In the early hours of 26 April 1986 engineers in the V.I. Lenin Nuclear Power Station reactor number 4 were running tests that would result in the biggest nuclear disaster in human history. A poorly designed RBMK-1000 nuclear reactor coupled with inadequatly trained staff led to a reactor explosion that would send out nuclear pollution as far afield as the eastern United States. In the closest areas a 30km exclusion zone was setup and it is estimated that some 116,000 people had been evacuated in the hours after the accident. In April 2008 and May 2009 I traveled to the exclusion zone and took many photos inside the area.
Almost 48 hours after the accident the authorities admitted they had a situation that was out of control, they ordered the evacuation of a 30km area around ground zero including the already heavily contaminated city of Pripyat which held almost 50,000 people and was less than two miles from the reactor. The total population of Pripyat was evacuated in four hours, they were told it would only be for a few days while the situation was brought under control, they were allowed to take one suitcase and their personal documents only. To this day 22 years later no one has ever returned to live there. The whole city remains in a state of decay and as it was left in 1986. Current estimates for the Cesium-133 radionuclides to dissipate is at a half life of approx 700 years and plutonium half life is estimated at 24,000 years.
It is with some irony that now, the only life it seems that is unable to live in the inner areas of the zone is human life. Animals such as horses, boars, wild cats and dogs, birds, water life and more all flourish and seem to be immune to the effects of the radiation still very strong in the area. The 30km Exclusion zone was setup after the accident with checkpoints that are operated by armed guards to ensure no one unauthorised enters and nothing is removed. It is estimated by Greenpeace that in 1986 approximately 50 people died as a direct result of the accident, According to one engineer dozens of people died constructing the concrete sarcophagus which keeps the radiation inside, it is also estimated that some 90,000 people will have some form of cancer related illness or death due to absorption of radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident over time.
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