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.
GomelGomel or Homiel (Гомель, ˈɡomjɪlj, ˈɣomjelj) is a city in Belarus. It serves as the administrative centre of Gomel Region and Gomel District, though it is administratively separated from the district. As of 2023, it is the second-largest city in Belarus with 501,802 inhabitants. There are at least six narratives of the origin of the city's name. The most plausible is that the name is derived from the name of the stream Homeyuk, which flowed into the river Sozh near the foot of the hill where the first settlement was founded.
Chernobyl exclusion zoneThe Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Zone of Alienation is an officially designated exclusion zone around the site of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster. It is also commonly known as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, the 30-Kilometre Zone, or The Zone. Established by the Soviet Armed Forces soon after the 1986 disaster, it initially existed as an area of radius from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant designated for evacuation and placed under military control. Its borders have since been altered to cover a larger area of Ukraine.
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.
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).
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.
Nuclear power plantA nuclear power plant (NPP) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power stations, heat is used to generate steam that drives a steam turbine connected to a generator that produces electricity. , the International Atomic Energy Agency reported there were 412 nuclear power reactors in operation in 31 countries around the world, and 57 nuclear power reactors under construction.
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.
Nuclear decommissioningNuclear decommissioning is the process leading to the irreversible complete or partial closure of a nuclear facility, usually a nuclear reactor, with the ultimate aim at termination of the operating licence. The process usually runs according to a decommissioning plan, including the whole or partial dismantling and decontamination of the facility, ideally resulting in restoration of the environment up to greenfield status. The decommissioning plan is fulfilled when the approved end state of the facility has been reached.
