An arch for Chenobyl

Collectif

Date de parution : 24/01/2019

« La douleur et les coûts sont encore lourds, mais le processus de guérison a fait un long chemin. C’est comme fermer une plaie, une blessure nucléaire qui nous appartient à tous. »
Hans Blix, cérémonie d’inauguration de l’arche de Tchernobyl le 29 novembre 2016
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This story deserved a book. Not that of the terrible event that occurred on April 26, 1986 in Chernobyl, nor “the chronicle of the world after the apocalypse,” to quote... This story deserved a book. Not that of the terrible event that occurred on April 26, 1986 in Chernobyl, nor “the chronicle of the world after the apocalypse,” to quote the Nobel Prize in Literature laureate, Svetlana Alexievich.
It is the story of an unprecedented technical feat, the invention of an... This story deserved a book. Not that of the terrible event that occurred on April 26, 1986 in Chernobyl, nor “the chronicle of the world after the apocalypse,” to quote the Nobel Prize in Literature laureate, Svetlana Alexievich.
It is the story of an unprecedented technical feat, the invention of an arch that offers the possibility of preventing a new drama for humanity.
Thousands of men and women made it watched by the entire planet, under extremely difficult conditions. How could a structure be designed that had to cover a fragile sarcophagus, urgently built right after the explosion of reactor 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and that continuously emitted a high level of radiation? How could a dismantling factory – which was, first and foremost, an arch – be imagined under such conditions with its dozens of tons of highly radioactive materials, without human intervention, under almost absolute confinement conditions so that no contaminated element would escape, whatever the circumstances? These are the challenges that the Novarka teams faced. And that they met. For humanity. For at least 100 years.

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