On July 2, 2013, the testing of installation for dust suppressing inside Unit 4 Turbine Hall were commenced at Chernobyl NPP. A necessity in creating such system is preconditioned by conclusions of the commissions, which investigated reasons of partial destruction of building structures of the Unit 4 Turbine Hall.

As Deputy Head of the Shelter (NSC) Operation Shop Aleksandr Khimach reported, the installation is intended for supplying and spraying water solution. In total, 6 installations will be mounted within Turbine Hall enabling dust suppression over its whole area.

“Complexity of the task set to our staff lies in that technical requirements imposed to the installation, i.e. provision of water jet power, finely dispersive spraying and at the same time easy maintenance stipulated by radiation situation within Unit 4 Turbine Hall, were difficult to implement. Also this task was difficult to solve due to narrow and inconvenient technological passages available in this premise”, A. Khimach said.

It is a reminder that on February 12, 2013, at 14:03, the wall panels and a part of light roof of Unit 4 Turbine Hall partially collapsed. The destruction area was about 600 m2.

During February 13-20, two commissions investigated at ChNPP the reasons of partial destruction of the Turbine Hall building structures. The tasks set to the commissions were to analyze situation led to building structure breakdown, provide proposals on consequence elimination, as well as to develop and agree with SNRIU the corrective measures on management of additional drain waters and contaminated dust which can arise for a period required for recovering damaged roof and side walls of Unit 4 Turbine Hall.

The Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine Aleksandr Vilkul officially visited the Chernobyl NPP and the Exclusion Zone on July 2, 2013. Under his visit, Mr. Vilkul held an offsite meeting in Chernobyl of the Inter-Agency Emergency Response Center for Coordinating Actions of Central and Local Executive Authorities, and checked preparedness of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone for fire season. The Chief of Defense, the Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Vladimir Zamana, the Chairman of the Government Service of Ukraine for Emergencies Mikhail Bolotskikh, the Deputy Chairman of the Kiev Regional State Administration Vladimir Maksimenko, the Chairman of the State Agency of Ukraine for Exclusion Zone Management Vladimir Kholosha, the SSE ChNPP Director General Igor Gramotkin, and the representatives of central and local authorities have participated in the meeting.

Upon completion of the offsite meeting, the Vice Prime Minister has visited Chernobyl NPP. At the Shelter Observation Pavilion, Mr. Vilkul got familiar with current state of the facility and with outcome of the project “Stabilization of Unstable Building Structures” aimed at improving its safety, following which he visited the construction site for New Safe Confinement, where active operations on the Arch assembling are being performed.

 

 

 

On the 25th of June the SSE “Chernobyl NPP” received an official report on working results of the IAEA Expert Mission that was held from 03 to 07 June 2013. This report represents an overview of the main findings, observations, acknowledgments and recommendations for improvement identified by the IAEA Mission on partial collapse of Unit 4 Turbine Hall Roof at the Chernobyl NPP.

Full text of the report is available here

The second lifting of the eastern part of the Arch with weight 3788,6 tons is started today at Chernobyl NPP "Shelter" object site. Lifting operations are performed in two stages: June 12 Arch will be lifted at the height of 12 meters and June 13 at another 21 meters after that its total height will reach of 85 meters.

The day before, on June 11, a complete inspection of steel arch constructions, operability of jacking system and geodesic surveying of arch metal constructions position and foundations was carried out.

We remind you that the first lifting of the eastern arch segment with weigh 5,300 tons at the height of 22 meters was carried out on November 24, 2012. In total for the eastern part of the Arch 3 lifting will be performed. Third lifting is planned for the end of 2013, after which the eastern segment will be shifted in the direction of the "Shelter" object, and assembly of metal constructions of the western segment of the Arch will start at the opened site.