Chernobyl is to be laid to rest at last. The radioactive mess at the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident – which last week was named as one of the 10 most polluted places on Earth (see opposite) – will be encased in steel and made safe.
On 26 April 1986, one of the four reactors at the Chernobyl power plant in northern Ukraine exploded. A concrete sarcophagus was hastily built over the wreckage, but it is starting to crumble and has been leaking radioactivity. Now President Viktor Yushchenko of Ukraine has signed a $505 million deal with the French construction…
