Not our usual photography trip but our curiosity got the better of us: three days in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone to photograph the remnants of the infamous reactors and the ghost town of Pripyat. The Ukrainians had planned to build 12 reactors in total providing them with the ability to export this modern energy source to their neighbours, but as construction began on reactors 5 & 6, reactor 4 began to overheat during routine test operations. At 1 am on October 26, 1986, the reactor began its meltdown. The official number of deaths is recorded at 38, but the actual number is much higher, around 6,000.
At the time of our visit, work on the new "sarcophagus" covering reactors 3 & 4 was almost completed. It was bizarre seeing workers waiting for buses in a ghost town. And despite continuing high radiation levels, people work (no more than four days a week) inside the Exclusion Zone, and some of the elderly residents have moved back in full time (children are forbidden). And although I wouldn't say it was thriving, wildlife abounds in the inner zone. The number of stray dogs living in the Exclusion Zone is heartbreaking. The locals refer to them as "hot dogs" because they are too radioactive to be adopted or even pet.
