# Pripyat & Chernobyl - May 2010



## UrbanX

Prypiat (При́п'ять)

This is it. This is my dream. 

For at least the last decade, I have had a reoccurring dream visit my nightly. I’m with a small group of friends / family, and we’re the last people left on Earth. We wander the streets with complete freedom. Voyeuristically peering into people’s homes, seeing the remnants of the lives they have left behind. 

Flash forward six years, I start to get into Urban Exploration and I find that such a place exists. Prypiat. 

Here’s an aerial photograph. Bear in mind each of these buildings is 6 storeys high. 





Aerial Photograph courtesy of www.Prypiat.com

Prypiat was founded in 1970 to house the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant workers, officially proclaimed a city in 1979, and was abandoned in 1986 following the Chernobyl disaster. 
It’s massive. Its population had been around 50,000 before the accident. Annual growth of population was estimated at around 1,500. Which includes 800 people who were actually born there. 

It was relatively well served for the time, with a decent road network, as well as a railroad link to Kiev.
It was planned that the Pripyat's population should rise up to 78,000. 





Getting there: 
The city of Prypiat and the Zone of Alienation are now bordered with guards and police. For once I went through all the proper channels, and obtained official permissions to enter the zone. Here’s my official permission, including approved itinerary. 





I fully surrendered my passport the Ukrainian authorities; months in advance, in order for them to investigate me. 

Up until March this year (2010) groups of 46 people were allowed into the zone. However a beautiful painting that was backstage in the theatre was damaged by an idiotic selfish individual. Following this incident the maximum number of people allowed in has been reduced to 16 people (plus an official).





There are 3 Borders surrounding the mangled Reactor 4 and Prypiat. One at 30km, one at 10km, and one surrounds Prypiat itself. All of these are borders are military patrolled by armed soldiers. Each checkpoint requires a certain set of papers and permissions, as well as passports. No photography is allowed around the checkpoints. 










I am asked to sign “The Rules” before I’m allowed any further. I half read them and sign my life away, just desperate to cross the border. 





Every trip to Prypiat should start with a visit to the Chernobyl Nuclear Power plant itself. 

We stop on the verge by the side of the road, and we can see all six reactors: 

Reactors 5&6 – Unfinished. 





For three years following the disaster they fearlessly carried working on building reactors 5&6, before they finally said “Hang on, maybe this isn’t the best idea we’ve had” and construction was halted. 





Our first sight of Reactor 4. 





The radiation here is 13 times greater than what it was at the 30km checkpoint. 





The Visitor Centre (yes, it has a visitor centre) has a Geiger counter pointing at the sarcophagus, here the reading is 7.42 μSv





This hobby has led me to some extreme places before, but never before I did I imagine I would be standing here within 100m of Reactor 4. The reading here is 4.46 μSv - 32 times greater than where we entered the zone. 





The concrete sarcophagus was built in a bit of a hurry, and was also only designed to last 20 years - 24 years on and it’s really showing its age, even in this photograph you can see holes in the concrete. 

If the structure collapses it will send a cloud of radioactive dust into the atmosphere equivalent to the original disaster.





A replacement sarcophagus will be constructed a couple of miles away where it is slightly safer, then slid on rails to completely cover the original. 

This was due for completion 10 years ago, however has yet to start construction. 

The Bridge of Death: 
The accident occurred at 01:23am and would have been an amazing spectacle. Humans are naturally curious. Residents from the lower apartments made their way to this bridge to get a clear view of the fire. I’ve seen people on a documentary talk about how they watched blue, green, and purple flames leap into the night sky. They were completely unaware that the wind blowing their way was carrying enough radiation to fry them from the inside out. 





I look out to the reactor trying to imagine what it would have been like to have witnessed the disaster first hand, as I do so a breeze blows on my face. 

