rebuilding chernobyl cleaning up a nuclear disaster

‘rebuilding chernobyl – cleaning up a nuclear disaster’all images ©  volodymyr shuvayev, igor kostin/sygma/corbis, european bank for reconstruction and development

26 years after the reactor explosion at chernobyl in the ukraine, an effort to confine the radioactivity at the disaster site has proven to be successful despite the dangers involved in containing the scattered deadly materials. using remote controlled equipment, the ruins are dismantled with plans for permanent storage, sealing the site for over 100 years. with infrastructure valued at over 2 billion USD in place, MIT has documented a look at the processes involved in cleaning up one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters.

since the most recent nuclear disaster in japan, designboom has covered an emergency robot by toshiba, capable of withstanding high radiation and working in nuclear environments for situations like these.

fuel will be moved into more stable steel-and-concrete casks, which will be slid into the structures shown here

supporting structure erected to keep the sarcophagus encasing the ruins from collapsing outside reactor building four

concrete pads will serve as foundations for 19 towers that will be used to erect a new containment structure 

fuel is stored in water under the metal plates in the facility rom reactor number three

18,000 spent fuel assemblies are stored here, where metal plates conceal a deep pool to keep the fuel assemblies cool

light streams through gaping holes in the makeshift sarcophagus in this view from inside the ruined reactor building

the control room where workers monitored the tests that led to an explosion in reactor number four

workers scooping up a pieces of highly radioactive chunks of graphite from the reactor’s core

video highlighting the chernobyl clean up slightly after the reactor explosion in 1986