Chernobyl and Pripyat

Engineers worked closely with day-shift workers at the plant in advance so that everyone was prepared for the test. Workers were starting to gradually shut down the reactor when another power plant on the power grid failed. The workers were instructed to delay the shut down of reactor four until the problem had been fixed.

By the time the shut down was allowed, the day-shift had gone home and had been replaced with the night-shift. While these guys were experienced, they weren't prepared for the test about to be performed during the maintenance window. Regardless of this, it was decided that the test should go ahead as planned.

As can be expected, some confusion arose over the instructions for the test. Some steps within the procedure had been crossed-out, but a decision was made to perform these steps despite this. The preparation for the test left the reactor in a precarious state, and once the test was started things went downhill quickly. At 1:24am, 26 April 1986, two powerful steam explosions ripped the roof off the reactor four building and ignited a severe fire which very nearly spread to the nearby reactor three.

Of course, we now know this as the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Disaster.

These days, Chernobyl is located within a 30km exclusion zone (Зона відчуження Чорнобильської АЕС), within the Ukraine. Radiation levels are now safe enough for short visits, and while some forms of tourism are increasing in the area in officially allowed in 2002, the government does not officially consider it a tourist destination.

After wanting to visit the area for many years, I mentioned it to John who eventually agreed to travel to the area with me.

When I went through school, we were taught about radiation levels in the archaic scale of Rads. Lots of websites talking about the Chernobyl incident discuss radiation levels in Röntgens (where 500 röntgen-hours, or 500R/h, over five hours is a lethal dose to humans). Now people are starting to talk about it in terms of Grays (where exposure of five or more grays to the entire body guarantees death within fourteen days within an average human), which seems to be a combination of the two and the recommended international standard. Since röntgens are still more prevalent, I'm going to use that as the scale of choice in this article and not convert them to grays, let alone bother with rads. A normal dose of background radiation would be between 10-20μR/h (micro-röntgens-per-hour) in most cities.

Everyone entering the exclusion zone is required to handle over identification papers at the 30km border, along with agreeing to abide by certain rules. For example, no material whatsoever is allowed to be removed from the exclusion zone for obvious reasons.

From there, our first port of call was to the offices of the Chernobylinterinform Agency, set up after the disaster, for a briefing and to sign contracts before entering the 10km exclusion zone. This is also the place where we were to have lunch.

Since they cannot dig into the radioactive ground for fear of stirring up all sorts of trouble, all services that would normally be underground such as running water and sewerage connections are run above-ground through these pipes that weave their way through the town.

Small radiation testers, used to make sure there's nothing seriously radioactive remaining on your hands or feet. This is especially important if you're about to have lunch here!

There are quite a few cats hanging around the area - probably because there's a kitchen and lots of scraps. They're very friendly!

Radiation levels around the agency - only ~70μR/h, about six times more than normal.

Since the government does not officially consider the area as a tourist destination, we were given a representative from the military for two important reasons: Firstly, to help protect the security of the area, and secondly to protect our safety from radioactive hot-spots.

Before entering the 10km exclusion zone, we stopped off outside the region's major fire station. This station is vitally important because any fire can stir up radioactive dust and create another disaster. The area is prone to bush-fires, in fact one tore through a large area shortly after the disaster. A major fire would easily spread high doses of radioactive material over an enormous area, so these guys have a great deal of responsibility weighing on their shoulders.

A monument to the workers and fire-fighters, paid for not by the government but by their families, erected to remember those who gave their lives to the disaster. The plaque states that the monument is in honour of those who saved the world.

We soon entered the 10km exclusion zone checkpoint and headed towards power plant (Чернобыльская АЭС — ЧАЭС). On the way, we passed a few houses that are still occupied by old couples who did not wish to relocate. We passed a village which was completely razed and buried, with terrible consequences.

Several mistakes happened when trying to recover from the disaster. Attempts to bury highly radioactive houses and other buildings failed as plants and the water-table brought the radioactivity back to the surface. Similarly, the Red Forest was buried and fatally replanted, and is now one of the most highly radioactive areas within the exclusion zone as large trees soak up the radioactive material below them.

