1/9/2023 0 Comments Beneath a steel sky radiation![]() Radiation readings taken within the zone show that its more contaminated areas still contain dangerous amounts of radiation.īy the end of 1986, the USSR had hastily built a concrete sarcophagus around the exploded reactor to contain the remaining radioactive material, according to Science. And so despite the entire Chernobyl Exclusion Zone being much less radioactive today than it was in the days immediately following the disaster, the longest-lived radioactive materials inside the zone could still take thousands of years for half of their atomic nuclei to decay, according to the National Geographic (opens in new tab). ![]() Still other radioactive elements released in the explosion are much longer lived, such as plutonium-239 which has a half-life of 24,000 years. At low levels, iodine can cause thyroid cancer strontium leukemia and cesium has especially damaging effects on the liver and spleen, according to the IAEA. The majority of the elements released were short-lived (meaning their half-lives are no more than a few weeks or even days), but the long half-lives of strontium and cesium mean they are still present in the area. The most dangerous of them were isotopes of iodine, strontium and cesium, which have respective radioactive half-lives (the period of time it takes for half of the material to decay) of 8 days, 29 years and 30 years. More than 100 radioactive elements were released into the atmosphere immediately after the disaster, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (opens in new tab) (IAEA). (Image credit: Shutterstock) (opens in new tab) How dangerous is the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone?Ī radioactive warning sign inside the exclusion zone. The region, which lies close to Ukraine's northern border with Russia's ally Belarus and straddles the most direct route between it and Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, was stationed with 7,500 more border guards between December 2021 and February 2022. When the Ukranian exclusion zone is added together with the neighboring Belarusian exclusion zone, the combined area makes up an approximate 1,550 square miles (4,000 square kilometers), according to the European Radioecology Exchange Alliance.Īt the beginning of 2022, increasing tensions between Russia and NATO over Ukraine's potential membership to the western military alliance has also led to an increased guard presence inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, according to Sky News (opens in new tab). The exclusion zone has expanded in subsequent years. The zone of rigorous monitoring: a sporadically irradiated region from which children and pregnant women were moved into less irradiated areas in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. The zone of temporary evacuation: a moderately irradiated region to which the public could return once the radiation had decayed to safe levels. ![]() Related: 5 Weird things you didn't know about Chernobyl ![]() This number continued to grow, reaching a total of around 200,000 people before the end of the evacuation, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (opens in new tab). Over the following weeks and months, around 116,000 people would be relocated from inside the exclusion zone. By April 27 (the day after the explosion), officials had already evacuated the nearby city of Pripyat, but fresh orders in May were given to evacuate everyone who remained within the exclusion zone. The zone includes an area of roughly 1,040 square miles (2,700 square kilometer) around the 18.6 mile (30 km) radius of the plant the area was considered the most severely irradiated environment and was cordoned off to anyone but government officials and scientists, according to the U.S. On May 2, 1986, a Soviet Union commission officially declared an off-limits area around the disaster and called it the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. ![]()
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