Chernobyl Sarcophagus

체르노빌 석관

A massive steel-and-concrete containment structure built in 206 days after the 1986 explosion of Reactor 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant to enclose the destroyed reactor. Officially named 'Ukrytiye' (Shelter), it was widely called the Sarcophagus. Some 90,000 liquidators were mobilized for its construction under extreme radiation exposure, using 400,000 cubic metres of concrete and 7,300 tonnes of steel framework. It sealed an estimated 200 tonnes of radioactive corium inside, but the hastily built structure faced collapse risk by the 1990s and was enveloped by the New Safe Confinement in 2016. The Sarcophagus remains a compressed monument to how the Soviet system responded to technological catastrophe: through massive human mobilization, rushed construction, and the suppression of information.