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  • Home
  • The EBRD's mission in Chernobyl

The EBRD's mission in Chernobyl

By Christopher  Booth

The explosion three and a half decades ago at the Chernobyl nuclear power station - in what is now Ukraine - was the world’s worst civilian nuclear accident. Radioactive particles were blown as far as Scotland and tonnes of uranium and plutonium remain in the damaged reactor core.

The international community tasked the EBRD with managing the funds to help Ukraine overcome the crisis and secure the site.

Share this page:
  • A Soviet triumph
  • Chain reaction
  • The scale of the catastrophe
  • The Exclusion Zone
  • A town lost forever
  • Ghosts of the past
  • The New Safe Confinement
  • A feat of engineering
  • An international collaboration
  • A unique operation
  • The threat of spent fuel
  • The next 100 years
  • A disaster contained
  • Final resting place
  • First photo of the sarcophagus in its final position
  • The sarcophagus, now secured within the New Safe Confinement
Staff at the pre-disaster Chernobyl nuclear power plant

A Soviet triumph

The first of Chernobyl’s reactors was completed in 1977. By the time all four were powered together, they generated 10% of Ukraine’s electricity. But the design of the RBMK reactor was fatally flawed.

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Chernobyl worker pointing at control panel

Chain reaction

In the early hours of April 26th 1986, a planned test went spectacularly wrong. In the remains of the control room, a Chernobyl worker shows where the button depressed to initiate the test was located.

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Aerial view of Chernobyl wreckage after explosion

The scale of the catastrophe

Over 100 times more radiation was released than by Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.

31 individuals were killed at the time. Hundreds of thousands of ‘liquidators’ were drafted in to contain the disaster.

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Abandoned buildings near Chernobyl disaster site

The Exclusion Zone

An area of 100,000 km2 remains contaminated indefinitely.

Abandoned buildings line the roads into Chernobyl’s Exclusion Zone.

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Abandoned buildings in the town of Pripyat

A town lost forever

The order to evacuate citizens was late in coming. When it did, they were told they’d only be gone for three days. They were never to return.

This is Pripyat, the model town where Chernobyl staff and their families lived.

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Wreckage in abandoned room, Pripyat

Ghosts of the past

The faces of forgotten politicians, displayed on banners for a demonstration, lie abandoned and undisturbed in the remains of Pripyat’s theatre.

Empty of humans, the town is now visited by wolves and elk.

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Workers at Chernobyl site, present day

The New Safe Confinement

At the heart of the work to secure Chernobyl is the New Safe Confinement (NSC), the giant arch which now encloses Reactor 4.

The NSC protects it from the elements, and includes remote control cranes to safely dismantle it and extract remaining fuel.

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Workers at Chernobyl site, present day

A feat of engineering

Constructing the NSC was a unique engineering challenge. It’s big enough to enclose Notre Dame, yet also had to be capable of being skidded over Reactor 4.

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Workers in a crane at the Chernobyl site

An international collaboration

Work continued daily in the ruins of Reactor 4 to prepare the ground for the NSC skidding operation.

More than 40 countries and organisations have contributed to funding work in Chernobyl, and the EBRD is the largest single donor.

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A unique operation

The operation to slide the New Safe Confinement – all 32,000 tonnes of it - over Reactor 4 was successfully completed in November 2016

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Workers at Chernobyl site, present day

The threat of spent fuel

The EBRD also backed the construction of a facility to safely store spent fuel from all of Chernobyl’s reactors

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Workers at Chernobyl site, present day

The next 100 years

More than 21,000 fuel assemblies will be dried and cut, inserted into canisters, and stored in modules like these.

It’s a crucial task. The spent fuel will be made safe for at least a century.

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Workers at Chernobyl site, present day

A disaster contained

The EBRD was guided by the knowledge that securing Chernobyl was a joint effort by the international community and Ukraine.

It was money well spent – for all our safety.

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Workers at Chernobyl site, present day

Final resting place

The New Safe Confinement at Chernobyl Power plant in its final position, July 2019.

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First photo of the sarcophagus in its final position

In two weeks in November 2016, the entire 36,000-tonne structure was pushed 327 metres into position, covering the reactor building. The sliding was achieved using a skidding system consisting of 224 hydraulic jacks, nudging the arch 60 centimetres with each stroke.

The NSC is now the largest moveable land-based structure ever built.

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The sarcophagus, now secured within the New Safe Confinement

The New Safe Confinement represents an extraordinary feat of engineering. The 36,000 tonnes structure is 108 metres high, 162 metres long and has a span of 257 metres. It provides a safe working environment equipped with heavy duty cranes for the future dismantling of the shelter and waste management.

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Share this page:
  • A Soviet triumph
  • Chain reaction
  • The scale of the catastrophe
  • The Exclusion Zone
  • A town lost forever
  • Ghosts of the past
  • The New Safe Confinement
  • A feat of engineering
  • An international collaboration
  • A unique operation
  • The threat of spent fuel
  • The next 100 years
  • A disaster contained
  • Final resting place
  • First photo of the sarcophagus in its final position
  • The sarcophagus, now secured within the New Safe Confinement
  • BACK TO TOP

More about the EBRD's work at Chernobyl

  • Chernobyl: a site transformed
  • Timelapse video of Chernobyl arch sliding
  • The EBRD's Nuclear Safety activities

 

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