter, at a preliminary cost of 490 million euros (about $680 million).
The decision came after numerous delays since the fund, which comprises 28 countries including the G8 nations and is run by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), pledged in 2005 to allocate only $200 million for a new vault to contain radioactive material still inside reactor No. 4.
In August EBRD signed a contract with the Ukrainian Ministry for Emergency Situations and the state company overseeing the plant, granting Ukraine 330 million euros (about $460 mln) to secure the exploded reactor.
The project is fraught with engineering difficulties, due to the high radiation threat. A huge steel vault, which will be made away from the reactor site and will then be slid into place on rails, will seal the plant for 100 years, and further measures are expected to reduce the radiation threat or remove radioactive material from the plant.
According to estimates by international bodies, the Chernobyl disaster directly killed 56 people, caused another 4,000 to die of thyroid cancer, and exposed several million more to radiation.
Vast areas, above all in present-day Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, were contaminated by the fallout of the explosion. An 18-mile zone, from which about 135,000 people were evacuated after the disaster, remains largely deserted to this day.