The road to Prypiat: 
When the city was (eventually) evacuated, 1,100 buses ran the residents of the city down this very road. They were told it was temporary, and “just a precaution” and they’d be home in a couple of days. 
The zone is militarized, which means it isn’t policed. My driver takes advantage of this, as well as trying to give me a sense of the panic by driving the road to Prypiat the fun side of 100mph. 










We arrive in Lenin Square, the main square. It has a supermarket, a sports centre and a hotel on it. A large metal ‘A’ has fallen from the sign on the hotel roof. 





Many of the building interiors in Prypiat have been vandalized and ransacked over the years. Due to the fact that the buildings have not been maintained for over two decades, the roofs leak, and in the springtime the rooms are flooded with water. Trees can be seen growing on roofs and even inside the buildings. 

Because of this, the government passed a prohibition to enter any of the buildings in Prypiat. 





You will notice that that I have entered the buildings, 5 years after this prohibition, as have most of the people that visited Prypiat. The only real factors which stop you are:
A: The temper of your guide 
B: The size of bribe you are willing to part with.





We make our way into the hotel, and up to the roof to get a view of the city. 










I find the hotel log book in reception; it shows entries from February 1983. 





Hotel Gas Masks: 















One thing I will never forget about Prypiat is the silence. Not only is there nobody there is no electricity which produces the hum that we have become accustom to in our own towns. In Prypiat people standing a hundred yards apart can have a civilisation. We had a system that if my guide or driver needs me back in the vehicle they will honk twice. 

Whilst in the fairground I heard a single honk so wandered back, only to find the driver urinating in the bushes with the van locked. He tells me it must have been a car on the ‘main road’ – some 30k away. 





A whole menagerie of animals live inside the zone. In fact, they have particularly thrived since the humans left. Boars, wild horses, deer, packs of dogs, and even wild zebras have been know to wander the streets. All I see is a cat, but I’m warned away from it, not because of radiation, but because of rabies. 





We made our way to the theatre, and entered through the stage door. The fly tower was huge and vacuous – the lighting rig has crashed onto the stage. My guide warns me about the state of the stage by prodding the wooden floor, until a large chunk of it drops 45ft into the basement below. The props storage area is full of these paintings. 





I walked from the back stage area towards the fairground completely alone. 





There’s something really disconcerting about entering such a large open space alone, and in silence. Especially when the space in question should be filled with life and laughter. 










Bumper cars sat redundant










The iconic Ferris wheel has almost become a symbol for Prypiat: 





The fairground was set up for the May Day celebrations. However the city was evacuated on 27th April, so was never used. 










Merry go round: 





There’s an area in the centre of the fairground where my guide puts down his Geiger counter. I’m amazed at what I see. It shoots up to 49.95 μSv. That’s 13 times stronger radiation than outside the front of Reactor 4! He explains that this is the area where the helicopters landed between flights to drop water and sand on the reactor fire. Each time they went over the reactor they became more and more radioactively charged. 





Eventually the level reached 80 MicroSieverts (μSv ) That’s 1,600 times the safe dosage. I quickly move away and ask my guide what would happen if I curled up and had a sleep there. He looked sick and replied in a sombre Russian accent “Please don’t do that”. 

I made my way over to the swimming pool. Weirdly this was still in use until 1998 by the local workers. It was only after I returned home I noticed the time on the clock is exactly that of the disaster. 





Sports Hall: 





The space of the swimming hall is amazing. It’s so large I cant even fit in my viewfinder with a wide angled lens. This is still 3 wide angle shots stitched together. 





I ask if we can go off the beaten track from all of the ‘regular’ Prypiat landmarks, just to a regular apartment block. He agrees and just picks one at random. Despite how voyeuristic this whole experience is, I have decided not to post the photographs from inside the homes as a mark of respect. 

We pass back through the Prypiat checkpoint, and our vehicle is checked for radiation. This is repeated at the 10Km checkpoint. Although they insist on me getting out of the vehicle to have a full body scan for radiation before they let me leave. A 5 second wait for either a red or green light in this machine lasts a lifetime, until they deem me fit to leave the zone. 





