Construction of reactors number 5 and 6 continued throughout the night of the explosion at the 4th Chernobyl nuclear power plant. If the glow of the fire wasn’t visible from the upper levels then as dawn broke the smoke must have been.
Despite the disaster unfolding next door at 8am that morning, the 286 construction workers of the day shift clocked on. Construction work on 5 and 6 was soon stopped but resumed again on the 10th October 1986. Six months later on the 24 April 1987 work was once again halted and on May 23 1989 the decision was made not to complete the reactors.
The Power Plants are located approximately 18 km north west of the City of Chernobyl. Reactor Number 1 was completed in 1977 and followed by Reactor Number 2 in 1978, Number 3 in 1981, and Number 4 in 1983.
Reactor Number 5 was approximately 70% complete at the time of the accident. The 6th was scheduled for completion in 1994. When functioning Reactors 5 and 6 would have been capable of producing 1,000 MW’s each.
– Exterior gallery – Interior gallery
Unit 5 as seen from the road leading to Units 1 to 4. Click the image to open a larger version in a new window.
The photographs watermarked chernobylgallery.com are licensed under a Creative Commons License.