A Scots firm is playing a key role in the ongoing clean-up operation at the site of the nuclear disaster in northern Ukraine.
Construction and property consultancy Thomas & Adamson, based in Edinburgh, is working to reduce deadly contamination in
the area.
Its experts are leading an international team monitoring the building of the New Safe Confinement (NSC) – the largest moveable steel structure ever built.
The NSC will provide a barrier against the release of radioactive substances, as well as creating an environment for further decontamination efforts.
The meltdown at the Chernobyl power station in April 1986 is believed to have led to thousands of premature deaths.
It was recently the subject of the highly praised mini-series, Chernobyl, shown on Sky Atlantic.
The five-part show – starring Jared Harris, Stellan Skarsgård and Emily Watson – depicted the harrowing accident, work to contain the nuclear fallout and attempts by the former Soviet Union to minimise the scale of the tragedy.
Colin Ross, regional director at Thomas & Adamson, is leading the project from his firm’s office in Kiev.
He said: “We’ve been working at the Chernobyl site for more than five years now.
“We are providing expert support and an independent oversight on programming completion of the works, financial management,
risk management and quality assurance processes.
“As a company that works across a range of sectors, we’re used to working in complex environments but I don’t think any of us would ever have imagined that our roles as quantity surveyors and the like would have led us to work at the site of Europe’s worst nuclear disaster.”
Standing at 354ft high, 531ft long and 843ft wide, and weighing almost 36,000tons, the NSC is big enough to house five Airbus A380 planes.
Once complete, it will allow the eventual dismantling and decommissioning of the contaminated structure, covering the number four nuclear reactor where the catastrophe struck.
The accident started during a safety test on a reactor.
An explosion led to a reactor core fire which saw airborne radioactive contamination spouting over parts of the former USSR and western Europe.
The Chernobyl Shelter Fund, set up in 1997, has received more than £1.4billion from donor countries to help Ukraine in making the site of the temporary shelter over the destroyed reactor stable and environmentally safe.
