Chernobyl

[BigRedBuster]

I have always found this place fascinating.

 

[NUance]

That is pretty cool. I read once that some people continued to live there despite the radiation hazards. It looks deserted to me.

[teachercd]

I think it is kind of guarded but who knows.

[commando]

i've read that with the lack of humans there now the chernobyl area is now the greatest wildlife preserve in europe

[ZRod]

That is pretty cool. I read once that some people continued to live there despite the radiation hazards. It looks deserted to me.

 

People don't necessarily live within the city of Pripyat, but they do live in the surrounding landscape. I don't recall the show, but there was one that talked about the area. They interviewed a couple who moved back into their old home in the surrounding forest because they had no where else to go. They raise some live stock and farm a little.

 

I think it was River Monsters where Jeremy tried to fish the lake next to the plant. He had to remain on the opposite shore though from the plant though.

[OH HSKR FAN]

Is there a time table as to when it can become habitable again?

[HuskermanMike]

Is there a time table as to when it can become habitable again?

A long time as the Russia govt wont allow people to go back into the town. Not sure if true but saw somewhere it could be thousands of years before people can live there again. Probably not habitable in our lifetime but who knows.

[Mavric]

It is all but unbelievable how stupid they were in this whole thing. They intentionally shut safety systems off and tried to see how much they could get away with. Then, even after the explosion, they apparently didn't realize that it was spewing radiation. It was only after several days that a different plant in Sweden or somewhere started getting high readings that they really figured out what was going on.

 

Pretty sure it was on Netflix that I saw a documentary on it. Absolutely nuts. I can't remember the name of it. I'll have to see if I can find it.

[DrunkOffPunch]

This is 'The Elephant's Foot.' About 10 minutes of continuous exposure is enough to kill you in a couple days.

 

[Red Dead Redemption]

[ZRod]

 

 

Is there a time table as to when it can become habitable again?

 

A long time as the Russia govt wont allow people to go back into the town. Not sure if true but saw somewhere it could be thousands of years before people can live there again. Probably not habitable in our lifetime but who knows.

From wiki...

An area originally extending 30 kilometres (19 mi) in all directions from the plant is officially called the "zone of alienation". It is largely uninhabited, except for about 300 residents who have refused to leave. The area has largely reverted to forest, and has been overrun by wildlife because of a lack of competition with humans for space and resources. Even today, radiation levels are so high that the workers responsible for rebuilding the sarcophagus are only allowed to work five hours a day for one month before taking 15 days of rest. Ukrainian officials estimate the area will not be safe for human life again for another 20,000 years.

[NUtopia]

Bruce Willis and his "kid" saved the world once again in Chernobly recently:

 

 

They had to kill the Russian babe 1st, though(she ended up in the above helicopter ):

 

[NUtopia]

Is there a time table as to when it can become habitable again?

Yeah, 1/2 million years or so, should be back up to snuff. Fukishima should be good to go a few 100 thousand years after that.

 

And this brings us back to the ongoing problem of, "WTF do we do with all the nuke waste from nuke plants, anyway?!", a problem which has yet to be adequately solved. Last summer I heard a podcast about a ginormous "nuke waste bunker" they were designing in Finland, I think it was, and they just couldn't figure out how to make it fail safe since nuke waste takes 100s of 1000s of years to decay to a safe level and there is no substance on earth--not even titanium--that they could build the bunker out of that they could guarantee wouldn't fail well before that. It's a head scratcher.

 

I guess some of those nuke waste bunkers out in Cali and what not have been cracking/leaking in recent years, much to the chagrin of the surrounding populations. Suffice it to say, nobody anywhere wants a nuke dump anywhere near their same area code, so It's a big problem.

[BigRedBuster]

Maybe the Mayans actually had developed nuclear power and there was a major accident on the Yucatan Peninsula and that's why they abandoned their cities.

[commando]

makes you wonder what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to let people continue to live there after those bombings. is an industrial nuclear accident that much worse than an actual bomb burst?