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NationalGeographic 1653464462
NationalGeographic 1653464462
The disaster took place near the city of Chernobyl in the former USSR,
which invested heavily in nuclear power after World War II. Starting in 1977,
Soviet scientists installed four RBMK nuclear reactors at the power plant, which is
located just south of what is now Ukraine’s border with Belarus.
A few months after reactor 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant went up in toxic
flames in 1986, it was encased in a concrete and steel "sarcophagus" to contain the
radioactive material inside.
The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation has
reported that more than 6,000 children and adolescents developed thyroid
cancer after being exposed to radiation from the incident.
The impact of the disaster on the surrounding forest and wildlife also remains an
area of active research. In the immediate aftermath of the accident, an area of about
four square miles became known as the “Red Forest” because so many trees turned
reddish-brown and died after absorbing high levels of radiation.
Today, Chernobyl beckons to tourists who are intrigued by its history and its
danger. But though Chernobyl symbolizes the potential devastation of nuclear
power, the exclusion zone is quiet and full of life. Due to the exclusion of human
activity around the shuttered power plant, the numbers of some wildlife, from
lynxes to elk, have increased. In 2015, scientists estimated there were seven times
more wolves in the exclusion zone than in nearby comparable reserves, thanks to
humans’ absence.