Chernobyl disasterThe Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR in the Soviet Union. Called the world's worst-ever civil nuclear incident, it is one of only two nuclear energy accidents rated at seven—the maximum severity—on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the other being the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.
Ghost townA ghost town, deserted city, or abandoned city is an abandoned village, town, or city, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economic activity that supported it (usually industrial or agricultural) has failed or ended for any reason (e.g. a host ore deposit exhausted by metal mining). The town may also have declined because of natural or human-caused disasters such as floods, prolonged droughts, extreme heat or extreme cold, government actions, uncontrolled lawlessness, war, pollution, or nuclear disasters.
Chernobyl Nuclear Power PlantThe Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (ChNPP; Чорнобильська атомна електростанція; Чернобыльская атомная электростанция) is a nuclear power plant undergoing decommissioning. ChNPP is located near the abandoned city of Pripyat in northern Ukraine northwest of the city of Chernobyl, from the Belarus–Ukraine border, and about north of Kyiv. The plant was cooled by an engineered pond, fed by the Pripyat River about northwest from its juncture with the Dnieper.
Caesium-137Caesium-137 (), cesium-137 (US), or radiocaesium, is a radioactive isotope of caesium that is formed as one of the more common fission products by the nuclear fission of uranium-235 and other fissionable isotopes in nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. Trace quantities also originate from spontaneous fission of uranium-238. It is among the most problematic of the short-to-medium-lifetime fission products.
Chernobyl New Safe ConfinementThe New Safe Confinement (NSC or New Shelter, rarely Arka) is a structure put in place in 2016 to confine the remains of the number 4 reactor unit at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, in Ukraine, which was destroyed during the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. The structure also encloses the temporary Shelter Structure (sarcophagus) that was built around the reactor immediately after the disaster. The New Safe Confinement is designed to prevent the release of radioactive contaminants, protect the reactor from external influence, facilitate the disassembly and decommissioning of the reactor, and prevent water intrusion.
ChernobylChernobyl (tʃɜːrˈnoʊbəl , UKalsotʃɜːrˈnɒbəl ; Чернобыль, tɕɪrˈnobɨlj) or Chornobyl (Чорнобиль, tʃorˈnɔbɪlj) is a partially abandoned city in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, situated in the Vyshhorod Raion of northern Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine. Chernobyl is about north of Kyiv, and southwest of the Belarusian city of Gomel. Before its evacuation, the city had about 14,000 residents (considerably less than neighboring Pripyat).