It has been hailed as an engineering masterpiece, as the biggest moving construction ever created, and the crowd at the official Chernobyl ceremony was appreciative.
More than 40 countries and 10,000 workers were involved in building the Chernobyl nuclear shelter, now finally installed over the doomed plant.
Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko could hardly contain his excitement.
"Today, the building consortium guarantees a hundred years of nuclear safety. A lot of people had doubts, a lot of them didn't believe in this, but congratulations ... Yes, we did it!"
The Swedish head of the Chernobyl Shelter Fund, former United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix, told the crowd the pain and costs remain these 30 years after the accident.
But he says the healing process has come a long way.
"Moving together two halves of the huge arch and sliding the gigantic shelter into position over the historic reactor is like closing a wound, a nuclear wound, that belongs to all of us. Let me express our admiration and appreciation to Novarka and all the other big corporations and enterprises, the hundreds of engineers and managers, the thousands of workers in Ukraine and abroad, who have designed and mounted this unique building that is behind me."
The monument to the victims of the Chernobyl tragedy is in front of a new shelter installed over the exploded reactor, Ukraine, Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2016. (AAP) Source: AAP
On April 26, 1986, a botched test at the then Soviet Union nuclear plant sent clouds of smouldering nuclear material across large swathes of Europe.
It forced over 50,000 people to evacuate the area and poisoned unknown numbers of workers involved in its clean up.
The president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Suma Chakrabati, says the construction is a testament to world solidarity with Ukraine on nuclear safety.
"More than 40 governments, ladies and gentlemen, more than 40 governments have contributed to the Chernobyl Shelter Fund. The EBRD shareholders unanimously approved 750 million euros to the Chernobyl projects from the EBRD's net income."
The reconstruction bank's nuclear safety officer, Vince Novak, says the project is unprecedented in the history of design and engineering.
"It's one of the most important projects ever done, equally in Ukraine and not only Ukraine, across Europe and large parts of the world. I still remember the 1986 accident. It's a huge technological achievement. The most significant change, from our perspective, is that the New Safe Confinement, when fully functional, will, indeed, protect the environment and the people, which will then allow the authorities of Ukraine to do other activities which you otherwise would not do with this risk present."
The new dome, in the planning for more than six years, will replace a concrete sarcophagus hastily built over the site earlier to contain the worst of the radiation.
