The Zone

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Since The Explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power plant in 1986, an area of More Than 4,000 square kilometres, was abandoned. That could change now, as Victoria Gill, discovered during a week-long trip in the exclusion zone.

"This place is More Than half of My Life ," says Gennady laptewa. The broad shoulders, the Ukrainian scientist smiles wistfully as we pool us on the now dry ground, what is the Chernobyl Nuclear Power plant was the Decay .

"I was Only 25 when I started my work Here as a liquidator. Now I'm almost 60. "

There were thousands of liquidators - Workers , who came Here as part of the mammoth-dangerous clean-up operation after the 1986 Explosion . The worst nuclear accident in history.

Gennady shows me a coffee table-size-platform installed, Here to collect dust. This reservoir hazards the bed dried up when the pumps taking water from the nearby river were eventually switched off in 2014, 14 years after the other three reactors were shut down.

the analysis of dust for radioactive Contamination is Only a small part of the decades-long study of this vast, desolate area. The Accident turned this landscape into a vast, contaminated laboratory, where hundreds of scientists have worked to figure Out how The Environment is recovering from the nuclear disaster.

The Experiment turned into a global disaster from The Damaged reactor is now buried by a steel "confinement structure", such as cranes, dismantling of radioactive residues within the On 26 April 1986 at 1:23AM, engineers cut power to some systems in the Nuclear Power plant Chernobyl, reactor number 4. It is a critical point in a test, in order to understand what would happen was, during a blackout. What was not know, the engineers That the reactor was already unstable.

The cut-off slows down the turbines drove the cooling water in the reactor. As Less water is turned, More steam, the pressure Inside built. By the time operators realized what was Happening , and tried to shut down the reactor, it was Too Late .

A steam Explosion blew the lid of the reactor, whereby The Core into the atmosphere. Two People in the plant were killed, like the air, a fire fueled That burned for 10 days, a cloud of radioactive smoke and dust carried on The Wind to Europe.

Bbc News -Our World : In The Shadow of the Chernobyl - Watch Victoria Gill's full report from the exclusion zone on Saturday and Sunday, 16 and 17 February, at 2130 GMT on Bbc News Channel and then.

In 1986, Gennady laptewa (on The Right ) flew with the helicopter Every Day to collect soil and water samples around the Damaged reactor of The First responders rushed in to as the deadly smoke came. 134 were diagnosed Radiation with acute disease, 28 died within a few months. At least 19 have died since.

Gennady, an environmental scientist with the Ukrainian hydro-meteorological Institute, His work in The Zone , Only three months after the evacuation. "We fly with the helicopter Every Day from Kiev," he explains, "to collect water and soil samples.

"is The important thing, then, was to understand, to draw the extent of the Contamination , The First maps of the exclusion zone. "

Today , this zone is comprised of the Ukraine and white Russia. The More Than 4,000 square kilometres - More Than twice the size of London. Each municipality within a radius of 30 km was evacuated the facility and leave, no One was Left Behind To Live Here .

In a forgotten, the outer part of the exclusion zone, People were allowed quietly to Return Home , a few months after the disaster.

in contrast to the "30 km zone", no checkpoints prevent access to this semi-deserted area. Narodichi, a city of More Than 2,500 employees, is in the More distant zone. Strict rules are rules, this is officially contaminated district; exclusion zone Land may not be cultivated to produce Food , and it can't be developed.

Narodichi an officially polluted city in the outer part of the exclusion zone Today , though, in this part of Ukraine is not easily delineated into two Categories - dirty or clean. The research has shown That Chernobyl is the result of More complicated, and the landscape Here is much weirder - and More interesting - than the strict "do not touch" rules in Narodichi would imply.

fear of Radiation could actually be That the People in Narodichi far More Than the Radiation itself.

