[Excerpted from: Dunbar, Julie. "Photo Essay: Lasting effects from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster" on World Geography. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. worldgeography.abc-clio.com]
On April 24, 1986, a botched experiment on the electrical system of Reactor #4 at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine resulted in an explosion and fire that burned for 10 days. Enough radioactive material was released into the atmosphere to triple the world’s background radiation level. The Landsat images above show Chernobyl five days after the explosion on April 29, 1986 (left); the second image shows Chernobyl 25 years later on April 27, 2011. In the 1986 image, the farmlands are seen as bright, light green areas. The region was also covered in areas by dense forest, which is depicted in dark green. The blue and purple areas are the small communities that surrounded the nuclear power plant. The 2011 image shows that light green grasslands have overtaken the farm fields. The forests were destroyed, replaced by new trees that show as medium green. The communities are deserted in the 2011 image, many of them razed and buried.
Chernobyl is located 60 miles north of Kiev, Ukraine. The area was once covered in dense forest and cultivated for grain because of its rich soil. One-hundred and fifty villages surrounded Chernobyl, and one town, Pripyat, only two miles away from the power plant, was home to 50,000 workers. Following the explosion, much of the forest died. All of the towns and villages within a 19-mile radius of Chernobyl were evacuated. One-hundred and fifteen thousand people were relocated, and after 1986, 220,000 people from Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine were subsequently relocated. An “exclusion zone” twice the size of South Carolina was set up around the power plant. A 24-story sarcophagus made of concrete and steel was hastily built around the destroyed reactor following the explosion.
Within a few weeks of the accident, 30 Chernobyl workers were dead of radiation exposure; another 80 died within 15 years of the accident. Thousands of workers who participated in the cleanup operations suffer long-term health issues. Incidences of cancer are estimated at 24,000. Children and teens especially have experienced high rates of thyroid cancer. The United Nations estimates that 4,000 people in the affected areas will eventually succumb to cancer or related illnesses. Some disagree and claim as many as 1 million have already died.
It’s estimated that 5 million people still live in areas contaminated with radioactive fallout. The original sarcophagus built around the reactor is now leaking and unstable. A new, $2 billion encasement will be completed by mid-2015 and will cover the existing sarcophagus and reactor. The new containment, funded by the European Union and 28 other countries, is designed to last 100 years and is basically a stop-gap solution until technology is developed to fully clean up the site. Meanwhile, nearly 80,000 gallons of radioactive water is pumped out of the reactor site every month to prevent groundwater contamination. The town of Chernobyl and the main roads within the exclusion area have been decontaminated, but the grasslands and forest have not. Birch trees have grown in place of burned pine forest. Wildlife has suffered a severe reduction in biodiversity and some species that do survive have genetic defects. Some scientists however, claim that a number of species are thriving like never before because they are not hunted. In 2012, Ukrainian radiation safety officials claimed that many villages within the exclusion zone around Chernobyl were now safe for habitation and non-food agricultural activities, although the law still bans habitation. Tourists however, have been allowed short guided excursions into the zone since 2011.
