The time 01:23 has gone down in atomic history. It was then, in the early spring morning of April 26, 1986, that something went wrong at Chernobyl, about ten miles north of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.
Several safety systems in the nuclear power plant were shut down for testing, so a minor incident in reactor four quickly became a major one. The explosion was so powerful that the 1,000-ton reactor lid, known as “Elena,” flew off. This allowed flames and smoke to spread radioactive material into the sky and across Europe.
Forty years later, “Elena” still stands on the stilts next to the reactor. The radiation dangers have been, and are, so great that the area has simply been covered with so-called sarcophagi - the first was erected, more or less in a panic, in 1986, and an outer vault was built in the 2010s.
“More than a machine”
The newer containment is internationally called NSC (New Safe Confinement) and was built as a kind of gigantic workshop hangar over the first one, which leaked from the start and needed constant monitoring.
"The NSC is more of a machine than a building. A machine that cost 2 billion euros," Shaun Burnie tells TT.
Among other things, the NSC has cranes, struts and beams that act as the "braces" of the unstable sarcophagus.
Shaun Burnie has 40 years of experience as a nuclear energy expert, including working on the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster in Japan. He is now stationed in Ukraine on behalf of the environmental organization Greenpeace.
Radioactive debris
He has been inside the NSC several times. Under strictly controlled conditions, people are allowed to be there.
"Inside the reactor there is, of course, lots of nuclear fuel, nuclear material, radioactive debris, concrete, steel, graphite from the reactor core..."
The situation has been radically worsened by the incident that occurred early one February morning last year. During Russia's attack in the area, an Iranian Shahed war drone hit the roof of the NSC.
"There was a powerful explosion that pierced the outer shell and also pushed through the inner shell," Burnie says.
Russia has never explained the incident, but Burnie has no doubt that it was a deliberate attack.
"The drone flew very low, under the radar. Afterwards we could see the parts lying in the snow."
“No control”
The explosion left a 15-square-meter hole. Fires broke out, and were not fully extinguished until three weeks later.
The radiation and the ongoing war have meant that the damage has only been provisionally repaired. So at present the "sarcophagus" is threatening to collapse, and the structure that was supposed to save it, the NSC, is patched and repaired as best it can.
"The firefighters had to dig up 300 holes, so now they have no control over the humidity. The question then becomes, how long can this structure function?"
The NSC was designed to last for 100 years. It was built with air conditioning, because the hundreds of thousands of metal parts inside cannot be rust-proofed and maintained in the normal way. But after the attack, weather, wind, water and snow are eating into it.
Risk of reaction
No one knows exactly how it affects the hazardous substances inside, which include volatile radioactive dust and uranium pellets - barely larger than a fingernail, but each potentially deadly.
In connection with the 40th anniversary of the accident, Greenpeace has hired one of the NSC's designers, the American Eric Schmieman, for a status report. He writes that it is not possible to rule out the risk of an "accidental nuclear chain reaction."
"The concern is mostly based on water getting into the sarcophagus, into the reactor," Burnie says.
That concern has been there all along, and the situation has been monitored via neutron meters. But the situation has now worsened and become more difficult to understand since the NSC was damaged.
"They have plugged the large hole, and will continue with repairs over the next 12 to 18 months."
Only two shifts
Not only does the work cost a lot of money, but staff are also increasingly in short supply. For employees in the nuclear industry, there are higher limits for radiation doses than for the rest of us, but Burnie says that in Chernobyl it can still be incredibly quick to reach a yearly dose.
"There are very large variations even within NSC, but in some places you might only be able to work for twelve hours. So you go in and work maybe two shifts, then it's over."
Chernobyl is located just 15 kilometers from the border with Belarus, through which Russian attacks often pass.
"Not every night, but at least every second, every third night, Russian drones, Russian robots fly over Chernobyl," Burnie says.
"How many foreign engineers, contract workers, welders will be allowed to come and work? He wonders."
“Getting things done”
The work will have to continue for many years to come. According to previous plans, the actual fuel removal from reactor 4 could only begin around 2050, a laborious operation that could last until the early 2100s, writes Eric Schmieman. Now, further question marks have been added with the drone attack, but there is not much room for further delays. “The 100-year lifespan of the NSC is calculated from commissioning in 2019, and thus runs until 2119,” the report states.
The cleanup effort is thus a race against time that will take over a century, most of which remains to be done. Shaun Burnie nevertheless sounds cautiously hopeful.
"One thing that really struck me after years of working in Ukraine is that it's a country where you get things done. They do amazing things here, incredible things."
But, he adds:
"This is a huge challenge."
Facts: The Chernobyl accident
On the night of April 26, 1986, reactor 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, about ten miles north of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.
The cause was a minor incident, which could grow because safety systems were turned off to conduct tests.
Explosions and fires destroyed the roof, and large amounts of radioactive particles were released into the atmosphere, then falling all over Europe.
Outside the then Soviet Union, the first signal of the disaster came at the Forsmark nuclear power plant outside Gävle, where fallout triggered a radiation alarm two days later.
The radiation also meant that the cleanup work had to be done extremely carefully, and is set up as a nearly 150-year plan. The nuclear fuel is expected to be removed in the second half of this century, and cleanup work will clearly not begin until the 2110s.