', We are becoming Less and Less Radiation than Here on the level of'Over Gennady's shoulder, I see the Nuclear Power plant Less than a kilometre away from the reservoir bed, we stand up. Gleaming in The Sun , the huge protective case made of steel the "New Safe Confinement", which now entombs unit 4. It was slid over The Top of The Accident epicenter in 2016. Including, robotic cranes to dismantle the 33-year-old, radio-active debris are.

Prof Jim Smith of the UK's University of Portsmouth, a colleague Gennady is, is a scientist who has studied the effects of the disaster since 1990. Here , on One of His numerous research trips into The Zone , he is a dosimeter - black-plastic-phone-size displays me the gadget he is wearing during The Visit .

It is the external dose of Radiation measures, which he kept from The Environment . To scattered atoms and the atomic fuel dust, the spontaneous breaking of goods Here by the 1986 Explosion . They give high-energy-rays, as they do this, and Jim dosimeters to determine the dose we receive every hour.

The dosimeter calculates the dose of Radiation we receive every hour on the hour The reading activities in units (called micro sieverts), which Only make sense to me in the context of other relatively "radio-active". At One point in The Middle of The Flight to Kiev, for Example - His dosimeter read 1. 8 micro sieverts per hour.

", It is currently 0. 6," says Jim. "That 's so [a third party], we were always on the run. "With The Infamous power plant visible in the background, I'm in disbelief. However, Jim explains, we live on a radioactive Planet Natural radioactivity is all around us. "It Comes from the rays of The Sun , from the Food we eat, from the earth," he says. That is why, up to 12,000 m on a passenger plane, with Less shielding from the earth's atmosphere, we receive a higher dose.

"Yes, the exclusion zone is contaminated," he tells me, "But if we would stand on a map of the Radiation levels in The World - Only the "small" hotspots",.

"Natural radioactivity is all around us - it varies from country to country, from place to place. Most of the area of the exclusion zone gives rise to lower Radiation dose rates than many areas of the Natural radioactivity in The World . "

"you don't want to be in the hotspot for a long time'While the border of the restricted zone has not changed, the landscape has - almost beyond recognition. Where the People were forced, the nature has shifted. Wilderness combined with abandoned buildings, farms and villages, gives an insight into the post-apocalyptic world.

Jim and His colleagues spend their days collecting samples and planting cameras and audio recorders, automatically collect information about you, what animals lives in this post-human and how the Radiation affects it.

On the second day of our trip in The Zone , I follow The Team in the Red Forest . This is a restricted zone, hotspot, because of the direction of the winds in 1986, the main took a load in the shower of radio-active material.

We put on dust-to avoid suits, contaminate our clothes.

In The Forest , Jim dosimeter reads, 35 - almost 60 times the external dose we were in the pool in the Decay .

"We don't want to be Here too long," says Jim. He and The Team will collect the soil samples, a few quick photos and back to The Car .

"The horses are adapting to The Zone " Wild Horses , which were published in the "zone" as part of an experiment to reduce The Risk of forest fires In The Abandoned village of Burayakovka - Only 10 km from The Power plant - it is a very different approach. Jim and The Team take the time to explore the area. The meter reads 1. 0 - Still Less than on the run.

in a small, fragile But Still colourful wooden houses, the sad truth, what is lost so suddenly, Here , is obvious. A coat That is Still casually over the arm of the chair now covered in the three decades of dust.

But what left the People behind - from agriculture and horticulture has in a strange rich habitat, and the provisions for the Wild Animals Long-term studies have shown That there are More animals in The Abandoned villages than Anywhere Else in The Zone . Brown bear, lynx and Wild Boar to see roaming Here .

Dr. Maryna Shkvyria, the researchers, based at the Kiev Zoo , has years spent tracking and studying the larger mammals That moved when the People moved.

Camera trap images show That the lynx to roam now says the exclusion zone around Chernobyl, The Wolves , you, are a particularly striking Example .

"lie down and sleep Inside - you are in adjustment to The Zone . "

', you can use the cherry vodka; I made it

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Source of news: bbc.com