New Worries at Chernobyl After IAEA Finds Radiation Shield Has 'Lost Primary Safety Functions'
"Timely and comprehensive restoration remains essential to prevent further degradation and ensure long-term nuclear safety," said IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi.
A protective shield built over the remains of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine is no longer capable of blocking radiation, the International Atomic Energy Agency warned late last week.
In a statement published on Friday, the IAEA said that its researchers have confirmed that the New Safe Confinement (NSC) shield has "lost its primary safety functions," including the ability to confine radiation, after it was damaged by a Russian drone strike in February.
On the positive side, the researchers found "no permanent damage" to the system's load-bearing structures and monitoring systems. Nonetheless, IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi said that urgent work needed to be done to rebuild the shield.
"Limited temporary repairs have been carried out on the roof, but timely and comprehensive restoration remains essential to prevent further degradation and ensure long-term nuclear safety," he emphasized.
Grossi noted that IAEA had a permanent team working at the site and vowed that the agency "will continue to do everything it can to support efforts to fully restore nuclear safety and security at the Chernobyl site."
Shaun Burnie, a senior nuclear specialist at Greenpeace, told the New York Times that the damage caused to the NSC isn't cause for immediate concern, although that would change if the damage to the shield went without repairs for a long period of time.
"If there was to be some event inside the shelter that would release radioactive materials into the space inside the New Safe Confinement, because this facility is no longer sealed to the outside environment, there’s the potential for radiation to come out," said Burnie. "I have to say I don’t think that’s a particularly serious issue at the moment, because they’re not actively decommissioning the actual sarcophagus."
The NSC was first put into place in 2016 to enclose the emergency sarcophagus over Chernobyl's number 4 nuclear reactor that was constructed by Soviet officials in the wake of the 1986 disaster at the nuclear plant.
