19 stunning photos show what the radioactive area inside the Chernobyl nuclear plant

http://www.businessinsider.com/ ^ | Sarah Jacobs

[BBell]

19 stunning photos show what the radioactive area inside the Chernobyl nuclear plant looks like 32 years after the explosion

The Chernobyl nuclear power plant was the site of one of the worst nuclear disasters in history.

As many as 150,000 people in the area were permanently relocated, and an estimated 4,000 clean-up workers got radiation poisoning.

Experts say that more than 70,000 people experienced severe poisoning from the accident on April 26, 1986.

On April 26, 1986, a radioactive release many times as large as the that of the Hiroshima bomb occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Soviet Union.

Chernobyl would go down in history as one of the worst nuclear disasters.

The explosion at the plant in Pripyat, Ukraine, blasted radioactive gas and dust into the air, and winds carried it across central and southern Europe. More than 30 people died, and thousands of lives have been affected by the exposure to radiation.

About 150,000 people were forced to evacuate their homes in the "nuclear exclusion zone" within an 18-mile radius of the plant. The town hardest hit was Pripyat, which remains empty.

In 2012, construction began on the New Safe Confinement, a structure to cover part of Chernobyl.

Here are 19 photos that go inside the eerie Chernobyl plant and the New Safe Confinement.

[Morgana]

Yea nice, notice they hid all the bottles of Vodka?

[RedMonqey]

I hope the younger generation has such cajones to face almost certain death to save others when their time comes.

I'm trying hard to imagine anyone in America doing what these brave (former)Soviet citizens doing if it happened here.

I keep getting visions of said employees rushing to either the cameras or their lawyers.

Probably both as the reactors go "China syndrome"

[sparklite2]

He must have had some Homer Simpson genes.

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And Bette Davis eyes. LOL

[21twelve]

Thanks for that post. I wonder if the families were looked after well? I sure hope so.

[PGalt]

Great post & thread BUMP!

[sparklite2]

Doesn’t mean I would eat any fish caught in Japanese waters, though...

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Atmospheric fallout from Chinese nuclear testing in the seventies was so severe that Eastman Kodak had to shut down their print film coating facility because the radiation was affecting the product. Those of us alive at the time, I have read, all have some radiation in our bones from those days.

I wonder if we carry around a little Chernobyl souvenir too.

[Chode]

heh heh heh...

[hawkaw]

Wow. I forgot about this story.

[Thank You Rush]

How do I get the pictures? I get titles and blank spaces.

[Albion Wilde]

That’s an amazing and excellent story. They are like that hero French policeman a few weeks ago who exchanged himself for a hostage. Thanks for posting.

[Balding_Eagle]

The islands where we tested atomic bombs following WWII is further circumstantial evidence to support your theory.

There is a lot of life there, something that wasn’t supposed to happen for a long time yet.

[Brilliant]

There is an interesting video series on YouTube on Chernobyl. The most interesting part of it was that they followed the scientists who monitored it for years. They pointed out that it took a terrible toll on the scientists health but when they made the video only one of them had actually died and he died of heart disease. They blamed it on stress from his job. Had nothing to do with radiation.

[vetvetdoug]

In Japan from 1958 to 1963 there were times that we couldn't go outside for almost two weeks because of the radiation coming down in the rain from the clouds that had formed from the Chinese and Russian nuclear tests. USAF reconnaissance brought back tiptanks that sampled the air of the clouds headed to Japan and enabled for Japan to issue the warnings.

[vetvetdoug]

The University of Tennessee's College of Veterinary Medicine necropsied the last surviving animal of the Bimini Atoll detonations in 1983. The donkey died of old age.

[BBell]

I don’t know. It’s working for me.

[The Truth Will Make You Free]

I couldn’t find if the 3 were Russians, Ukrainians, or from other occupied former-Soviet nations.

[nwrep]

Sounds like internet urban legend from the early 1990s...

[Balding_Eagle]

Wow, I’d never heard of that.

That’s 35 years ago, and only what, 20 years after the last test?

[OldSmaj]

Ain't turning off my ad-blocker.

I'm sure they are great pics, but I'll find them somewhere else.

[BBell]

There are loads of them out there. I don’t turn off my ad blocker. When the pop up tells me to turn it off I hit refresh and then stop the page from loading by hitting the x. it works for me.