Thanks for all comments!
For those who are interested:
here is some information and drawings about the new confinement which is being constructed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BnaBreaker
Were you nervous at all going into the area?
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No, i was not nervous at all. To be honest i hoped that visiting the area would give me goose bumps, but it didn't. The feeling i had during the tour would resemble the kind of feeling you would have during an interesting field trip or excursion from school. I was fascinated, but not scared or nervous. The idea of contamination didn't impress at all, because most levels of radiation were relatively safe and the places where the levels were higher, the amount of time spend there was too short to be contaminated.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TinChelseaNYC
What effect did this disaster have on the Dneiper? Thanks for posting these, by the way!
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According to
Wikipedia:
The Chernobyl nuclear power plant lies next to the Pripyat River which feeds into the Dnieper River reservoir system, one of the largest surface water systems in Europe. The radioactive contamination of aquatic systems therefore became a major issue in the immediate aftermath of the accident.[48] In the most affected areas of Ukraine, levels of radioactivity (particularly radioiodine: I-131, radiocaesium: Cs-137 and radiostrontium: Sr-90) in drinking water caused concern during the weeks and months after the accident. After this initial period however, radioactivity in rivers and reservoirs was generally below guideline limits for safe drinking water.[48]
Bio-accumulation of radioactivity in fish[49] resulted in concentrations (both in western Europe and in the former Soviet Union) that in many cases were significantly above guideline maximum levels for consumption.[48] Guideline maximum levels for radiocaesium in fish vary from country to country but are approximately 1,000 Bq/kg or 1 kBq/kg in the European Union.[50] In the Kiev Reservoir in Ukraine, activity concentrations in fish were several thousand Bq/kg during the years after the accident.[49] In small 'closed' lakes in Belarus and the Bryansk region of Russia, activity concentrations in a number of fish species varied from 0.1 to 60 kBq/kg during the period 1990–92.[51] The contamination of fish caused concern in the short term (months) for parts of the UK and Germany and in the long term (years-decades) in the Chernobyl affected areas of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia as well as in parts of Scandinavia.[48]
Although the Lonely Planet wouldn't recommend swimming in the river, many people in Kiev still do. Nowadays the whole area around Chernobyl could be regarded as one big natural park, and the quality of water in the area would be great according to some stories. It's quite ironic to conclude that while the disaster at Chernobyl was also a disaster for men, but not for nature at the long term.
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