Chernobyl, 26 aprile 2021 – A Chernobyl, in Ukraine, 35 years later, nature regained the upper hand after disaster. There are lush lawns among the ruins here on April 26, 1986 exploded nuclear power plant, the most serious nuclear catastrophe in history, equal to that of Fukishima after an earthquake in Japan, it was on March 11, 2011. The area which – according to the Ukrainian authorities – may not be suitable for humans for 24,000 years, in 2016 it became nature reserve e you want to become a candidate Unesco heritage. If the project goes through the Exclusion Zone, a ‘no man’s land’ around the plant, within a radius of 30 kilometers, will be on the same list as the Taj Mahal in India, Stonehenge in England and the abbey of Mont Saint Michel in France. Today the owners of Chernobyl are moose, wolves and wild horses, which grow undisturbed. It is thought to introduce the European bison.
The disaster
The catastrophe occurred at 1.23 in the morning. A safety test was in progress. Something went wrong. In fourth reactor of the plant there was an explosion, the fire poisoned the air with enough radioactive powders to pack 500 bombs. The same power as the bomb your hiroshima. Ukraine was still part of the USSR. The authorities tried to hide the incident. For two days no one was informed of what had happened. Implant workers who lived in the vicina Pripyat they distinctly heard the roar of the explosion. But the evacuation was ordered only on the afternoon of April 27. A massive operation that involved hundreds of thousands of citizens. The radioactive clouds of Chernobyl frightened the world and are estimated to have contaminated up to three quarters of Europe. Thousands of people were sentenced to die of cancer and other radiation-induced diseases. But the true story of Chernobyl still remains to be written.
The future
“One of the most emblematic territories of Ukraine” and a warning to the world, as it has been defined, must also be protected from an unstoppable flow of tourists. In 2019, also prompted by the television series, the abandoned nuclear power plant and the city of Pripyat had registered a boom in visitors, about 120 thousand people. For the Minister of Culture of Ukraine, Oleksandre Tkachenko, “the importance of the Chernobyl area extends far beyond the borders of the country. It is not just about commemorations, but also about history and people’s rights”. This is what we aim to turn the page. And, paradoxically, as he noted Denys Vyshnevsky, head of the science department of the nature reserve, there is “a unique opportunity to preserve biodiversity”.
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