I sneak off a shot through the blacked out windows of our vehicle as we pass through the checkpoint. 
“No Photographs!” 





We pass the old ship yard, where massive ships lay redundant on their side. Rusting away slowly in the acidic radioactive water. I ask if I can get out to photograph t hem, but he said no way due to contamination. He pulls up just long enough for me to take a photograph: 





All of a sudden he accelerates away at full throttle; I look back and notice a large group of people in protective white gear coming towards us from the woods. 





We head back with the Ukrainian Stig trying to set a new lap time between checkpoints. The guide suggests supper because he “knows somewhere nice”. That somewhere nice turned out to be the workers canteen, inside the zone! 





We sit down what turns out to be an amazing meal, cooked by fearless babushkas who work on regulated tariffs to avoid radiation poisoning. 

Radiation 
A natural concern is whether it is safe to visit Prypiat and the surroundings. I thought very long and very hard about this before booking the trip. For at least three years I had the forms filled in, payment ready, and I thought about it every day, but was always uncertain about the risks associated with the radiation. 

I immersed myself in researching the effects of the accident. There are two main ‘fingers’ of contamination, caused by the changing of wind direction in the hours after the accident. One ‘finger’ extends east directly over Prypiat, and the secondary finger points North up into Belarus. These areas have an extremely concentrated amounts of Caesium 137, which has a half life of around 30 years. It’s now 24 Years after the accident, and scientists are seeing a significant drop in Caesium 137. However these areas are also contaminated with the more deadly Plutonium 239 which has a half life of 24,100 years -meaning these areas will never be inhabited by humans ever again. 

The doors of most of the buildings are held open to reduce the risk of radiation building up into pockets. For the same reason, many of the windows have been deliberately smashed, which has rapidly accelerated the deterioration process to the buildings. Eating is prohibited in Prypiat, which is fair enough - if you swallow a ‘hot particle’ you’ll be leaving the zone in lead lined box. 

I was advised by my guide to wear long sleeves and trousers to prevent alpha and beta particles bombarding my skin. I was advised to avoid vegetation as far as reasonably practicable, as radiation clings to organic soft surfaces. For this reason also it is essential not to put anything onto the ground. If you put your camera bag on the grass, even for a few seconds, it won’t be allowed out of the zone.


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## lost

That's utterly marvellous, your photos and write-up give a good idea of what it's like to be there.
I still dream of going there, but I have heard it's quite costly all in all.


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## Curlyben

That's seriously eerie and I'd love to go.

Kudos for the report and the bottle.


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## Locksley

Wow! Fantastic write up, I think I'm gonna have to fire up STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl


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## Winch It In

A truly outstanding report and photos. Thanks for all the written details and information, you make it sound like an exciting and entrancing place to visit.

Would love to go but whether I would have the 'cajones' to is a different matter. Once again great report and a visit that will stay in your memory for a long time to come I suspect.


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## Dystopia

Yay another post-apocalyptic fantasist!  Pripyat is an amazing place and I'm glad you enjoyed it...was a dream trip for me also when I went out last year. You have some beautiful desolate shots. 

You were warned away from the animals? I should be dead because I petted the cats, cuddled one I named Fall Out and I got on the ground with and befriended the feral dogs. I had a childhood fantasy of living in a woreld where I was the only human and I hung out with cats and dogs so I guess my inner child couldn't resist it.  Still...the experience of gaining the trust of and connecting with those animals was a beautiful moment. To enter their world I had to be submissive, offer food and whimper softly. Anyone who knows me will tell you I'm a crazy dog lady!


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## tommo

urbanX, that is one of the best reports i have read on this place, i find chernobyl fascinating, cheers for that


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## TK421

That is the best report of this place that I have ever read. Your photographs and write up as absolutely excellent, I have really enjoyed reading all about it. Really really big thanks to you mate for this brilliant post!


