Chernobyl: August 2007 Archives
Over the weekend I found out there is now an official prohibition against entering the buildings in Pripyat, the city that used to house the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant workers. I guess the lack of maintenance in the last 21 years has finally caught up to these structures. However, I do not believe there is a prohibition for entering buildings in the surrounding villages.
The same reader (Nikola) from my last post has sent me a set of follow-up questions. This is a long post, but here we go with Part II of the Chernobyl Sarcophagus Q & A (again, questions are in bold):
A reader from Serbia and Montenegro viewed my Chernobyl trip article yesterday and asked some very good questions about the Sarcophagus at the Chernobyl Plant. I answered his questions directly last night and decided this information should be shared with everyone. In some instances, I have restated her questions or slighly embellished my answers.
There seem to be a lot of people interested in viewing and possibly purchasing a copy of Julio Soto's award-winning 2005 documentary film about the Chernobyl accident. This is a very well-done film that includes some scenes with my friends who lived in Pripyat at the time of the accident, Lyubov Sirota and her son Sasha, who is currently the editor-in-chief of the public project Pripyat.com. I am usually left sad and speechless after viewing this film, partly due to the sad nature of the film, but also from seeing my friends returning to their former home.
If you are interested in more details about the film, see my summary and review of the Radiophobia documentary. That review is from a preview copy of the film I obtained directly from director and producer Julio Soto in 2005, before its release. This film is not available for free download on the internet (or should not be). If you are interested in purchasing a copy of this film, I suggest that you contact Luna Pictures directly.
At the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant in Ukraine, work has begun on a new containment structure that will cover the remains of Reactor 4, which was destroyed in the 1986 accident. Construction of the "New Safe Confinement" (NSC), will occur a short distance from the reactor building and then slid into place on rails when complete. Once the dome-shaped structure is in place, the original Sarcophagus will be dismantled to prevent a possible collapse and subsequent damage to the NSC's interior.
The NSC has been designed to last for 100 years, much more than the 20 year estimate for the existing Sarcophagus (that has now been in place for 21 years). When construction and placement of the NSC is complete, let's not forget about it because in several generations the NSC itself will need to be replaced.
A building already exists on site for NSC workers to change clothes. Interviews are now taking place to screen potential workers for the New Safe Confinement.
You can also see a brief film about the screening process here.
It has now been over a year since I wandered around the beauty and horror that is the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, and still I find it difficult to describe my feelings about what I saw. With all the talk about nuclear power these days, let's see if I can get past some of those issues and put into words what is locked away somewhere in my mind.
