This Astonishing Dome Will Protect Us From Chernobyl For The Next 100 Years

It weighs 36,000 tonnes.
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Dwarfing the twisted metal remains of Chernobyl is the New Safe Containment, a vast structure that after 10 years of planning and building, will now cocoon the lethal building for the next 100 years.

Built alongside the wreckage, the 36,000 tonne dome has had to be slowly moved over the building as construction directly above the reactor would have been impossible.

After a nail-biting week of moving the dome inches at a time, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has confirmed that today, the building has reached its final resting place.

Brendan Hoffman via Getty Images

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has been leading the project and estimates that when finished it will have cost around £1.3bn to construct.

Now that the building has been moved into position work will begin on finally trying to dismantle the damaged reactor within and safely removing the radioactive material inside.

The whole project has taken a decade from planning to construction and has resulted in the creation of the largest manmade moveable structure.

Chernobyl remains the worst nuclear disaster in history when in 1986 a huge explosion blew the roof off the reactor building.

The resulting fallout spread over large parts of Russia and Europe leading to the evacuation of over 100,000 people and the abandoning of the city of Pripyat.

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