Chernobyl's Ruins: 27 years later [PHOTOS]

[Kazimiera]

After the apocalypse: Haunting photographs show the sprawling ruins of Chernobyl 27 years after nuclear disaster


Photographer Hélène Veilleux was allowed into the Zone Of Alienation surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear plant
Her pictures show the desolate area covering 1,000 square miles that was evacuated after blast in April 1986
Schools, shops, fairgrounds, swimming pools and homes - all are slowly falling into ruins as zone returns to forest


Scores of abandoned gas masks covering a shop floor, rusted carriages of a motionless big wheel, neglected wallpaper falling off the wall of an empty family home...

These haunting images offer a rare glimpse into the life that stopped still in Chernobyl and neighbouring city Pripyat 27 years ago, when a test at a nuclear power reactor went wrong.

It was the worst nuclear disaster in history, and so dangerous was the fallout that the Ukrainian government evacuated 350,000 residents, creating an Exclusion Zone where time has stood still ever since.


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Scores of abandoned gas masks cover the floor of what may have been a shop in Pripyat, a once-thriving town of 50,000 people near the Ukrainian border with Belarus

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/04/24/article-0-1975B043000005DC-132_964x656.jpg
Time has stood still at this fairground ride that once echoed to children's laughter: Now rusted and blackened, it serves as a bleak memorial to long-gone families

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/04/24/article-2314041-1975B065000005DC-586_964x648.jpg
Hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated from the exclusion zone, leaving behind homes into which they had invested time, money and love

Most people are barred from living in the zone, named the Alienation Zone, which covers an area of more than 1,000sq miles around the abandoned plant, to protect them from the effects of any lingering radiation. A few residents refused to leave, and a handful of older residents have moved back to be close to family graves, but the area is mostly uninhabited and has now reverted to forests.

Tourists may obtain day passes, and workers who are rebuilding the damaged sarcophagus are allowed in for limited hours only each month. Scientists the area will not be safe to live in for another 20,000 years.

Earlier this month, photographer Hélène Veilleux was allowed in, and spent four days photographing the irradiated ruins of the towns where hundreds of thousands of families once lived, worked and died.

These astonishing photographs document what she saw on her journey from Chernobyl to Pripyat.


http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/04/24/article-2314041-1975B06D000005DC-489_964x651.jpg
The public swimming baths would once have resonated to shrieks from excited children - the now-drained pool has not been swum in for decades

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/04/24/article-2314041-1975B05B000005DC-946_964x648.jpg
The Chernobyl disaster on April 26, 1986, was the worst nuclear accident in history, killing 64 and leaving many thousands more with long-term effects including cancer and deformities

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/04/24/article-2314041-1975B03B000005DC-769_964x648.jpg
Brightly painted tanks, their guns crossed, stand unused in the Chernobyl Zone of Alienation, 27 years after a test at the nuclear reactor went so disastrously wrong

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/04/24/article-2314041-1975B092000005DC-163_964x652.jpg
Large public buildings are now simply falling apart: ceiling tiles have dropped off and smashed, wall claddings have slid down

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/04/24/article-2314041-1975B04C000005DC-152_964x655.jpg
The schoolchildren who were evacuated in the aftermath of the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor are now adults

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This photograph shows how vast strip lights dangle precariously, still attached by wires to the ceilings they were nailed to more than quarter of a century ago

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While people have been forced out of the exclusion zone, nature - including deer - has regained control, with much of it reverting to forest

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/04/24/article-2314041-1975B084000005DC-654_964x628.jpg
What looks like a school common room or hospital waiting room is a shell of its former self- chairs still in rows are covered with dust and fallen plasterwork

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/04/24/article-2314041-1975B14E000005DC-386_964x627.jpg
The fabric of both public and private buildings is slowly rotting as the vast, 1000sq mile zone of alienation is gradually reclaimed by nature

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Trees sprout between paving slabs as nature gradually regains the upper hand over the exclusion zone - experts estimate it will not be habitable for another 20,000 years

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/04/24/article-2314041-1975B11F000005DC-83_470x695.jpg

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/04/24/article-2314041-1975B153000005DC-35_470x695.jpg
The explosion and subsequent fire at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant released large quantities of radioactive particles into the atmosphere

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/04/24/article-2314041-1975B13A000005DC-846_964x642.jpg
The disaster began at Chernobyl reactor number four, when a power surge occurred during a systems test, causing a series of steam explosions and a fire which sent a plume of radioactive material into the air

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A gas mask would have provided little protection to the people of Chernobyl and Pripyat, many of whom suffered cancers and deformities as a result of the radiation released in the accident

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/04/24/article-2314041-1975B15F000005DC-325_964x619.jpg
Very few people enter the Chernobyl exclusion zone - a handful of people refused to leave, and some elderly people moved back to be near graves, but the zone is largely desolate

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2314041/Chernobyl-nuclear-disaster-Eerie-photographs-Helene-Veilleux.html

[Loki]

experts estimate it will not be habitable for another 20,000 years


This is what I don't get. Why has Hiroshima and Nagasaki become habitable so quickly again?

[Mark]

I can't believe it's been 27 years already... :picard1:

[arcticwolf]

This is what I don't get. Why has Hiroshima and Nagasaki become habitable so quickly again?

They had no choice, Japan is small and the population is large, they really had no choice. Plus back then they did not know that much about it.

Being surrounded by water and windswept may have something to do with it as well.

[Pontios]

Wow, I thought Call of Duty 4 map of Pripyat was just made up... But even the swimming pool is real! :eek:

It is pretty sad to see all of this. Such a terrible disaster. :(

[Kazimiera]

Perhaps it was the level of radiation which was lower. And possibly also that it got blown out to sea.

Also, the Japanese are pretty tight-lipped about what happens in their country. So we are probably only hearing a fraction of the story. In the case of Fukujima there have already been plenty of human, animal and plant mutations. I'm not aware of a large exclusion zone there, but I could be mistaken. Besides, where do you "exclude" to? It's a relatively small place. As with Fukujima, I think they have probably downplayed the seriousness of it.



**edit** Arcticwolf took the words from my mouth. He is obviously a faster typist than me. :)

[Loki]

20,000 years is a bloody long time though, I don't buy it. If animals can thrive already in that environment, then so can humans ... in the not too distant future.

[Kazimiera]

20,000 years is a bloody long time though, I don't buy it. If animals can thrive already in that environment, then so can humans ... in the not too distant future.

"Thrive" at what cost and in which stage of mutation??

http://www.documentingreality.com/forum/attachments/f10/105896d1259184346-chernobyl-victims-chernobyl.jpg

http://socialismsurvival.com/alexblog/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/chernobylbaby.jpg

Nobody gives a damn if an animal gives birth to a six-legged offspring somewhere in a forest, where nobody sees it, hears it or even knows of its existence.

It is different with people.

[1stLightHorse]

Doe anyone know if radiation could be used to mutate DNA in a positive way. Hopefully they're experimenting with this.

[Swearengen]

Doe anyone know if radiation could be used to mutate DNA in a positive way. Hopefully they're experimenting with this.

They can alter DNA however they want by manipulating base pairs, DNA splicing, etc. How are they supposed to control what happens when they shotgun radiation at it?