Control room of unit 3 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
Scientist is paid to enter the heart of the reactor destroyed in the biggest nuclear disaster in history. Chernobyl disaster turns 40 this month. Around 500 people still work daily at the nuclear plant.
This month, on the 26th, marks the 40th anniversary of the great nuclear disaster in Chernobyl. Four decades later, the interior of reactor 4 remains one of the most hostile places on the planet, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t visited by humans.
In the middle of the darkness, between high levels of radiation and an unstable mass of concrete and contaminated metal, it is often Anatoly Doroshenkowhose job is to collect measurements and samples from the rubble that tells a dark story.
The researcher at the Institute for Security Problems of Nuclear Power Plants (ISPNPP) in Ukraine spoke to , who describes the Ukrainian’s employment as “the most dangerous in the world”.
Doroshenko is sometimes just eight meters away from the reactor core, on incursions he makes up to once a month. He enters with the aim of monitoring the state of the interior of the destroyed structure, understanding the risks that persist, such as the possibility of new fluctuations in nuclear activity, he tells the magazine. The secret, he confesses, is accepting the necessity of the task and maintaining control.
“It’s not scary”, says the scientist to the magazine: “I prepared for this for a long time. You just need to be morally prepared to accept the situation and the need to do it.” But he confesses that the feeling “is strange”.
“I think that [a sensação] It can be compared to the feeling of conquering Everest, going to Space or exploring the bottom of the ocean. A certain adrenaline rush is always present”, says Doroshenko.
The investigator enters the reactor with a precise task list, which includes dosimetry readings, observation of structural conditions and collection of material. You have to do them quickly and efficiently. Any contact with surfaces, dust or objects can contaminate clothing or the body. Protection depends not only on equipment, but above all on technical knowledge and discipline.
In less dangerous areas, the investigator uses basic protection — gloves, a respirator mask, and a head covering. But to access more contaminated areas you need full suits and sometimes a third layer of polyethylene protection.
Doroshenko is part of a younger generation of experts who continue the work that began shortly after the 1986 explosion. Over the years, several scientific teams entered the reactor to install sensors, take measurements and try to map an internal environment profoundly changed by the explosion and the extreme heat that followed, say officials from the Institute for Nuclear Power Plant Safety Problems (ISPNPP).
“Elena” and other imminent dangers
Inside the reactor there are still traces of the collapse: destroyed corridors, pipes filled with radioactive water and large masses of “corium” — a solidified mixture of nuclear fuel, concrete and metal that formed at temperatures of around 2500 °C.
Among the most dangerous risks is the so-called “Elena“, the 2,200-ton structure that originally covered the biological top of the reactor. It was propelled by the explosion and is now tilted about 15 degrees, supported by rubble. A collapse of the “Elena” could further destabilize the ruins and kick up large amounts of radioactive dust.
There is also occasional spikes in nuclear activity. Scientists do not know exactly where all the combustible material is located inside the reactor, and its interaction with moisture could alter the neutron flow. After the accident, dry conditions in the interior favored an increase in this activity. Later, the entry of water and moisture through the degraded structure reduced this risk.
Now, with the installation of the new security confinement, the environment has become drier again, which requires close surveillance.
The plant remains operational as an industrial dismantling complex, and the company structure itself was updated in January 2026, a sign of continued activity at the site.
At the plant’s industrial site, currently, around 500 people work on a typical day, according to the magazine, which visited the site to speak to workers on this 40th anniversary. But in the exclusion zone several thousand people continue to work — many in radiological monitoring, waste management, maintenance, safety and decommissioning.
The dangers that remain are not those of a “working” reactor, but those of a highly contaminated and technically fragile site. The main issue remains the radioactive material remaining in reactor 4 and associated structures.
A guerra ea contamination of forests in the exclusion zone they are also dangerous. In February 2025, for example, a drone attack damaged the New Safe Confinement, the large metal covering over reactor 4. In the exclusion zone, fires can remobilize radioactive particles accumulated in the soil and vegetation, transporting them in smoke.
