Chernobyl's Reactor May Collapse

Professur

Professur

Well-Known Member
MOSCOW - The concrete-and-steel sarcophagus 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.
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*sidenote* The concrete-and-steel sarcophagus containing the damaged Chernobyl nuclear reactor was okayed by Hans Blix (seriously)
 
Yeah, do you really believe its "in danger" or "is leaking and we're just not reporting it." Nearly every thing I've read since their turn to democracy has been a case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.
 
17 years and they still haven't got a handle on that yet? Cripes. If they can't handle the important stuff... what chance do they have with the mundane?
 
More than 600.000 people were involved with the cleanup after the disaster, many are now dead or sick.

If they wait for too long before doing something, it´ll happen again...
 
They kept the other reactors open all this time. Apparently the ultra hot spot is rather tight at this point. Isn't the reactor inside of Belarus... not Russia? Perhaps they are suffering from a hear no evil, see no evil syndrome.
 
G4 said:
More than 600.000 people were involved with the cleanup after the disaster, many are now dead or sick.
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Not to mention the town and the families. The problem has spread as the families grow and reproduce.

On a much smaller scale this problem is in the US too. Many families are sick/crippled due to atomic testing in Nevada in the days of the AEC.

Russia is not one to go "all out" on safety measures when preventing something like this as well as cleaning it up when the unexpected does happen. :(
 
Yes, the core is still active. And will be for, oh, 10,000 years or so. They dumped hundreds of tones of boron to slow the reaction, but it can't be totally stopped without separating the pile, which can't be done.
 
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