The invention relates to nuclear power industry, namely to systems providing safety of nuclear power plants (NPP), and can be used during severe accidents leading to reactor vessel and NPP containment failure. The melt cooling and confinement system includes a cone-shaped guide plate installed under the reactor vessel bottom, cantilever girder installed under the guide plate and supporting the same, core catcher installed under the cantilever girder and equipped with cooled cladding in form of a multi-layer vessel for protection of the external heat-exchange wall from dynamic, thermal and chemical impacts, and filler material for melt dilution inside the multi-layer vessel. The said multi-layer vessel contains internal and external metal layers with an intermediate layer in the form of a non-metal filler located in between. Bearing ribs are installed between the internal and external layers at an azimuth pitch (S pitch ) that meets the following criterion: d ext /15