00:0026th April 1986, a routine safety test inside Reactor 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant spiraled into the worst
00:07nuclear disaster in human history.
00:10An explosion tore through the reactor, releasing radioactive material across Europe, forcing entire cities into permanent abandonment.
00:17The world watched in horror as a silent, invisible enemy spread through air, soil and generations.
00:24Four decades later, the danger never truly left.
00:26Beneath a massive steel arch known as the New Safe Confinement, lies the original sarcophagus, a hastily built tomb sealing
00:34one of the most toxic places on earth.
00:37But now, that shield itself is under threat, days before the 40th anniversary of the disaster.
00:43Environmental watchdog Greenpeace is raising a chilling alarm.
00:46A collapse inside the containment structure could be catastrophic.
00:50And this time, the threat isn't just time, it's war.
00:53What that report basically shows is that the damage done by the Russian drone has such huge implications, enormous implications.
01:02How can they fix this structure that was installed not over the sarcophagus, it was installed 500 meters away because
01:11of the radiation levels.
01:12How are they going to fix the damage, the severe damage, inside the roof space, it's called the annular space,
01:22where the materials that protected both humidity for temperature, all of that has been severely damaged.
01:30The outer shield, a billion-dollar engineering marvel designed to last a century, was never meant to be hit.
01:37But in 2025, a drone strike damaged the structure, compromising critical systems designed to control humidity, temperature and corrosion.
01:45Now, engineers face an impossible challenge, repairing a radioactive shield in the middle of an active war zone.
01:52And our concern at Greenpeace is that because of the war, so much cannot be done here, in terms of
02:00engineering work.
02:01There's a shortage of labor, there's a war on, there's drones, there's missiles from the Russians still being fired across
02:08Chernobyl.
02:08And so the risk is that if there's further delays, there's a possibility that the sarcophagus, which was only designed
02:16for 20 years, it's now 40 years, we know it's deeply vulnerable, of collapse.
02:22The original sarcophagus was never meant to last this long.
02:26Built in urgency under extreme radiation, its lifespan was just 20 years.
02:30Today, it stands at double that age, cracked, weakened and increasingly unstable.
02:36And inside it, lies a deadly secret.
02:39And that would be catastrophic, because nuclear material, there's four tons of dust, highly radioactive dust, fuel pellets, enormous amounts
02:48of radioactivity inside the sarcophagus.
02:50And because the new safe confinement cannot be repaired at the moment, it cannot function as it was designed, there's
02:56a possibility of radioactive releases.
02:58Four tons of radioactive dust, enough to contaminate vast regions once again.
03:03If the structure collapses, and the outer shield fails to contain it, the fallout may not remain local.
03:09It could drift across borders, across Europe, across generations.
03:13Here we are 40 years on, and Russia is still conducting, effectively, a nuclear war against the people of Ukraine
03:19and Europe.
03:20Which is why Greenpeace is demanding sanctions against Rosatom, maximum punishment for this crime and all the other crimes they've
03:28conducted in Ukraine.
03:29To understand the scale of danger, you have to go back inside reactor 4.
03:34Back to the moment, everything went wrong.
04:00Inside the destroyed control room, time stands still.
04:03Rust, decay, warning signs, still glowing with danger.
04:08Below it lies melted nuclear fuel, fused into toxic lava-like formations.
04:14Still radioactive, still lethal.
04:26The world believed Chernobyl was contained, buried beneath steel and science.
04:31But today, that illusion is cracking.
04:34A damaged shield.
04:35An aging code.
04:37A war that refuses to stay away.
04:3940 years after the disaster, Chernobyl is no longer just history.
04:42It's a warning.
04:44And it's still alive.
04:46It's still alive.
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