Chernobyl: 25th Anniversary of Nuclear Disaster (Photos, Video)

by NowPublic Staff | April 26, 2011 at 09:07 am

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Chernobyl Disaster: 25 Years Later

25 years after Chernobyl's active #4 nuclear reactor exploded during a safety test, the region around Pripyat is uninhabitable to humans. It will remain that way for at least another 600 years. (Chernobyl Map) Over 240,000 Soviet workers were exposed to high levels of radiation during the cleanup. Over 350,000 people living in the area had to abandon their homes, never to return.

How Long Will Chernobyl Be Radioactive?

The radioactive plume drifted over Western Europe and the then-Soviet Union, now Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. The after-effects on the environment will be felt for another hundred years. Cesium-137 has a half-life of around 30 years, but the material does not seem to be decaying as quickly as predicted. The exclusion zone will remain in place for the foreseeable future.

Generations of nearby residents are suffering the after-effects. Nuclear energy is considered safer and cleaner than currently-viable alternatives, but when it fails, it fails spectacularly.

This is, at least to an extent, a glimpse into the future of the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, and why it is being treated as a Level 7 emergency.

Fukushima Daiichi: Feature Coverage

Has Chernobyl Been Contained?

The radioactivity spilled at Chernobyl is only barely contained. The cement sarcophagus needs to be bolstered by a new structure, and that won't be done until at least 2013. Fuel rods still remain in reactors 1-3. Chernobyl has yet to actually be decommissioned, and those who work there live in a town 30km away.

KidOfSpeed: Chernobyl, Motorcycles, and the Web

The most widely-distributed photos of Chernobyl came from photographer and motorcyclist Elena Filatova, who posted under the name KidOfSpeed. Her photos, taken 18 years after the Chernobyl disaster, were supposedly the result of a solo motorcycle trip through the Chernobyl zone of alienation, including the city of Prypiat.

It later turned out that the photos were taken during a group tour, but the photos themselves are very much real. Some were from other sources, and taken at different times: attempts to recreate the journey have shown why the motorcycle trip through Chernobyl was impossible. The dust kicked up alone would be problematic, to say the least.

KidOfSpeed Chernobyl Photos
Chernobyl Photos: Hi Res

While the circumstances of the journey were not real, the images spread like wildfire, giving Westerners their first real glimpse of the exclusion zone and the ghost city of Pripyat.

Chernobyl tours (knowns as "Chernobyl stalking") are well-organized affairs, though obviously participants cannot touch anything, or even eat outdoors. Anti-nuclear demonstrations are taking place around the world.

Italy was planning a return to nuclear power by 2014, but those plans have been put on hold.

Commemorations in Ukrainian capital Kiev started in the middle of the night, with hundreds of workers who were sent to clean up the disaster - known as liquidators - gathering at a church memorial.