Earlier this month I had the chance to visit Chernobyl whilst on a short break to Ukraine. The site, over thirty years after the accident, is now open to small groups of tourists. Whist the basic narrative of a deadly blast followed by the abandoning of an area is well known, less so are other parts of the story that are far more important.
I was completely unaware as to what happened directly after the initial explosion and the 7-month battle that prevented a second far worse explosion – likely between 3-5 megatons - that would have decimated Eastern Europe.
I was unaware that the Soviet Union threw some half a million people at the problem, nicknamed ‘liquidators’ to try and manage the crisis and clean up the site as best they could. Amongst this number were some 10,000 miners who dug underneath the stricken reactor in order to insert liquid nitrogen and prevent a chain reaction as a result of the ongoing nuclear fire. The memorial in the shadow of the stricken reactor reads; 'For those who saved the world'.
Our guides told us that there is enough plutonium in the reactor to kill 100 million people and that it has a half-life of tens of thousands of years. Sobering stuff indeed when you watch the recent Panorama documentary about the state of Sellafield or when considering the decision to give the green light to Hinkley Point.
I didn’t know that although thousands of residents of a 30 kilometre exclusion zone were evacuated back in 1986, that following the fall of the Soviet Union the two cities and 95 villages (excepting those that had been buried) were looted despite most items being seriously radioactive.
Today the original construction that sealed the ruptured reactor is nearing the end of its life expectancy and visitors to the station can look up a vast new shinning casing, the largest movable construction site on the planet, that will be moved on top of the plant next year.
I didn’t know that originally Chernobyl was planned to be the biggest nuclear power station on the planet with 12 reactors and that one of them was designed to power the vast Soviet over-the-horizon (OTH) radar system that was hidden nearby.
I didn’t know that some residents of the area have been allowed to return. There are some 150 ‘resettler’ families now back in uncontaminated areas. I met Ivan Ivanović, an 80-year-old man who once was a driver who helped the original evacuation. He was wary but not against nuclear power whilst was more concerned by the lack of morals and focus on money that followed the end of the Soviet era.
I was unaware that the iconic fairground site located a few kilometres from the reactor was only ever opened for a few hours and this was AFTER the accident as a means of reassuring the population. I also didn’t know that as the tourist numbers visiting increase it is now possible to catch a Pokémon inside the zone.
All in all, considering the role Chernobyl played in hastening the fall of the Soviet Union and the potential far more devastating role it could have played if a second explosion had occurred I think it’s a serious site of human history that is well worth a visit.