The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant crashed into the whole world on April 26, 1986. Almost immediately at the place of the accident specialists were arrived for work on the destroyed reactor block and around it, as well as paramilitary fire safety units, regular and staffed with urgently called reserve troops. Later these people began to be called as "liquidators"; their total number was about 600 thousand.
Within a short time – from July to November 1986 – a protective structure was constructed near the destroyed fourth block of the ChNPP (a little later it received the informal name "sarcophagus"), which protected the environment from further contamination with highly dangerous radioactive products that continued to be intensively isolated from the destroyed reactor block. For the construction of this unique building, built by 90 thousand people, 400 thousand cubic meters of concrete and 7000 tons of metal constructions have gone.
However, later it became clear that the hastely erected sarcophagus was not able to remain effective for many years. Therefore, a contract was signed between the State Chornobyl NPP and the Novarka consortium (a joint venture between the French companies VINCІ Constructіon Grands Projets and Bouygues Travaux Publіcs) on August 10, 2007 for the design, construction and commissioning of the first launch complex of the New Safe Confinement The "Shelter" object (the so-called "Shelter-2", or "Sarcophagus-2"). The value of the contract was estimated at 1.424 billion euros (the total cost of the completed project is more than 2 billion euros).
Work on the implementation of a grand project began literally immediately.
At the first stage, which lasted for three years - from 2008 to 2010 - there were carried out works on the purification of the territory (158000 m3 of technological materials and radioactive waste was exported) and a site for the future construction was prepared.
In the second stage - from 2011 to 2013 - the construction of the foundations of the assembly and transportation zones, as well as the safe confinement service areas was carried out.
At the construction of a new shelter more than three thousand people worked selflessly in rotating scheme in order not to exceed the permissible doses of radiation. And the necessary financial assistance was provided by 28 donor countries of the Chernobyl Shelter Fund.
The formation of the "Arc" began on March 13, 2012, and ended in four years. Its parameters are striking: a mass of 37,000 tons, a width of 257.44 meters, a height of 108.39 meters, a length of 150 meters, and the length of underground communications of the object – 21 kilometers! Experts estimate the service life of "Arc" in 100 years at the operating temperature from –30ºС to +500ºС. In this case, the seismic stability of the building is 9 points on the Richter scale.
The "Arс" was "pushed" to the destroyed fourth power block over the original sarcophagus in November 2016. Moving a new shelter from the installation site directly to the former sarcophagus was carried out with the help of 224 hydraulic jacks that moved the grandiose structure in one cycle of 60 cm. The launch of the "Arc" ascent on November 14 lasted for four days, with the time of the continuous movement about 33 hours. While doing so at the time of construction, "Arc" became the largest mobile ground structure.
Approximately the completion of the construction and the final commissioning of the "Arc" is scheduled for November 2017. After that, dismantling and burial of unstable building constructions of the existing "Shelter" is also provided.
Today on the territory of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant works are underway to complete the construction and commissioning of the "Dry Exhausted Nuclear Fuel Storage facility" (DENFS-2). The concrete storage module, which extends for many tens of meters, makes it possible to accommodate 21297 waste heat exchangers of reactors of High Power Channel-type Reactor-1000.
... After the events of April 26, 1986, two generations of earthlings have already begun to appear, representatives of whom are aware of the Chernobyl nuclear accident only rumors. And give God, so that in the future none of them could not only be participants, but even witnesses of events like the largest man-made disaster that occurred at the end of the millennium.