Chernobyl today

Chernobyl was a very old town, first mentioned in official records in 1193. In 1362, it became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In 1569, it was given to the Polish realm, but not until after the second partition of Poland in 1793 did it fall to the Russian Tsar. In 1918, Chernobyl became part of the Soviet Union and was declared a city in 1941.

Since the end of the Soviet Union, Chernobyl has been located within the national boundaries of Ukraine. The town is located in the north of Ukraine, 15km from the border with Belarus. It is in the region of Kiev, close to where the Pripyat River flows into the Kiev reservoir of the Dnepr. The inhabitants of Chernobyl traditionally made a living from shipping on the Dnepr River, iron smelting, minor agriculture and the production of arts and crafts.

The nuclear power station, located on the edge of the Pripyat River 20km out of town, was built between 1971 and 1977 and was Ukraine’s first nuclear power plant. The first reactor became operational in 1977, generating a power output of 1 gigawatt. By 1983, the plant had been expanded to include four reactor units, generating a total of 4 gigawatts. Two further reactor units were planned for construction. Before the accident, the area that is now a ghost town was home to 18,000 inhabitants.

In the first four days of May 1986, 161,000 people from within a 30km radius of the ruptured reactor were evacuated. In the following years, another 210,000 people were relocated. The exclusion zone was extended to an area of 4,300 sq km. Due to their adverse economic situation, approx. 1,000 people from the surrounding areas returned to the exclusion zone, which still has unnaturally high radiation levels.

Almost immediately following the clean-up of the plant, the three reactor units that were still functional resumed operation. In 1991, reactor unit 2 was closed down following a fire in the turbine hall. At the end of 1997, unit 1 was shut off, and on 15 December 2000, unit 3 was also closed down, permanently ending operation of the power station.

In 1995, Ukraine had requested $900 million from the G7 member states to permanently shut down the Chernobyl plant. In 1997, Ukraine and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development agreed on a Chernobyl Shelter Fund and matching Shelter Implementation Plan to finance the building of a permanent containment enclosure, a so-called sarcophagus. Only with this in place was it feasible to close down units 1 and 3.

Since 1986, the ruptured reactor in unit 4 has been contained by a temporary sarcophagus. This isolates the destroyed reactor with a thick mantle of steel and concrete. The sarcophagus is designed to contain the reactor’s heat and radiation, because on the inside, not much has changed since the meltdown. Of the 190 tonnes of reactor core mass, an estimated 180 tonnes are still there, in the form of dust and ash, molten and hardened fuel elements and as washed-out liquids in the reactor pit and foundation walls.

As the existing sarcophagus is not adequately protected from erosion, corrosion and earthquakes, a more resilient sarcophagus has been planned which will be built on top of the old one. In preparation for the new sarcophagus, the roof of the existing one had to be reinforced and the ventilation system improved.