Thanks Pilot Mark! And Stefanie, it really is a cool journey. Pretty dark given the sad history, but well worth it in my mind. Plus Kiev is already a cool place to visit in its own right. Excellent post Nate! Fascinating photos of a highly unexplored place. Its crazy how people risk their lives like that for a photo. They did the job on the creepiness levels though. Thanks for sharing! What an informative discussion and chilling photos. I cannot believe you went — looks like quite the adventure.
Table of Contents. A mural depicts happier days. Abandoned newspaper is a reminder of how quickly they left. A record lay in tact. Grocery store ruined by radioactive waste. A doll that has been moved by stalkers. Evacuated in the middle of everyday life. Animals are coming back. Chernobyl Reactor — sarcophagus to contain the radioactive material.
Gas Mask left in abandoned buildings. Abandoned Gym. Empty swimming pool. This was the kindergarten. Science Kit at Chernobyl Classroom. Abandoned football field. Eerie feeling at the abandoned amusement park.
Ukraine faced many difficulties in trying to clean up the radioactive debris that was left behind from the explosion and they initially tried to use robots to help tackle the mess. The robots were unable to cope with the high radiation levels, and it led to authorities deciding to use humans instead. They tried to use a mix of sand, lead and boric acid to try and seal off the radiation, and it was a process that risked the lives of many workers.
Liquidators were called in from the military to deal with the consequences of the nuclear disaster, and many have credited them with helping preventing the accident from being even worse than it was. It is believed that many liquidators suffered health problems following the clean up, because of the high levels of radiation that they were working in. The number of deaths attributed to the radiation varies dramatically with some claiming it was around 9, while others believe the number of people affected could be as high as 90, Members of the public who lived in Pripyat, which was nearby to the power plant , were not immediately evacuated or notified about the explosion.
On 27 April the government moved people out of their homes by bus to villages in Kiev, with the initial plan of removing them for around three days. It has been reported that the residents were exposed to radiation levels of around Pripyat remains empty 33 years after the initial explosion, although some people did return to their homes that sit within the 19 miles exclusion zone around the power plant. She's also conducting webinars for scientists and medical care providers who are interested in the health effects of radiation on humans.
What was going through your head as hundreds of children arrived at your hospital for treatment after the Chernobyl explosion? We saw the children arriving in a panic and in tears. It was a stressful event, but you have to act and do what you have to do. We also didn't have enough supplies and proper protective clothing to wear during examinations. Since a similar disaster was never recorded in medical history books, and there were no guidelines in place for how to handle the situation, you had to innovate.
Can you give an example of how you improvised? We tried to comfort the children. It was only much later that we learned the psychological impact [of the disaster]. We told them funny stories and hugged them, which worked quite well. In pediatrics, if a patient has a cough, most likely a fever will follow, but not in this case. It was because the children were lacking oxygen, and their lungs were plugged with dust that possibly contained radiation particles.
Many of the children waited outside for hours for the buses to arrive to bring them to the hospital. There were a lot of mistakes made [in the aftermath of the disaster], but one of the biggest was the lack of knowledge and understanding, [which resulted in] children being left outside to breathe this radioactive air. So, we started giving them oxygen. The Soviet government withheld information pertaining to the explosion and its aftermath, and even spread rumors about the situation.
It would go down in history as one of the worst disasters of its kind. The explosion blasted radioactive gas and dust into the air, and winds carried it across central and southern Europe. Thirty-one people died in the accident, and countless lives have been affected long-term by the exposure to radiation. Around , people were forced to evacuate their homes in the "Nuclear Exclusion Zone", the area in a mile 30 km radius around the plant. The town hardest hit was Pripyat, Ukraine - it was quickly abandoned and remains empty to this day.
Ahead, 17 images that show what the zone looks like today. The cause of the explosion was two-fold.
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