On a clear day, in the later hours of April 26, 1986, something happened that people thought could never happen.

The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant had a really bad accident, and it changed how everyone thinks about nuclear power all around the world.

In Ukraine, this plant had a reactor called RBMK-1000, designed by the Soviet Union. People in the Soviet Union strongly believed that this reactor was very tough and safe, so they didn’t pay much attention to the possible dangers.

The trust in this reactor design, shared by Soviet leaders and the team in charge of Chernobyl, made them ignore safety rules, leading to even more problems.

During a regular test, a disaster happened.

When the fourth reactor exploded, it changed the future of Ukraine, Russia, Europe, and the whole world.

The result was a release of radiation almost ten times worse than what happened in Hiroshima.

Nearly 40 years later, Chernobyl is like a place stuck in time. The buildings are empty, and the roads in the Exclusion Zone show how much people and the environment suffered from one of the worst nuclear disasters ever.

Chernobyl’s Beginning: How It Started and Went Wrong

In 1977, they started building the plant. Chernobyl is near the border of Belarus, just about 10 miles away.

The town of Pripyat was made about one and a half miles from the plant for the workers and their families. When the disaster happened, almost fifty thousand people lived there.

The Soviet Union wanted more electricity, so they decided to use nuclear energy. The reactors were a good way to get a lot of power without spending too much. Besides making power, these reactors could also produce plutonium, which is used for making weapons. They built Units 1 and 2 from 1970 to 1977 and finished Units 3 and 4 by the end of 1983.

The Chernobyl Accident of 1986

At the Chernobyl plant, workers were doing a checkup when something really bad happened.

During a safety test, the reactor’s power went too low. The people in charge tried to make it go up again, but it went up too much and too fast.

There was a problem with the design of the RBMK reactor used at Chernobyl. When the coolant, which is usually water, turned into steam, it made the reactor more active, and the power went out of control.

Then, there was a huge explosion, and the lid of the reactor blew off, letting out radioactive stuff into the air.

Two workers at the plant died right away. After that, 29 more died within a few weeks because of severe radiation sickness. Some people think maybe as many as 50 people died.

The radiation was so bad that many had to leave the area. The whole town of Pripyat was empty 36 hours after the problem. Over time, 67,000 more people around the place had to leave. In the end, about 335,000 people had to move to new places.

The Soviets tried to keep the disaster a secret, but Sweden found out when they detected high radiation levels.

With time, the released radiation was even more than what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It spread across Europe, affecting a lot of land.

Research by the International Agency for Research on Cancer found that Chernobyl might have caused about 1,000 cases of thyroid cancer and 4,000 cases of other cancers in Europe.

Predictions also say that by 2065, there could be 16,000 cases of thyroid cancer and 25,000 cases of other cancers caused by Chernobyl radiation.

This incident showed problems in how the Soviet reactors were designed, making people question and oppose nuclear plants. Eventually, they shut down Chernobyl’s Units 2 and 3, which was a big change in how people saw nuclear power. The last unit was closed down in 2000.

Chernobyl’s Sad History: Visiting a Place with a Painful Past

At first, the Exclusion Zone was like a big circle, about 18.6 miles across. But later, they made it even bigger, covering an area of 1,017 square miles around the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant.

In 1991, after the Soviet Union fell apart, Ukraine took control of the plant. Twenty years later, Ukraine started letting tour groups visit some parts of the area.

People got interested in visiting Chernobyl because of its sad history and strange feeling. Dark tourism became popular, and visitors could see old villages, abandoned bulldozers, and the empty forests. But some places still have really high radiation levels, like the Red Forest, which is as bad as where the explosion happened.

On certain tours, you could go as close as 300 meters from the big concrete cover on the exploded part. But you could only stay there for a short time because the radiation is way higher than normal—20 times higher.

Before Russia attacked Ukraine, a lot of people were going on these tours, and it was good for business.

With COVID restrictions getting easier, more people started coming to the area. In October 2021, almost 15,000 people visited the CEZ. That made the total for the first ten months of the year a huge 62,000 visitors.

In her book, ‘Tourism and Heritage in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone,’ Magdalena Banaszkiewicz talks about how disasters are also part of a people’s history. Tourism can help the area, but it can also be a problem.

Her book says that places hit by disasters, like Chernobyl, teach us important lessons about protecting both our culture and nature for the future.

The key is doing it in a way that doesn’t harm the environment. And as we’ll see, even though people don’t live there anymore, animals have come back and are doing well.

