Elephant's Foot (Chernobyl)

The Elephant's Foot is the nickname given to the large mass of corium beneath Reactor 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near Pripyat, Ukraine.

[4][5] The material making up the Elephant's Foot had melted through at least 2 metres (6.6 feet) of reinforced concrete, then flowed through pipes and fissures and down a hallway to reach its current location.

[1][2][6][7] Over time, zircon crystals have started to form slowly within the mass as it cools, and crystalline uranium dioxide dendrites are growing quickly and breaking down repeatedly.

[3] The mass was quite dense and unyielding to efforts to collect samples for analysis via a drill mounted on a remote-controlled trolley, and armor-piercing rounds fired from an AK-47 rifle were necessary to break off usable chunks.

[2][11] Since that time, the radiation intensity has declined significantly, and in 1996, the Elephant's Foot was briefly visited by the deputy director of the New Safe Confinement Project, Artur Korneyev,[a] who took photographs using an automatic camera and a flashlight to illuminate the otherwise dark room.