We stopped briefly across from what was to become Reactor 5 within the complex. This was under construction in 1986, and everything remains as it was from the day of the disaster, with the exception that water pumps are used to keep water out of the roofless structure so that the walls do not collapse.

If the cranes or walls for this building were demolished carelessly, or fell from decay, it would release large amounts of radioactive dust into the atmosphere, so everything must remain as it is. This alone highlights just how the area is still on the edge of catastrophe.

The building for Reactor five stands as it did in 1986. Reactors 1-3 remained operating after the disaster, but are since no longer producing electricity. Radiation levels here were around 1.27mR/h (about 75 times normal levels).

Reactors one, two and three continue to be serviced, despite no longer being in operation, because they still contain fuel. This fuel must remain cool, and be monitored constantly. A French facility was built at great expense to process to the fuel rods from these reactors, however the fuel rods are of Soviet specifications and do not fit the machines within the French facility. The sheer number of human errors surrounding this disaster is extraordinary.

Interestingly, security is a major concern around the reactors. They are now considered as potential targets for terrorists wishing to gain access to radioactive material, but possibly more terrifying is that the temporary shield around reactor four is now overdue for a rebuild to the point that is is now very fragile. It is estimated that only a few kilos of explosives would be required to create a disaster potentially larger than the original 1986 catastrophe, in particular because the resources that were available to the Soviet Union simply aren't available to contain the problem as quickly as they did initially.

Because of the security concerns, access to the sites around the reactors and photography is restricted. This has helped explain to me why I haven't been able to find very many photos of the plant on the Internet.

The yellow part of reactor four are temporary structures designed to increase the stability of the equally temporary shelter, currently covering the reactor. Some structures here will be destroyed to make way for large rails to be used to slide the new shelter over the top of the reactor hall.

The Soviet Union tried to keep the disaster quiet, initially telling the public that it was simply a fire and wasn't a problem. The secrecy was broken quickly as radioactive particles in the air, accelerated by the reactor fire and wind currents, spread to the Nordics, with Forsmark in Sweden raising the alarm internationally. The radioactive cloud soon spread over the majority of Western Europe.

Even after the cat was out of the bag, the citizens of Pripyat were told on Sunday 27 April 1986 that there was a problem within one of the reactors — implying that it was a contained situation — and that the town needed to be evacuated just in case something went wrong. Pripyat was evacuated very efficiently, with the locals believing they would return within a matter of days.

Pripyat was a young and very modern town, a shining example of the Soviet Union, and is located much closer to the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant than Chernobyl itself is. Pripyat housed most of the workers for the plant, along with their families. The city was so well organised, it even had a free shuttle bus which ran around the city.

Initially it was thought that Pripyat could be cleaned, and the Liquidators who worked to clean up most of the radioactive material did also work to try to clean the town. Some of the more ambitious attempts included removing the roof of an apartment tower (as a significant amount of radioactive dust would have settled there), then washing the walls, inside and out, and replacing the roof.

Experiments with cleaning Pripyat failed, however, with cleaned buildings returning to high levels of radioactivity within weeks. During this time, after the disaster, Pripyat was under heavy guard, but when the government conceded that the city would never recover, they removed and cleaned many of the personal belongings and returned them to their owners, where possible. There are still a large number of personal belongings still remaining here to this day.

Because keys were not readily available, soldiers kicked through doors to gain access to these parts of the city, so the entire city has been left unlocked for all of this time. I presume that the soldiers are the cause of most of the unnecessary destruction throughout the city, however it is well known that looters have entered the town to steal valuables such as radiators (for their metal) and even the silver from gas-mask filters. Sadly, tourism within the area will increase the rate at which the city degrades, and already a large number of the buildings have been declared unsafe over the last five years.

Our first port of call was to a school. At the time, the children would have been preparing for the May Day festivities. One of my colleagues, who was six years old and living in Kyiv at the time of the disaster recalled that she was terribly upset because her parents took her away from Kyiv and she was unable to participate in a May Day parade.

Outside the school, radiation levels were between 30-60 levels higher than outside Reactor 4.

On the inside, you may think that the area was hit by a bomb. Many people seem to think that the ruins could only be caused by the reactor exploding, but that is simply not true. Only time, neglect, and vandalism has contributed to the destruction of Pripyat.

