You want to see it, but you want out. They did a helluva job just to get this shelter built. The sarcophagus was completed in seven months, under the most difficult conditions imaginable. The massive, rubble-filled cavern inside it is damp with humidity and buzzes with radiation from the 180 tons of uranium reactor fuel that melted in the disaster's fires before later solidifying into a glasslike material. The sarcophagus has many cracks and holes in its walls and roof that allow radioactive dust to escape.
Birds fly in and out, spreading more contamination.
Water from rain, snow and cleanup work not only causes structural corrosion, but it also is turning some of the melted uranium fuel into radioactive dust, creating yet one more hazard for workers. Monitoring has shown occasional increases in the neutron count rate, suggesting uncontrolled nuclear chain reactions might be taking place. Scientists also say the cement tomb probably is too heavy for the foundation supporting it and would collapse in an earthquake. If that happened, it would raise a radioactive dust cloud that again would contaminate the environment for miles around. Of even more immediate risk is that the sarcophagus is leaching radiation into the ground water that slowly is making its way to the nearby Dneiper River -Ukraine's Columbia.