Europe on Tuesday celebrated sealing off the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant’s destroyed Reactor 4 with a giant metal arch, as authorities look to secure the Ukrainian site in an environmentally stable condition by November 2017.
According to Tuesday’s announcement from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which managed funds for the 1.5 billion-euro ($1.6 billion) project, the Chernobyl arch is the largest moveable land-based structure ever built, with a span of 257 meters, a length of 162 meters, a height of 108 meters, and a total weight of 36,000 tons.
The arch, termed the New Safe Confinement, was relocated about 330 meters from assembly to completion. The structure enclosed the previous makeshift shelter that was hastily assembled in the wake of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, when the plant experienced a catastrophic power surge that triggered core explosions and resulted in 31 direct deaths. The Chernobyl event is regarded as the worst nuclear disaster on record. The arch has a secure lifetime of 100 years and will allow for eventual dismantling of the makeshift structure and management of radioactive waste.
The arch was built by Novarka, a consortium of the French construction firms VINCI Construction and Bouygues Construction, through more than 300 projects and activities that began in 2010. Bechtel, the international engineering, construction, and project management firm that managed the consortium that designed and installed the massive arch, applauded the effort Tuesday.
“This achievement is the result of great teamwork and creativity,” Bechtel Chernobyl project manager Oscar McNeil said in a statement. “No one has ever put a giant structure over a damaged nuclear reactor. The team of Ukrainians, Americans, French, British, Georgian, and Czech nationals has made history together, adding another chapter to an event that affected so many lives.”
The project was completed under the Shelter Implementation Plan for Chernobyl, a 2.1 billion-euro ($2.2 billion) program financed by the Chernobyl Shelter Fund. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development manages the fund, which has received more than 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion) from 45 donors to date, according to the EBRD.
