New shell to cover deadly Chernobyl

0 Comments | AFP, September, 2007

KIEV (AFP) — French consortium Novarka signed a contract Monday with Ukraine to shut away the radioactive heart of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster with a multi-million-euro protective cover designed to last a hundred years.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and the French trade minister, Herve Novelli, oversaw the signing by the consortium, which includes French builders Bouygues and Vinci.

Yushchenko, who faces difficult parliamentary elections at the end of this month, said the 432-million-euro (600-million-dollar) deal for the new shield was "a great historic event," his press service said.

Before the signing, Novelli visited the site of the world's worst nuclear accident, about 100 kilometres (62 miles) north of Kiev, to send what he called "a...