26 April,2011 07:41 AM IST | | Agencies
A quarter of a century after the world's worst nuclear disaster, the exclusion zone around the shattered Chernobyl atomic plant is not quite as empty as one might think. Deserted towns and villages are remembered at the Chernobyl museum in Kievu00a0-- evacuated when reactor number four exploded just after midnight on April 26, 1986.
Looking back at the past: Portraits of rescue workers, sent to fight
the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear plant 25 years ago, are hung on
crosses as part of a fake cemetery made by anti-nuclear power activists
during a protest in front of a nuclear power plant in France.
Women activists protest the use of nuclear power in Kiev to commemorate
the Chernobyl disaster. Pics/AFP
The museum's scientific director Anna Korolevska said, "There's a new generation who were born in these territories, a generation who have received small doses of radiation over a long period: first of all in the mother's womb and after their birth. "That's why we have to invest heavily, not only in the new sarcophagus to encase the plant but also to solve the problem of contaminated areas to help these people."
And a new breed has established itself in the exclusion zone. Thousands of tourists are taking what are known as Cherno-tours: 160 euros (Rs 10,000) buys breakfast in the plant's canteen and the chance to take photos outside the infamous reactor. Tour operator Olga Filimonova said, "We call it extreme tourism, or the ecological tour.
These areas are dead and I don't think life is going to return. I'm not sure it's a good idea to advertise this type of trip since at the moment the level of radiation there still isn't known." Some 4,000 people still live in the exclusion zone to maintain safety at the plant. Another thriving population consists of scientists, studying the effects of radiation on wildlife.
Remembering the dead
An international donors conference in Kiev last week raised ufffd485 million of the ufffd653 million needed to build a new shelter and a storage facility for spent fuel. Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich will commemorate the victims of the nuclear accident with prayers and candle-lighting in Kiev before they travel to the Chernobyl station today.
1.8 million Number of people, which are still defined as contaminated
The Chernobyl accident is equivalent to 500 nuclear bombs used in Hiroshima in 1945.