While the vandalism is obvious, it's equally obvious that everyone was expecting to return within a few days. School records, role-calls, and class work from children who would be in the late-20s and early-30s remain here.

We discovered this book with some amazing pictures from the Soviet propaganda machine. Some of these pages may not have been seen since 1986.

As the area becomes a much more frequent tourist destination, fewer areas are becoming accessible. For example, the machine graveyard, where hundreds of helicopters and tanks used during the cleaning process after the disaster are left rotting, is now considered to be too highly radioactive to visit.

Sadly areas of Pripyat are also no longer accessible because of concerns of structural integrity within the buildings, the risk of tourists taking personal belongings, or because of an elevated risk to safety. Examples of this include many apartment buildings, the Cultural Centre, and the hospital. Informal tours organised through members of the pripyat.com forum have been known to include some of these off-limits areas, despite the risks.

The cultural centre, and its surroundings.

We next visited the sports complex, which was actually used for many years after the disaster. Amazingly, the building is pretty badly trashed even if it hasn't been used for only a few years.

The sports complex was home to the “Azure” swimming pool, used by workers at the plant until recently.

From there, we headed over to the now famous Pripyat Fairground, which didn't even have a chance of opening to the public. Scheduled to be opened soon after the disaster, I'm sure many confused kids were very disappointed that they couldn't actually play on the rides because of the disaster. The fairground included some dodgem-cars, a Ferris wheel, some sort of swinging boat ride, and another spinning and swinging chair ride.

Built just behind the cultural centre, just off the main square on Lenin Street, this area was to become a major hub of activity for families within the city, and another fine example of exemplary town planning within the model Soviet city that Pripyat was.

Here the moss growing in between the concrete slabs is more than one thousand times more radioactive than levels just outside reactor four, as the moss pulls up large amounts of radioactive moisture from the water table beneath the concrete.

Around the corner from the fairground, past the cultural centre, is Hotel Polissya (Готель “Полісся”), overlooking the main square. This building is still structurally sound, and I managed to climb up to the top of the building, dangling over the roof for some photos of the surroundings. Up there, you can really see how bit Pripyat was; an estimated 45,000 people lived in Pripyat at the time of the disaster.

Sadly the elevator wasn't working! While Pripyat had many hotels, I'm presuming by the prime location, some important people would have spent time here, especially a large area on the top floor would have had a perfect view of the power plant three kilometres away. The hotel room with the plants growing in it is on the second floor from the top.

From there we had to say goodbye to Pripyat. Spending a day long tour in the area really isn't enough, and if I ever make it back to the exclusion zone I will need to spend at least two days exploring Pripyat alone!

On our way out of Pripyat, we headed over the Bridge of Death, so-called because people gathered there on the day of the disaster to watch the beautiful colours coming from the burning graphite from within the reactor core. They were all exposed to a fatal dose of radiation, well over 500R/h (25 million times more than normal background radiation).

Driving west of the power plant, we stopped briefly in an area of intense radiation. The levels shown here are attenuated by the metal of the minibus, so actual levels outside would have been 5-10 times higher than this.

We had lunch at the Chernobylinterinform Agency offices, and then our final stop was at the 30km border to perform one last radiation check. The machines here were very similar to the small one at Chernobylinterinform, however they were much more thorough. It's fairly important to make sure we weren't carting any radioactive material out of the zone, and measuring our own exposure for safety is a good idea.

Sadly, I didn't get to see a now famous structure that was once a part of the so-called Russian Woodpecker. A large antenna array was built a few kilometres from the power plant, designed as a part of an over-the-horizon radar system to detect missiles and other nefarious things before satellites were available to do the same job. This is the last remnant of this system, however there are plans to demolish it as it may fall down.

I hope to return to the area in a few years' time, however I do hope that the city doesn't get damaged by the tourists entering the city. Besides us, a large coach full of tourists arrived in the city while we were at the hotel, highlighting how this is a growing segment of the Ukrainian tourism industry.

If you're interested in Pripyat, or the exclusion zone in general, I recommend you visit pripyat.com, where there's more information available than I could ever write. For the record, our tour was conducted by SoloEast Travel; with a small tour group and a reasonable price, they have my recommendation.