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## UrbanX

Cheers, it was so hard getting a small set of pics from 1,300 pics! I tried to get a flavour of the whole experience as well as the standard landmarks. So much more I didn't get to see, hard to fit it all in to a day! 
Dystopia: I was inspired by yours, and Goreki's reports, and just had to go! 
Yeah our guide said not to touch animals in the Ukraine in general because of rabies, Ukrainians have a jab when they're young but we dont. Although must have just been a caution if you're still alive and not foaming at the mouth...


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## parcans

Agree with everyone - that is a stunning report.

Thanks!


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## ImmortalShadow

One word - wow.

Absolutely fantastic write-up and photos, and info! Very well done.

I'd love to go to Pripyat and Chernobyl, and there are plans to go with a few friends early next year.

Thanks very much for sharing that with us


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## Matty208

Absolutely Brilliant!

You read about it, you hear about it, you watch documentaries about it, you run around the place (mainly the fairground and swimming pool) on Call-ofDuty4 and you, sir, have been there, took the photos and got the t-shirt to boot! 

BRAVO!


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## klempner69

I have been quite captivated by this report for the last half n hour or so reading over each detail..one question ok..the guide recommends you dont put things onto the ground and to wear long sleeves etc..what did your guide wear exactly and do I presume he runs a significant risk doing his job?
Well done and thanks for the effort you put in this report.


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## UrbanX

Cheers Klemps! 
The guide just wore normal 'street' clothes. Jeans, T-shirt, with a suit jacket over the top. 
I believe he lived and worked in Pripyat. He is a mathmatician by trade, and is mainly employed to calculate statistics relating to contamination. TBH I didn't ask how his health had been affected by the accident. 
He said some people prefer to wear latex gloves, that makes them more aware of where they are putting their hands. 
Some people at the visitor centre were holding scarves over their mouths. 
He did explain the Tariffs of the workers: 
3 Days on, 4 Days off, 
or 21 days on, 14 days off, 
I think!


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## lithofacies

I've never posted on these forums before, so hi 

and WOW! What an excellent report. I could look at photos of Chernobyl and Pripyat for hours. That fairground is so....I don't know...desolate. What a pilgrimage for a fan of derelict places! Thank you.


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## UrbanX

Cheers! Welcome to the forum! I look forward to your first report!


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## neill

To start a report with the words 'This is it. This is my dream.' is just genius!

It's what I thought as I looked through this outstanding report,_ please_ let us see some more pics.

N.


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## Foxylady

Blimey UrbanX, that's a terrific report...beautifully written with bags of atmosphere (an uncontaminated one, hopefully!  ).
Well done, that man...and thankyou very much for sharing it.


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## ianianian

very moving. what an incredible place.

fantastic pics, you have captured the eeriness of the city and the feel of your trip beautifully. would love to see more.


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## Goafer

I keep wanting to post a reply to this, but I just don't know what to write. I'm actually lost for words.

Surely there's no derelict place that can top this?


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## Marley85

brilliant just brillant thats one of the best reports iv ever seen !!!!


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## scrappy

great report write up! thanks for sharing. really want to go here myself!


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## UrbanX

Cheers everyone! I would highly recommend it as a 'once in a lifetime' experience. Especially to anyone that has the sorts of interests that we do. 

Actually the night I came out of Prypiat I heard of an abandonned Soviet Nuclear HQ: Large enough to drive HGVs around in, and twice the size of the Royal Albert Hall. Only problem was that it is high up in the mountains, and 800km south. Cue a 15 hour train journey across the Ukraine, and the most expensive taxi ride of my life...Report coming up soon! 

Visiting Prypiat does change something in you. 
When I returned, a few people asked me if I was still going to bother driving hours on end to stand next to a locked ROC post in the pouring rain? Of course I will.


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## muppix

Well Done UrbanX, great report!

I'm heading that way myself later this year. Question: if you're not allowed to put anything on the ground, where does that leave you with regard to using a tripod? Surely a metallic object is no worse than your own feet, for argument's sake?

