Inside an abandoned control room at Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear power plant, a worker in an orange hard hat gazed at a grey wall of seemingly endless dials, screens and gauges that were supposed to prevent disaster.
The 1986 meltdown at the site was the world’s worst ever nuclear incident. Since Russia invaded in 2022, Kyiv fears another disaster could be just a matter of time.
In February, a Russian drone hit and left a large hole in the New Safe Confinement (NSC), the outer of two radiation shells covering the remnants of the nuclear power plant.
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It functions as a modern hi-tech replacement for an inner steel-and-concrete structure – known as the Sarcophagus, a defensive layer built hastily after the 1986 incident.
Ten months later, repair work is still ongoing, and it could take another three to four years before the outer dome regains its primary safety functions, plant director Sergiy Tarakanov said in an interview from Kyiv.
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