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.
PolesiaPolesia, Polissia, Polesie, or Polesye is a natural and historical region in Eastern Europe, including part of Eastern Poland, the Belarus–Ukraine border region. One of the largest forest areas on the continent, Polesia is located in the southwestern part of the Eastern-European Lowland, the Polesian Lowland. On the western side, Polesia originates at the crossing of the Bug River valley in Poland and the Pripyat River valley of Western Ukraine. The swampy areas of central Polesia are known as the Pinsk Marshes (after the major local city of Pinsk).
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.
PripyatPripyat (ˈpriːpjət,_ˈprɪp- ; При́пять), also known as Prypiat (При́пʼять, ˈprɪpjɐtj), is an abandoned city in northern Ukraine, located near the border with Belarus. Named after the nearby river, Pripyat, it was founded on 4 February 1970 as the ninth atomgrad (a type of closed town in the Soviet Union) to serve the nearby Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, which is located in the adjacent ghost city of Chernobyl. Pripyat was officially proclaimed a city in 1979 and had grown to a population of 49,360 by the time it was evacuated on the afternoon of 27 April 1986, one day after the Chernobyl disaster.
Red ForestThe Red Forest (Рудий ліс, Rudyi Lis, ginger-colour forest) is the area surrounding the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant within the Exclusion Zone, located in Polesia. The name "Red Forest" comes from the ginger-brown colour of the pine trees after they died following the absorption of high levels of ionizing radiation as a consequence of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster on 26 April 1986. In the post-disaster cleanup operations, the Red Forest was bulldozed and buried in "waste graveyards"; the site remains one of the most contaminated areas in the world today.
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).
Russian invasion of UkraineOn 24 February 2022, in an escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War which began in 2014. The invasion has killed tens of thousands on both sides. Russian forces have been responsible for mass civilian casualties and for torturing captured Ukrainian soldiers. By June 2022, about 8 million Ukrainians had been internally displaced. More than 8.2 million had fled the country by May 2023, becoming Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. Extensive environmental damage, widely described as ecocide, contributed to food crises worldwide.
