Technology

The Soviets never sent humans into the reactor to remove melted core material. The remains of the Chernobyl No. 4 core are still there inside the sarcophagus, and I don't think anyone was making serious plans to remove them even before the Ukraine war got in the way.

(The job that got so many Soviet workers exposed was moving solid radioactive debris from the exploded core so that the initial containment sarcophagus could be built and the other three reactors on the site restarted. Nothing comparable was required at Fukushima because the explosions there didn't breach any of the cores, thus no chunks of highly radioactive graphite to shovel off the roofs. I understand that the Soviets did try robots, but radiation isn't good for electronics and, well, it was Soviet equipment in 1986—they just weren't very effective.)

Because they're going to use specialized cranes to pull that shit out and bury it over the next 100 years (special military operation pending). It was installed with the New Safe Confinement. The entire point of the NSC was to protect the site from disturbance and collapse while they waited for it to be safe enough to disassemble the plant.

Weren't there so old people that volunteered for some cleanup jobs, reasoning they had less life left than you get people so the cancer would not get to them in time.

I think I remember reading something like that.

because putting people in those buildings is sketchy, and the serve almost zero static concern, especially with modern survey robots and technology that allows us to very easily analyze this stuff without having to set foot near it.