Chernobyl nuclear disaster: Ukraine marks anniversary

[bananas]

Source: BBC

Ukraine is marking the 25th anniversary of the world's worst nuclear accident - at the Chernobyl power plant.

An explosion at one of the plant's reactors sent a plume of radiation across Europe in 1986, harming or killing possibly thousands of people.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, are visiting the site for a memorial ceremony.

The anniversary comes amid renewed global protest over nuclear power.

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Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13190411

[LAGC]

1. But... but...

I thought the site was going to be lethally radioactive for anyone approaching it for the next thousands of years?

Yet the Ukranian President and his Russian counterpart are visiting the site? What gives?

[SharonAnn]

2. "Suicide by Chernobyl"

[bongbong]

3. Time of exposure

I might be wrong, but I think it's because their time of exposure won't be long. That, plus the entombment concrete is keeping day-to-day levels down.

At least until the concrete degrades from the constant gamma bombardment, and it falls into dust. That'll probably happen within 100 years.

[jtuck004]

4. People work there still. There are three reactors on site that were run

for 14 years after #4 popped its cork. An EPA scientist visited in 1996, I think it was, took some picture of the inside, one of which showed the molten fuel flowing out of a pipe, where it cooled and froze. He mentions the mistake made by placing concrete over the site, kept them from being able to put the radioactive material in a cooling pool, so about all they can do now is pour more concrete.

Oddly enough, there are still a few people that populate the farms around the place, sometimes popping up with stories about how it will be repopulated soon. Doesn't happen, of course - will be perhaps another 5-600 years before some of that will be safe enough to live on again, but hope can survive a lot of things.

Watched the video, saw the Greenpeace messages beamed onto the side of the reactor. Can't tell too much difference between them and the Westboro Baptist Church homophobes. I guess the bodies of people killed under tragic circumstances make a platform that some people just don't have the class to resist.

[plumbob]

5. There is still a 30km (19-mile) exclusion zone around the plant.

From the OP.

[TheLastMohican]

6. The city of Chernobyl

and its neighboring city Pripyat are more or less safe now.
There are occasional "dirty zones" so carrying a dozimeter is advisible at all times.
There are lots of tourists that go there every year from all over the world - you don't see a ghost town of 50 000 which is Pripyat in every corner of the world.
So it is interesting for many people to see it first-hand.

So the presidents of both countries are not risking anything, the main radiation is trapped within the sarcophagus of the 4th reactor now. And the Chernobyl NPP is no longer operational for at least 10 years now.