This month marks the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, when on April 26, 1986, a test went awry causing reactor number four to explode. At the time at least 50 reactor and emergency workers died during the explosion, or in the aftermath, trying to put out the blaze. 120,000 people were evacuated from the area, including 43,000 from the city of Pripyat.
30 years later, the ghost towns within the 1,000-square-mile exclusion zone in Ukraine, are being reclaimed not by people, but by nature. Some species of mammals are found to be thriving without the effect of human contact in the area. According to a study published in the journal Current Biology, led by environmental scientist Jim Smith at Britain’s University of Portsmouth, the nature reserve zone extending north from Chernobyl power plant into Belarus, found that elk, deer, wild boar, and wolves are now abundant in the Polesie Reserve which was established after the 1986 disaster. An interesting thought experiment, what if all the people of Eastern Shore vanished, leaving this land to return to its primeval beauty? What species of plants and animals would thrive without the burden of people.
Below are a few photographs taken from the exclusion zone in the Ukraine, that may lend a clue to that experiment:
In this photo made in December 2012, a lynx roams close to Ukraine’s Chernobyl, nearly 30-years after a nuclear reactor caught fire and spewed a lethal cloud of radiation, some species of mammals are found to be thriving without the effect of human contact in the area. According to a new study published in the journal Current Biology, led by environmental scientist Jim Smith at Britain’s University of Portsmouth, the nature reserve zone extending north from Chernobyl power plant into Belarus, found that elk, deer, wild boar and wolves are now abundant in the Polesie reserve which was established after the 1986 disaster, where some 20,000 people once lived. (AP Photo/Sergiy Gaschak)
In this Tuesday, March 22, 2011 photo elks are seen in the state radiation ecology reserve in the 30 km exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear reactor near the village of Babchin, some 370 km ( 231 miles) south-east of Minsk, Belarus. The Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded on April 26, 1986 spewing fallout in the world’s worst nuclear accident. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)CHORNOBYL, UKRAINE – SEPTEMBER 30: An abandoned Soviet Cold War-era radar system known as “The Woodpecker” used to detect incoming missiles and that measures 140 meters tall stands inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone on September 30, 2015 near Chornobyl, Ukraine. The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is a 2,600 square kilometer restricted access zone established in the contaminated area around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. On April 26, 1986, technicians at Chernobyl conducting a test inadvertently caused reactor number four to explode, creating the worst nuclear accident in history. Authorities evacuated 120,000 people from surrounding towns and villages. While workers employed at the Chernobyl site today and a small number of returnees live in the outer zone, no one is allowed to live in the inner zone, where hot spots of radiation make the area uninhabitable for thousands of years to come. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)In this photo made in April 2012, a wolf in a wild wood in Ukraine’s Chernobyl, where nearly 30-years after a nuclear reactor caught fire and spewed a lethal cloud of radiation, some species of mammals are found to be thriving without the effect of human contact in the area. According to a new study published in the journal Current Biology, led by environmental scientist Jim Smith at Britain’s University of Portsmouth, the nature reserve zone extending north from Chernobyl power plant into Belarus, found that elk, deer, wild boar and wolves are now abundant in the Polesie reserve which was established after the 1986 disaster, where some 20,000 people once lived. (AP Photo/Sergiy Gaschak)
1 thought on “An Eastern Shore without Humans”
Does the Mirror have an editor on staff?
“At the time at least 50 reactor and emergency workers were died during the explosion,”
Usually the content of this blog is informative but lacks professionalism when simple mistakes like this are published.
Note: Thanks for the correction. No editor or staff, this paper publishes between 15 to 20,000 words per week, and brings in about $2 a week in revenue. Due to time constraints, we do miss some, but always go back and correct them. The NYTs staff misses some too.
Does the Mirror have an editor on staff?
“At the time at least 50 reactor and emergency workers were died during the explosion,”
Usually the content of this blog is informative but lacks professionalism when simple mistakes like this are published.
Note: Thanks for the correction. No editor or staff, this paper publishes between 15 to 20,000 words per week, and brings in about $2 a week in revenue. Due to time constraints, we do miss some, but always go back and correct them. The NYTs staff misses some too.