Friday, Jul 11, 2003
New shelter for reactor
CHERNOBYL (Ukraine): International donors funding construction of a new shelter to secure Ukraine's damaged Chernobyl reactor said on Wednesday work on the $768-million project to cover the deteriorating Soviet-era sarcophagus would begin next year. Hans Blix, former head U.N. weapons inspector and chairman of the Chernobyl Shelter Fund's Assembly of Donors, applauded a ``major effort'' by Ukraine to move the project into what he said will be ``a much more active phase'' after years of clean-up and decommissioning work. An international consortium of Western and Ukrainian companies is designing the new confinement structure — a 100-metre-high steel arch spanning some 260 metres, which officials say could be the largest moveable structure ever built. The new shelter is expected to be in place by 2008 and is designed to last 100 years. In October, donors plan to issue a tender for the 20,000-tonne steel encasement.
(In the picture, Hans Blix, Chairman of the Chernobyl Shelter Project's Assembly of Donors, passes through a radiation checkpoint at the Chernobyl nuclear plant on Wednesday)— AP
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