New York Times: Chernobyl: Capping a Catastrophe. By Henry Fountain. Photographs by William Daniels.

“Against the decaying skyline here, a one-of-a-kind engineering project is rising near the remains of the world’s worst civilian nuclear disaster.

An army of workers, shielded from radiation by thick concrete slabs, is constructing a huge arch, sheathed in acres of gleaming stainless steel and vast enough to cover the Statue of Liberty. The structure is so otherworldly it looks like it could have been dropped by aliens onto this Soviet-era industrial landscape.”

Link via dangerousmeta!.

Update: There’s a related thread on MetaFilter now: “What’s been the biggest challenge? Every single thing,“ he said.

Related, but from last year: The Engineer: Building Chernobyl’s New Safe Confinement. By Jon Excell.