Chernobyl anniversary
A couple of weeks ago, mmarianne and sphaera both pointed me to the same impressive webpage. I wanted to post about it in my L
J ever since, but I was too busy. In the meantime, the URL was mentioned everywhere else and it even had to be moved to another server capable of handling the bandwidth required due to its sudden popularity. I hosted a mirror of that website for a while and served hundreds of thousands of clicks. Because everyone has already seen the pictures, I will start a little bit earlier:
It happened exactly 18 years ago today and I remember it very well: the nuclear power accident of Chernobyl [Ukraine, then USSR]:
[click on images to see a bigger version]
On April 26th, 1986, the world's worst nuclear accident occurred at the Chernobyl-4 reactor nuclear power plant when the reactor's chain reaction got out of control and an explosive force of steam lifted the cover plate of the reactor and a second explosion burst it. There was about 5% of the radioactive material [about 12*1018 Bq] released into the atmosphere. Heroic suicide firefighters dropped about 5000 tons of clay, lead, sand and other materials from helicopters onto the burning core in order to extinguish the blaze and stop the further release of radioactive particles. 30 people died immediately [28 from direct radiation exposure] and maybe 2500 deaths were caused by consequences of the accident. After the incident, a total of 370'000 people were evacuated from contaminated areas and relocated elsewhere. Parts of the former Soviet Union, especially today's Republic of Belarus, all European countries and to a lesser extent all of the northern hemisphere were exposed to radioactive dust. The initial exposure was due to short-lived iodine-131 [half-life: 8 days] but as a whole, caesium-137 [half-life: 30 years] was the main and enduring hazard [map of Cs-137 contamination, 1998].
The impacts of the Chernobyl disaster on the population's health and on the environment are not yet clear and still disputed. Research shows a significant increase in thyroid cancer after the accident, but from a strictly scientific view, there was no evidence of increases in overall cancer incidence or mortality or in non-malignant disorders found [yet]. However, some other people say there will be up to 500'000 deaths connected to the incident. And the effects will be noticeable for generations. More info: UNSCEAR [United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation].
Because the radiation is still high, an exclusion zone of 4300 km2 was defined. No one is supposed to live there and access is only possible with a special permit. For 18 years now, Chernobyl is a completely deserted city.
OK, this is just some background to the webpage I actually wanted to show you:
This is Elena and her 150-horsepower Kawasaki Big Ninja. She's a motorbike enthusiast living in Kiev, Ukraine.
Owning this kind of a power-bike is a very eccentric hobby in the Ukraine as in the whole country, there is no Kawasaki dealer which makes getting spare parts and tuning very expensive, difficult and a big hassle. However, Elena likes speeding and she likes it most, when streets are empty and safe to drive really fast. This must have been her initial motivation to take trips into the banned area of Chernobyl: no speed limits, no police, no traffic, not even animals who could get into her way...
But even 18 years after the nuclear accident, the radiation is still very high. Outfitted with a special permit and a Geiger counter or dosimeter to measure the actual radiation, she travels to Chernobyl. While the radiation levels are relatively low on the road, she's not afraid to leave the street and enter buildings and sites deserted for 18 years where radiation levels are still higher than in open areas.
She even approaches the infamous Chernobyl-4 reactor building at an insane close distance:
She took very impressive pictures of a morbid yet idyllic ghost city, deserted by its inhabitants 18 years ago and untouched by anyone since. At first, she took pictures in order to document her daring bike trips for other members of a Kiev motorbike club. But instead of merely speeding through the prohibited zone of ghost cities, forests and villages, Elena at once got fascinated by the peaceful and deserted area and started to take more pictures of her venturous trips. Always aware of the radiation exposure, she entered buildings, climbed roofs, searched apartments and documents left behind when people were evacuated. She encountered a snapshot of that late April 1986, unchanged ever since. She found authentic relics of communist everyday life in 1986, transparents for impending Labour Day etc. and very personal belongings and even unopened mail of those fatal days.
I was very impressed by those pictures. Even if they were not intended to have a political message at all, they are a very impressive historic document. It's a fascinating insight in a deserted city, where thousands of people were evacuated within hours, not allowed to take anything with them. They had to leave behind everything, they had to start a new life from scratch - after evacuation and decontamination they were literally naked. If this crazy girl Elena wouldn't have taken those pictures, probably no one would ever see this kind of pictures. Maybe, a team of documentary filmers would travel to Chernobyl in a couple of years due to the 20 or 25 year anniversary of the accident.
Unfortunately, Elena's original webpage is offline now. An almost unchanged copy of the original version can be found at http://www.kiddofspeed.com now. You may still try the old link. Even if it does not work, there may be a direction where to find the pictures now. In case all sites are down, those pictures hosted here can give you a vague idea of that impressive site. But you have to see and read the original to get the charm and particuliarity of it.
I will write tomorrow why this impressed me so much.