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19 stunning photos show what the radioactive area inside the Chernobyl nuclear plant looks like 32 years after the explosion
19 stunning photos show what the radioactive area inside the Chernobyl nuclear plant looks like 32 years after the explosion
Sarah JacobsApr 26, 2018, 16:28 IST
Gleb Garanich/Reuters
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The Chernobyl nuclear power station disaster in 1986 was the worst nuclear disasters in history.
150,000 people in the area had to be permanently relocated, and an estimated 4,000 clean-up workers suffered from radiation poisoning.
Experts say that upwards of 70,000 people experienced severe poisoning from the accident.
Thirty-two years ago on April 26, 1986, a radioactive release 10 times bigger than the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power station inside the Soviet Union.
Chernobyl would go down in history as one of the worst disasters of its kind.
The explosion in Chernobyl 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 thousands of lives have been affected long-term by the exposure to radiation.
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Around 150,000 people were forced to evacuate their homes in the "Nuclear Exclusion Zone," the area in a 18-mile radius around the plant. The town hardest hit was Pripyat, Ukraine, where the Chernobyl plant was located. The town was evacuated and remains empty to this day.
In 2012, construction began on the New Safe Confinement structure, which covers the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
Ahead, 19 photos that go inside the eerie Chernobyl plant and the New Safe Confinement structure.
The cause of the explosion at Chernobyl was two-fold. The first major issue was that the power station was built with faulty construction and what American physicist and Nobel laureate Hans Bethe has called "built-in instability."
At the time of the accident, the power station had four 1,000-megawatt power reactors in place. A fifth one was in the works.
One of the multiple issues was the reactor's containment structure. Built entirely of concrete, it should have been reinforced with steel.
The more direct cause of the explosion was an electrical engineering experiment gone extremely awry.
Engineers wanted to test if they could draw electricity from turbine generators while the reactors were turned off, but the turbines were still spinning inertially.
To conduct their experiment, they had to turn off many of the power station's automatic safety controls, and also remove a majority of the plant's control rods, which absorb neutrons and limit the reaction.
In a crunch for time, the engineers turned the reactor's power levels down much too quickly.
That fatal mistake led to another series of destructive choices, eventually leading to a massive chemical explosion.
Pieces of burning metal went in the air, causing fires where they landed. Due to the poisonous radiation, the Chernobyl site was declared a permanent no-go zone.
An employee walks inside the original control center of the third reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
To enter the city today, visitors must go through security checks and have proper authorization and a tour guide.
Radioactive water, ground soil, and air are still affecting those around the Nuclear Exclusion Zone.
Greenpeace has estimated that a total of 100,000 to 400,000 people in total could die of health issues directly caused by the accident at Chernobyl.
Here, the New Safe Confinement (NSC) structure that's over the Chernobyl nuclear power plant's damaged reactor, in Chernobyl, Ukraine. Construction began on the NSC in 2012 and has a computerized ventilation system inside.
Outside, workers sweep radioactive dust at a nuclear power plant in Chernobyl.
Although humans can't live in the area, scientists are saying it's possible that the number of animals in the area is now higher than it was 30 years ago. Today you can find elk, deer, wolves, bison, and dozens of other species in the surrounding area.
Outside, water tankers are used to spray water on a road to prevent radioactive dust from being blown away in front of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
Over the next several years, plans to demolish the remaining parts of the interior sarcophagus and the damaged reactor unit will be in the works.
