Chernobyl radiation shield is in trouble after strike, U.N. agency says

Drone damage to the protective shield around a reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine has rendered it unable to do its main safety function, a nuclear watchdog said.

The drone strike in February, which Ukraine has blamed on Russia, severely damaged the steel structure, built in 2019 to confine radioactive releases from the nuclear reactor destroyed in the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency said in a status update on Dec. 5. A major fire resulted from the strike, the IAEA said.

IAEA personnel recently completed a safety assessment at Chernobyl and concluded the protective structure “lost its primary safety functions, including the confinement capability.”

Temporary repairs are planned in 2026 to pave the way for permanent restoration, the IAEA said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in February that a Russian drone caused damage to the protective shield but that radiation levels remained normal after the incident. Moscow denied involvement, saying it doesn’t attack nuclear infrastructure.

What happened at Chernobyl?

One of the nuclear reactors at the Chernobyl plant was destroyed in an explosion on April 26, 1986, in a disaster that sent radiation as far away as the United Kingdom and making the surrounding area uninhabitable for potentially thousands of years. At least 28 people were killed in the acute disaster, and thousands more have died of cancer from radiation exposure.

A 20-mile radius around Chernobyl is closed to human habitation, but outside the so-called “exclusion zone,” about 5 million people still live on contaminated lands that have sickened hundreds of thousands.

The plant’s last reactor closed down in 2000.