Tag: Chernobyl Exclusion Zone

The People Who Live and Work in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone-2. Workers, Scientists, Tour Operators and Illegal Families

It was the Number Four RBMK reactor at the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl, Ukraine that caught on fire on April 26, 1986 demolishing the reactor building and then releasing large amounts of radiation into the atmosphere. The other 3 reactors kept operating, the last of them closing on December 15, 2000, and finally the decommissioning phase began.

Construction of the new city of Slavutych started in 1986, and the first inhabitants settled in October 1988. This new city was intended to replace the ghost city of Pripyat. Slavutych is sited on the left bank of the Dnieper River about 30 miles east of the Nuclear Power Plants (NPP). It is mostly home to survivors of the disaster who had to be relocated from Pripyat, among them about 8,000 people who were children when the disaster occurred. Many inhabitants still work at the site of the former plant for monitoring, maintenance, or scientific purposes. They commute to the zone on a regular basis. A rail line (twice crossing the international border with Belarus) runs directly from the city to the site of the NPP.

In 2021, of the approximately 7,000 people who came in and out of the CEZ to work, more than 4,000 had shifts of either 15 days a month or four days a week—schedules devised to minimize exposure to ionizing radiation. They are security guards, firefighters, scientists, decommissioning workers or those who maintain the infrastructure of this unique community. Many lived part-time in the ancient city of Chernobyl occupying some of the rooms and apartments that were evacuated in 1986. A few even lived in Pripyat.

About 70,00 tourists visited the inner zone of the CEZ prior to the war.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/life-goes-on-chernobyl-35-years-after-worlds-worst-nuclear-accident has some great pictures.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/moving_to_Chernobyl This is a very moving story.https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/life-goes-on-chernobyl-35-years-after-worlds-worst-nuclear-accident

What Has Happened During the War?

On 24 February, 2022 Russia invaded Ukraine and took over the CEZ. Ukrainians were allowed to keep doing work essential to the safety of the site under Energoatom but the rotation system broke down. On March 20 roughly half of the staff who were on shift when the Russians took over, were allowed to return home to Slavutych for the first time. The second rotation was allowed on 11th April. The Russian military controlled the CEZ for five weeks until they withdrew on 31 March. But roads had been made impassable and workers had to be brought via boat down the Dnieper River. The CEZ has remained in Ukrainian control since.

It has been reported that the Russians looted and destroyed a lot of equipment including 1000 computers and firefighting equipment. They laid mines but I have just read that the Ukrainians say they have cleared these.

Tanks and Russian Armed Forces caused a lot of harm to infrastructure and to the Red Forest area. It was claimed that an enormous spike in radiation (even in Chernobyl city) measured at the time by the gamma dose rate
monitoring network in the CEZ was caused by tank movements disturbing the soil.

Beresford et al think that the effect was temporary and the high readings may have been due to military electro-magnetic frequency interference causing reporting anomalies from the detectors. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37352719/ .

They have also published https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35196340/ Current ionising radiation doses in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone do not directly impact on soil biological activity.

What is Happening to Slavutych and the City of Chernobyl?

Slavutych is often cut off from the rest of Ukraine, and Belarus is hostile now. Bombing occurs and many people have fled. Even so, civilians with children have settled in Chernobyl as the housing is cheap. Slavutych was seen as a wonderful place to live but the population is dropping, noting that parts of Eastern Ukraine have lost half their population due to the war. With time the well paid work at the NPP is becoming less.

Decommissioning the NPP

The work is being funded by the Ukrainian Government, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Other International Private Donors. (I ask why aren’t the Russians paying?)

The stages and actions are:

• Shut down: The last reactor at the plant was shut down in 2000.
• Remove fuel: Nuclear fuel was moved to a storage facility in the first stage of the decommissioning process.
• Deactivate reactors: All reactors will be deactivated in the second stage.
• Maintain reactors: The reactors will be maintained until radiation levels drop to an acceptable level.
• Dismantle reactors: The reactors will be dismantled and the site cleared.
• Decontaminate: The plant and surrounding area will be decontaminated, including any radioactive soil and water.
• Restore environment: The site will be restored to an environmentally safe state.

The first waste canister containing highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine has been successfully processed.

There was a sarcophagus rapidly put in place on Reactor 4 as an emergency solution. It was starting to disintegrate. Better containment has always been needed.

Chernobyl’s New Safe Confinement

Chernobyl’s New Safe Confinement (NSC) is a design and construction project unprecedented in the history of engineering. Never before has such a huge structure been constructed at a heavily contaminated site.