Cheers,
m.


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## krela

I have to agree, this is the best report of a Pripyat visit I've read. It clearly had quite an effect on you.

Thank you for taking the time to write and share it.


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## beccy

Seriously awesome shots :O


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## BFG316

Fantastic photos, excellent report and very emotively written.

Thanks for sharing.


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## Mr Sam

fantastic stuff me and the Mrs were watching the 1996 Horizon documenty this morning and really want togo

great pics and write up thanks for sharing





http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5968506788418521112#

that should be the 45 minute documentry with footage from 1991 and 1996


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## UrbanX

Cheers for the kind comments! 

Go for it Mr Sam!  If yoiu need any info just PM me. Thanks for the link, I'll try and watch that tonight. 

Muppix: You've hit the nail on the head there - Tripods are absolutely fine to use in Pripyat.


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## lilli

Oops ... I think everyone thats been there has broken the " Sit or place photo or video equipment on the ground" !! 

Some very nice pics  Are the kittys still cross eyed?


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## wherever i may roam

I really enjoyed reading your report mate,nice one


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## CHRIS K

Hi just joined the site last week been on nearly every night since ! . What can i say BLOODY HELL ! the whole report and pics are sending shivers down my spine absolutley amazing would love to go. Thanks.


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## UrbanX

Cheers Chris (Welcome to the Forum BTW!) 

The acoustics in Pripyat are undescribable. Even in the UYK in the dead of night when you think it's silent there's always the faint hum of a road a few miles away. Or the high frequency buzz of something electrical. In Pripyat there's not even electricity, it's so, so silent. I really want to go back but am freaked out (probably unreasonably) about the radiation!


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## sYnc_below

Amazing report  

Read every word and lingered over every picture, you have serious balls for going anywhere near there but the results are incredible....I only joined a couple of days ago and this is one the best reports I've read so far


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## neill

I was at the Cheltenham Science Festival today where there was a large exhibition by EDF Energy. I was talking to the exhibitors and it turned out that a number of them were workers from the Hinkley Nuclear Power Station. I was chatting to one of the older exhibitors and mentioned Chernobyl and this report. They are all understandably sensitive to the Chernobyl disaster but he went on to tell me a fascinating story. He was on duty at the Hinkley Nuclear Station when the Chernobyl disaster happened. An alarm signal went off in their own control room from a highly sensitive external radiation detector, shortly followed by a second. They then had to check the whole power station and had no detectors showing any leak inside the plant, this they did again and again. They started a safety shut down of the reactor until they could find the cause of the alarms going off, and then called a 'Central Control Authority' as they doing so. It was then that the 'Central Authority' said they had similar alarms from other Nuclear plants across the UK. They were told not to shut down the reactor but keep checking and reporting as the other plants were doing. If all the Nuclear plants were shut down it would have put the lights out in Britain! They also found out that the same alarms were going off in other countries, first in Sweden, and then across northern Europe. The Swedish plant had detected the rise in radiation levels a day before we did in the UK. By comparing data they had a good idea that something very bad had happened behind the Iron Curtain in the Soviet Block. It was a further three days before the Soviet Government admitted there was something wrong. All this time workers were checking, checking and checking again internal and external levels. The guy I talked to said he aged 5 years in those 3 days. When I was leaving I asked if he would like to visit Chernobyl and Pripyat on one of the new 'tourest tours' to which he replyed 'You must be bloody joking!' 

This makes me admire even more this and other reports of it's like!


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## UrbanX

Wow, cheers for that Neill, great insight. 
On the way between Kiev and Pripyat our guide put a documentary on, there was a guy on there who was testing levels in Pripyat on the morning of 26th April. The levels were 15,000 times 'safe', He was in a full NBC suit, but children were just playing innocently around him in shorts and T-shirts. He told his superiors the levels, and yet they still denied the extent of the danger. 

