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Building Chernobyl’s Mega Tomb

SBS doco looks at the ongoing aftermath in Chernobyl some 31 years after its catastrophic nuclear disaster.

Tonight SBS screens the doco, Building Chernobyl’s Mega Tomb, which looks at the ongoing aftermath in Chernobyl some 31 years after its catastrophic nuclear disaster.

On April 26, 1986, a catastrophic blast blew the lid off Chernobyl’s Reactor No.4. The explosion was 400 times more potent than the Hiroshima bomb, igniting fires that burned for 10 days and sending a radioactive cloud across Europe.

In the aftermath, ill-equipped workers heroically sealed the smouldering reactor in a concrete sarcophagus, but the hastily constructed shelter was only built to last 30 years.

Now, 30 countries including the UK, France, and the US, have come together to pay for a 1.2 billion Euro international rescue plan to build a mighty 25,000-ton steel shelter which will entomb the radiation and last for a century. Building Chernobyl’s Mega Tomb follows the team of international engineers as they race against time to build the structure over the disaster site.

Sunday, 19 March at 9.10pm on SBS

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