It was started at the site in late 2010 and the structure was moved into position on Reactor 4 in November 2016. Following systems installation, testing and commissioning the New Safe Confinement has now been handed over to the Ukrainian authorities and the Chernobyl Shelter Fund was closed in late 2020. https://www.ebrd.com/what-we-do/sectors/nuclear-safety/chernobyl-new-safe-confinement.html

The Health of Workers of Slavutych

City authorities for Slavutych have stated that there is less cancer and heart problems than in other cities in Ukraine. This is interesting as many of the “Liquidators” still live in Slavutych. There are also claims that fertility levels in Slavutych are higher than in similar cities in Eastern Europe. Unfortunately references I saved from a few years ago, even if they are still on the web, have become impossible to translate. I would love more data. The effects of the war will probably confuse health data. People are fleeing due to bombing and isolation from the rest of Ukraine.

Current Radiation levels in the CEZ

In 2022, the German entity, the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) published the first area-wide radiological mapping of the exclusion zone in over 30 years at the request of the Ukrainian Government. BfS works for the safety and protection of man and the environment against damage due to ionising and non-ionising radiation.

The data were collected in 2021, using extensive aerial surveys as well as ground truthing for the cesium 137 in the soil. The elevated local dose rate values measured in the exclusion zone today are almost exclusively due to cesium 137, which has a half-life of 30 years. Short-lived radioactive substances such as iodine-131 have not been detected for years. https://www.bfs.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/BfS/EN/2022/006.html

Local gamma dose rate in the exclusion zone of Chernobyl in microsieverts per hour

A conversion table to help aid understanding of the radiation levels is given below.

Spatial distribution of cesium-137 in the exclusion zone in kilobecquerels per square metre

In my next blog I will write about the Liquidators of Chernobyl. Where are they now? How are they now?

The People Who Live and Work in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone-1. “The Babushkas of Chernobyl”

AFP photograph by Victor Drakov

In 1986, 115,000 people were forced to leave “for 3 days and no more” starting 36 hours after the Chernobyl explosion including the inhabitants of 81 villages. After 1986, another 200 000 people from Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine were relocated. If you really wish to visit this period again this website will bring you almost up-to-date. https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/chernobyl-accident .

Some of the residents started to return to their villages within weeks. These waves continued for about 4 years despite efforts to stop them. “Samosely” or selfsettlers are still residents of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone – mostly  Babushkas. By 1987, 1200 people had returned to live in their old homes. Eventually women past child-bearing years were allowed to stay. That means that nearly 40 years later the surviving residents have to be at least 90.

Today, there are about a 100 still surviving. This number has dropped from about 250 only a few years ago. They live off the land, growing their own food and picking Cesium 137 laced mushrooms. They have foraging pigs and chickens.

Hanna Zavorotnya and a pig in front of her home in the CEZ. Photo: Rena Effendi

Hanna is one of the 3 stars in the 2015 documentary “The Babushkas of Chernobyl“. It can still be viewed or bought on the web from various sources.

The Samosely have lived hard lives and remember so much: the starvation of 1932 under Stalin when millions died, the brutality of Nazi occupation then forced eviction from their Motherland. Now they fight to keep their crops from wild animals. Finally, the Russians took over the area again for a time following years of Ukrainian independence. The war continues. For a time, landmines were in parts of the forests.

The Joy of Harvest: Photograph by Yuli Solsken

Photo by Jorick de Kruif in 2018: Ivan Semenyuk was 82 years old and lived in the house he built in the 1950s in the village of Paryshev.


When interviewed in 2018, Ivan was growing cabbages, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, shallots, potatoes and beans on his allotment. He loved to fish and gathered mushrooms, berries and medicinal herbs in the forest. A mobile shop, which was supposed to visit every Friday, brought food, household chemicals and basic necessities, which he could buy with his pension which is delivered to him and other elderly inhabitants of the zone. Ivan has mains electricity, and recalls that they did not have to pay for it for two years after he returned.
He draws water from his own well on his land. He has a mobile phone, television and radio, and keeps in touch with the outside world between visits from his son.

Like other inhabitants Ivan had trouble with wild animals destroying
vegetables growing in his garden. He respected radiation but greatly feared the packs of wolves and the snakes. He and his dogs had been attacked by large packs of wolves, 6 dogs being killed in one week. Eventually, the authorities permitted him to shoot wolves.

What of the radiation? Ivan explained how men with dosimeters checked levels in his well and land. He stated that there was now no radiation in the village. (Visitors are warned not to eat anything in the zone.)

There is no doubt that like the animals of the CEZ, the Samosely experienced higher levels of ionising radiation than the normally accepted levels for humans. However, I suspect that the levels were in the low dose range. Yet these people seem to have outlived those of similar age and background who left their “MotherLand” and lived elsewhere. I would like to have seen better radiological data.

Next time: thousands still work at the nuclear power stations. A few people live in the ancient city of Chernobyl.