Chernobyl: A high-risk shut-down
Jean-Luc Moreau
Gamma
On December 15, 2000, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, located in Ukraine, was shut down for good. One can only hope that this will be the last episode of a long nightmare which began when reactor IV exploded on April 26, 1986, spreading over the entire northern hemisphere a “cloud” 500 times more radio-active that the Hiroshima atomic bomb. Unfortunately, this accident is far from having sunk into oblivion, and the United Nations has labelled the disaster an “unprecedented radiological and environmental disaster”.
Preview
For nothing has been resolved. Fourteen years later, like an insidious epidemic, the resulting radiation is still taking a heavy toll. Almost total indifference and utmost secrecy prevail. Even worse, the power plant itself remains extremely dangerous.
The disaster was caused by a mere three percent of the radioactive fuel contained in the reactor destroyed by the fire. The remainder, amounting to roughly 190 tons of pure poison, was buried under a concrete shell of questionable watertightness, although the international community claims it will strive to "stabilize" the construct in the years to come. An insufficient solution for which only 760 million dollars have scraped up, tantamount to less than one week of bombing in Kosovo!
During weeks of painstaking investigation, Jean-Luc Moreau collected hitherto unrevealed information and exclusive documents that take us right into the core of the nuclear plant.
