Word: entombing
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...police inquiry is under way to determine why the casing remained at the clinic site. Workers from the National Atomic Energy Commission are preparing to entomb the lead container, the cesium and other contaminated material in concrete. The commission has decided that the material should be airlifted to a remote mountain range in the Amazon jungle...
Ivan Yemilianov, a senior designer of the stricken unit, said Soviet engineers planned to entomb the reactor in concrete for hundreds of years to allow the radioactive substances to decay. The scheme will require workers to pump an insulating layer of liquid-nitrogen refrigerant into a tunnel just beneath the reactor. The crippled unit will then be encased within a concrete barrier that will descend 96 ft. into the ground. Engineers were also spreading a plastic film over some 300,000 sq. yds. of soil a day to prevent further contamination and hold tainted earth in place...
...molten mass continued to smolder. He also confirmed that the Soviets were tunneling beneath the reactor in an attempt to seal off the damaged unit from below with concrete, thus protecting the underlying ground and water table. Rosen called the effort the first step in a plan to "entomb" the entire reactor in concrete. He added that the No. 3 unit, which some Western officials had thought might also be on fire two weeks ago, had been damaged but that its cooling system was working...