Chernobyl

Article by: Mat Schulz, October 2006

At first, nothing looked out of the ordinary. The dead zone is now a nature reserve, with green forest, and protected animals and birds. An Eden without human beings. We passed a helicopter used to search for poachers who hunt radioactive wild boar, then a sign-post to a contaminated village that had long since been buried.

Yuri, our guide who works at the information centre, was equipped with a hyperactive Geiger counter. In the distance, I could make out the dark, ominous shape of the disaster's heart - reactor 4.

Its cement sarcophagus, designed to encase its remains, had begun to disintegrate and was on the verge of collapse; a second, more stable sarcophagus is underway. From a viewing platform, we watched workers strengthening the existing sarcophagus. A shift working this close to the reactor pays US$600 per month and is much sought after.

The night of the explosion, residents stood on their balconies to watch. They weren't evacuated until the next day.

The ghost town of Prypyat, once a prosperous Soviet city of almost 50,000, is a mere 2km away. The night of the explosion, residents stood on their balconies to watch. They weren't evacuated until the next day. They were told they'd be returning soon; their belongings remain unclaimed.

Stopping in Prypyat's overgrown city square, I saw a deserted restaurant on one side and, on the other, a large shopping centre with rusting phone booths outside. The remains of an imposing 10-storey hotel still stood. From the roof I could see the surrounding blocks, all empty, and eerily quiet.

Throughout the tour Yuri kept the Geiger counter on, generating disconcerting clicking noises. It wasn't to impress tourists, but to avoid lingering too long in dangerous areas. As we drove through Red Forest, named for the colour the trees turned after the explosion, Yuri showed the Geiger counter steadily increasing up to 1650 micro-roentgens. A few hundred metres into the forest and we were exposed to more than 100 times the acceptable level. Not a place for a walk.

What's more disturbing is back in Prypyat we entered a fun park that was meant to open a week after the explosion occurred. A large Ferris wheel stood frozen. I stepped on some moss to take a photo of the rusting dodgem cars.

'Better not do that,' said Yuri. He laid the Geiger counter on the moss. The reading rapidly shot up to 1700, whilst the clicking sound became a whirr. 'One of the risks of this city,' added Yuri, smiling.

The reading rapidly shot up to 1700, whilst the clicking sound became a whirr.

Like a tour through Auschwitz, it's a trip that provokes the question 'why am I here?' When you stop and take photos of the infamous power plant or the radioactive ghost town, it can feel voyeuristic, and somehow wrong. But it's the facts that make you think: the number of deaths caused by the accident, which a Greenpeace report has said could eventually top 100,000; the firemen who died immediately after exposure; volunteers called 'biorobots' who cleared debris; the ongoing cancer cases. Hundreds of thousands continue to live in the contaminated region outside the zone, and even within the zone some old people have returned to grow and eat food on small farms.

The tour may also change your mind about nuclear power. I'd been ambivalent about the issue, but standing in that ghost city has crystallised my views forever: I'm now against it. So was our guide.

'Is there anywhere safe to keep spent uranium?' someone asked Yuri.

'On the moon,' he replied. 'Maybe.'

Unbelievably, Ukraine is one of the only countries in Europe still constructing new nuclear power plants. It built two new reactors in 2004, and plans to build many more as a way of escaping a dependence on Russian oil and gas. As for Chernobyl, its last plant was closed in 2000 after pressure from the West.

Unbelievably, Ukraine is one of the only countries in Europe still constructing new nuclear power plants.

The day ended with a four-course meal, served in a canteen where Chernobyl workers eat. Jokes about locally produced food flew across the table, but what we were eating had been shipped in from outside the dead zone.

On the drive back to Kyiv, along twisting country roads, the sun was shining. We were in a beautiful rural landscape typical of Ukraine, and it appeared untouched. It made you suddenly doubt that what you just saw was real.