The guy, who must have been in his sixties, just broke down. He just had his head in his hands on the desk, just sobbing "I can't live with myself".


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## Derelicta

interesting report, well done with enough pics.


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## SCL001

I don't usually comment but i just could not take my eyes of this report and read each word and spent time looking at each one of your pictures in detail (which is not like me, i tend to skim read picking out details).Takes a bloody good report to keep me nterested, well done!

Absolutly fantastic!


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## gingrove

I remember when the fallout cloud arrived in this country. I was working in Health Physics at Harwell at the time and the first that we knew about it was when other people in my building started to call the office saying that the readings on the routine air samples were high. So I went up to the roof to run an activated charcoal sample to see if we were getting any any radioactive iodine. When the sample proved positive we knew that it was from the reactor. A few days later after the news footage had been released I got the job of collecting up all of our surplus respirators and protective clothing so that the guys over there would have something beter than the cotton masks that we saw them using in the films of the clean up operations. I even got an interview on the local TV news about it. Did you take the radiation monitors or do they provide them ? I would love to go and see the place but I think that I would probably want to take my own monitoring gear and a respirator! Fantastic Report and I have passed it on to several of my friends in Health Physics who have all been very impressed!


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## UrbanX

Wow, would be interesting to hear their take on visiting the zone! I vaguely remember it happening, I was no mre than a toddler, I guess it's something that I grown up always aware of. 

Everyone bought their own monitors. The guide had just one for himself, and that was all. 

We did create a good amount of panic on the plane to Kiev with them tho: As we reached 30,000ft a cacophony of ten geiger warning sirens could be heard coming from the back of the plane!


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## Anthillmob74

how and where did you go to get to do such an amazing trip? id love to go.


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## shj35

Dude... that is a wicked report... the best i have seen for sure... thumbs up to you mate... Its a place ive always read about and would truly love to visit... time for a bit more research


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## muppix

UrbanX said:


> There’s an area in the centre of the fairground where my guide puts down his Geiger counter. I’m amazed at what I see. It shoots up to 49.95 μSv. That’s 13 times stronger radiation than outside the front of Reactor 4! He explains that this is the area where the helicopters landed between flights to drop water and sand on the reactor fire. Each time they went over the reactor they became more and more radioactively charged



Nearly. 

There are two small patches of tarmac in the amusement park which have much higher radiation levels than the surrounding area. If you look very closely you'll see that the material is also different from the surrounding tarmac. This is because the adjacent manholes were installed as part of supporting infrastructure for a company that was to monitor the zone following the accident. Some tarmac was being produced near the reactor at the time of installation, and since the whole area was deemed to be contaminated anyway they just used the tarmac from the reactor to patch up the manhole installations in the amusement park. The difference was that the radiation in Pripyat town was caused largely by fall-out and stayed on the surface, whereas the radiation in the new patch of tarmac was much more deeply ingrained and thus prevailed longer than that of the surrounding area in the amusement park, hence the higher readings.

I was there over the August Bank Holiday weekend and will have finished sorting my pictures soon. I'll post a new thread when they're ready, if you want to see some previews before then you can search FaceBook for "muppix.net".

Sorry for the blatant plug there, I hope the info has been useful all the same. 

Mup.


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## UrbanX

If your blatent plug bumps my thread, I don't mind 

I didn't know that about the tarmc. I knew it had been replaced, but just assumed it had been re-contaminted passively by the surrounding area. 

I shall head over to Friendface and have a nosey  I look forward to your report too


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## devonian42

Wonderful report UrbanX.

I was scanning the new posts list and, due to your recent post, this overseas report listed and hence I'm here, spell-bound. I'm old enough to remember this appearing on the news - there was word in the UK that sheep on high ground (such as in the lakes, Scotland or the Pennines) could be contaminated and needed to be checked out .

Anyway, I've been a browser on this gem of a site for some time now, and I feel that, with this report of yours, I've found the jewels


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