Chernobyl disaster site enclosed by shelter to prevent radiation leaks
Source: The Guardian
Tuesday 29 November 2016 13.01 GMT
Reactor No 4 at Chernobyl, the scene of the worst nuclear accident in history, has been enclosed by a vast steel shelter designed to prevent radiation leaks from the site.
The structure covers the reactor and the unstable “sarcophagus”, which was hastily built around it by Soviet authorities in the immediate aftermath of the disaster 30 years ago. The shelter is said to be the largest land-based movable object ever constructed. It took several years to build and cost more than €1.5bn (£1.27bn).
The huge steel arch was moved into place over several weeks, and the completion of this procedure was celebrated with a ceremony at the site on Tuesday, attended by the Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, diplomats and site workers.
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“It was designed to last for 30 years to protect Kiev, Ukraine and the whole world from nuclear contamination. Thirty years later, we are present here just 100 metres away from reactor No 4 and we can say that this new historical construction has been completed,” he said.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/29/chernobyl-nuclear-disaster-site-covered-with-shelter-prevent-radiation-leaks-ukraine
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It may seem strange that Chernobyl, an area known for the deadliest nuclear accident in history, could become a refuge for all kinds of animals—from moose, deer, beaver, and owls to more exotic species like brown bear, lynx, and wolves—but that is exactly what Shkvyria and some other scientists think has happened. Without people hunting them or ruining their habitat, the thinking goes, wildlife is thriving despite high radiation levels.
So far, scientists are divided on how well the animals are really doing in the exclusion zone, which straddles Ukraine and Belarus, says biologist Jim Beasley of the University of Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, who has been studying wolves there with grant support from the National Geographic Society Committee for Research and Exploration.
In a new study released Monday, Beasley says that the population of large mammals on the Belarus side has increased since the disaster. He was shocked by the number of animals he saw there in a five-week survey. Camera traps captured images of a bison, 21 boars, nine badgers, 26 gray wolves, 60 raccoon dogs (an Asian species also called a tanuki), and 10 red foxes. “It’s just incredible. You can’t go anywhere without seeing wolves,” he says.
Radiation, he argues in the study, is not holding back Chernobyl wildlife populations.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/060418-chernobyl-wildlife-thirty-year-anniversary-science/