Rush to fix Chernobyl plant

Charred debris from Russian drone strike still lay on the floor, write Sergii Volskyi and Tetiana Dzhafarova

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A worker points to the damage of the containment vessel following a drone attack on the New Safe Confinement, which contains radiation from the remains of reactor 4 of the former Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, on Monday.

(AFP)

nside an abandoned control room at Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear power plant, a worker in an orange hardhat 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.

It functions as a modern high-tech replacement for an inner steel-and-concrete structure — known as the Sarcophagus, a defensive layer built hastily after the 1986 incident.