TV journalist Bob Simon of CBS’ 60 Minutes travels to Chernobyl, Ukraine to visit the site of the nuclear power plant disaster. In April 1986, a technical experiment went awry which sent Reactor No. 4 into meltdown. It overheated, failed and then blew up. The ‘Zone’ is still radioactive and dangerous, nearly 30 years later. “That’s because radiation virtually never dies,” explains Simon. In Chernobyl, a scientist tells Simon that “mice from the contaminated Zone in Chernobyl have 10,000 times more radioactivity in their bodies than mice from clean areas.”
“And they’re building a giant arch to cover it,” says Simon referring to the New Safe Confinement (NSC) structure at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant which will cover the reactor building. It is scheduled to open in October 2015.
