Untitled Document
CHERNOBYL 2013
February 14, 2013
A support building of the Chernobyl sarcophagus partially collapsed Le Monde.fr, 13.02.2013 at 10h26 • Updated on 13.02.2013 at 11h48 By Pierre Le Hir and Cédric Pietralunga The Chernobyl sarcophagus construction site, September 17, 2007. AFP/GENIA SAVILOV A partial destruction of the walls and roof of the containment building of reactor 4 of Chernobyl (Ukraine) occurred on Tuesday, February 12, according to the press service of the plant, cited by the newspaper Pravda and the Ria Novosti news agency on Wednesday morning.
The damages, affecting a surface area of 600 m2 and caused by the accumulation of snow, affected an auxiliary building of the reactor.
According to the press service of the plant, "the buildings in question do not constitute a substantial part of the containment structure" and "no change in the radiological situation is detected." The collapse did not result in any casualties.
Contacted by Le Monde, Bouygues group, one of the shareholders of Novarka, the European consortium in charge of building a new containment structure around the reactor, acknowledges that an "incident" occurred on the site on Tuesday.
"About ten meters of the roof of a building housing turbines from the old reactor number 4 collapsed, apparently due to the weight of the snow," explains a spokesperson for the company. "But it is a conventional building that does not emit radiation itself." (they still say) EMPLOYEES EVACUATED The construction site of the new arch, located only 150 meters from this building, was however immediately halted and the employees present were evacuated, as the dispersion in the atmosphere of radioactive dust present on these structures is still possible. "Radioactivity measurements are being carried out and are currently reassuring," says Bouygues.
However, the construction site should not resume immediately. "We are waiting for the Ukrainian authorities to guarantee us that the rest of this roof does not risk collapsing as well," explains the constructor, who adds that workers are currently clearing the snow from the most fragile structures.
The affected building is an annex on which part of the concrete sarcophagus built in the six months following the 1986 accident, under very difficult conditions, to contain the radioactive materials from the damaged reactor, is supported. This enclosure quickly deteriorated.
In a 2011 report on "Chernobyl, 25 years later," the Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) noted that "the collapse of the sarcophagus would lead to the suspension of radioactive dust which could again contaminate the area around the site."
Inside the sarcophagus, the melted core is still radioactive for thousands of years. (To say nothing of millions) THE 1986 ACCIDENT On April 26, 1986, at 1:24 a.m., reactor number 4 of the Ukrainian nuclear power plant of Chernobyl, in operation since 1983, exploded accidentally during a technical test, causing the worst nuclear disaster in history. The explosion lifted the upper slab of the reactor, weighing 2000 tons, leaving the upper part of the reactor exposed. Several fires ignited in the installation, which would not be finally extinguished until May 9.
The energy released by the explosion caused a sudden projection of radioactive materials contained in the reactor core, up to more than 1,200 meters in height. Atmospheric emissions continued until May 5. In total, nearly 12 billion billion becquerels were released into the environment in ten days, 30,000 times the total amount of atmospheric radioactive emissions released in one year by the nuclear facilities then in operation in the world. A zone of more than 100,000 km2 would be permanently contaminated.
Nearly 600,000 "liquidators," civilians and military, intervened on the site until autumn 1987 to extinguish the "nuclear fire," on which 5,000 tons of materials (sand, boron, clay, lead...) were poured. In the following years, another 400,000 people were involved.
Many of them died from diseases related to radiation and the International Agency for Research on Cancer estimated the number of cancer-related deaths attributable to the Chernobyl accident at 16,000. (The International Agency for Research on Cancer is probably a pawn of the IAEA, just like the WHO: according to Russian and Ukrainian researchers Alexey Yablokov, Vassily Nesterenko, and Alexey Nesterenko, the deaths are at least 1.5 million) The Chernobyl nuclear power plant after the explosion, in April 1986. AP/STR In 1997, a program was launched to build a new containment structure covering the old sarcophagus, with joint funding from Ukraine and an international fund managed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Its cost: 1.5 billion euros.
The construction of the new concrete and metal arch, 250 meters in span and 108 meters in height, weighing 18,000 tons, began in the spring of 2012.
It is led by the Novarka consortium bringing together Vinci and Bouygues. Its completion is scheduled for autumn 2015.
The new superstructure is intended to protect the reactor from the weather (you can see...) and to prevent any radioactive release (you can also see...) into the environment, but also to allow, in the long term (undefined...), the dismantling of the first sarcophagus.
Pierre Le Hir and Cédric Pietralunga