Don’t Worry, Ukraine Has Chernobyl Under Control
The original Chernobyl sarcophagus was built by heroes. Now it’s time to take it apart.
Tourists walk around a former preschool building near Chernobyl.
Photographer: Vincent Mundy/BloombergThe words “Chernobyl” and “collapse” in the same sentence pack quite a punch. The story of the worst nuclear accident in history isn’t over yet, but there’s little reason to panic that Ukraine is dismantling the old sarcophagus covering Chernobyl’s exploded reactor.
Since independence in 1991, the country has risen to the challenge of managing Chernobyl in what has been a long-running, heroic effort to secure the site. Immediately after the incident, which took place on April 26, 1986, Soviet engineers and volunteers from other countries frantically began working on ways to cover exploded Reactor 4 so it would stop releasing radiation into the air and the ground waters.