[eritain]

This badly understates the Chernobyl response. They did remove the heavily contaminated surface soil from the immediate vicinity and clean up the rest of the site so they could continue to operate the remaining reactors. They built the Shelter Object ("sarcophagus"), instead of just pouring concrete all over the site, so that they could continue to monitor and inspect. And earlier this year, they at last covered the Shelter Object with the long-delayed New Safe Confinement, which includes cranes and other robotics intended to dismantle and decontaminate both the Shelter and the ruins of the reactor.

It's certainly true that the Soviets, and after them Belarus and Ukraine, did/do use the "just leave it alone" strategy for part of their Chernobyl response. But it's by no means the whole story.

[harlanlewis]

The scale of the New Safe Confinement is stunning. Here’s a 2min video of it being moved into place: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7aMcKinrWY

[retromario]

Thank you for sharing this. I had read about it when they were still building it and marvelled at the scale and ambition of the project. That structure is so large it apparently has its own weather system inside.

[antongribok]

You can also marvel at it from satellite photos:

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.3896400,30.0936300,707m/data...