Do we need a new Chernobyl?
Andrey Allakhverdov
What’s happened?
Thirty-five years on, while scientists are still studying the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster, governments and companies are laying foundations for new nuclear accidents.
Ranked as the worst nuclear disaster to date, Chernobyl is a quarter of a century older than Fukushima. But it still presents challenges that authorities haven’t figured out how to address. Technology to deal with the radioactive fuel that remains in the reactor doesn’t yet exist. A new sarcophagus was added in 2016 in an attempt to buy some time to invent new approaches.