Nature Takes Over: Animals in Chernobyl’s No-Go Area

The area near Chernobyl, with lots of radiation, doesn’t look like what some people might think.

Since there are no people, the CEZ has become a safe place for many different animals. The United Nations Environment Programme says animals like lynx, bison, and deer live here. There are also boars and bears doing well.

The CEZ is now the third-biggest nature reserve in mainland Europe. People are trying to keep the different animal species safe.

After the accident, on the Belarus side of the CEZ, there were more animals. Boars and elk started to do well, and there were more wolves too.

Some scientists say that the radiation isn’t the biggest problem for the animals—it’s people.

In 2023, a study in Current Biology Magazine said they didn’t find proof that radiation was hurting big animals in the area. Instead, they say it’s still human activity that’s stopping the environment from getting better.

Other scientists, like Timothy A. Mousseau from the University of South Carolina, say the situation in Chernobyl is more complicated. He thinks there isn’t enough proof that animals have adjusted, and even a little bit of radiation could be bad for them.

In his paper, he says many animal species have fewer members in more radioactive places. This gives proof that changes to genes can make animals die out.

Even with these worries, big animals in the area are doing well and have more of them now than before the nuclear accident.

Not only wild animals but also our furry friends are still around Chernobyl. Even after the plant explosion, dogs, known as man’s best friend, stayed.

When people had to leave because of the explosion, some pets got left behind. The Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs had to get rid of them, thinking they might spread radiation.

Now, dogs live freely in the area. One idea is pretty simple—it suggests that not every dog was found and removed after the disaster. Some might have gone into the forests or found places to hide.

In 2017, scientists saw a lot more dogs around. That’s when they started the Chernobyl Dog Research Initiative to study the animals in a kind way.

The research found two groups of dogs—one near Chernobyl City and another by the plant. The study is interesting because it shows that the dogs in Chernobyl are different from other free-breeding and purebred dogs.

Scientists aren’t sure why this happened. The differences are so big that even though the two places are only 10 miles apart, they are considered different groups. It’s not clear if it’s because of the radiation or how the dogs are having babies, but either way, Chernobyl now has its own special kind of dog.

Chernobyl During Trouble: The Russian Occupation of 2022

On February 24, 2022, Europe faced a big problem when Russia attacked Ukraine—it was the worst since World War II.

The Chernobyl nuclear area got taken over by Russia. Their soldiers went into Ukraine through Belarus and Russia. It was the first time anyone attacked a nuclear place during a war.

Hundreds of people were working near there, taking care of the plant after it had a big problem. After the invasion, they had to follow what the Russian soldiers said.

Some people thought the occupation didn’t make sense or was just meant to scare others. Others thought it was a strategic move, using the big parking area for military vehicles. And because Belarus was close to the north, it was hard to attack from that side.

Russian troops were getting ready to attack Kyiv, so taking over Chernobyl would be a good place to stop on the way.

People worried about what could happen if there was a fight in a place where there had been a nuclear accident. Ukraine said attacking the site could cause another environmental disaster.

In a tweet on February 24, 2022, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the attack wasn’t just on Ukraine—it was like a declaration of war against all of Europe.

The few workers left had to listen to what the Russian forces told them to do. But the Russians weren’t very careful on the site. Some say they rode through the super radioactive Red Forest, and this made radioactive dust go up in the air. It made some Russian soldiers sick from the radiation.

The State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine said the levels of gamma radiation were higher than usual. They said it happened because big military machines moved the topsoil around.

After the attack on Kyiv didn’t work out, and the Russians started focusing on other parts of Ukraine, they decided to leave Chernobyl. Nobody was watching the site anymore.

In early March, the company that takes care of the plant, Energoatom, said no more Russian soldiers were in Chernobyl. The area was back under Ukraine’s control.

Chernobyl’s Story Continues: What We Learn from a Nuclear Disaster

The Chernobyl disaster teaches us about the severe and awful results of nuclear accidents. It emphasizes the crucial need for strict safety rules and careful management.

The explosion not only took lives right away but also released a dangerous wave of radiation that’s still around.

The deaths and the forced moving of many people show how much nuclear accidents can harm humans.

With time, the area around Chernobyl, once a sad reminder of the disaster, has become a safe place and home for animals.

Some animals that were thought to be gone from the area have come back, showing that nature can recover without humans getting in the way.

At the same time, Chernobyl and Ukraine became a place for dark tourism. Many people visited to see the eerie remains of the area. But that changed after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

During the conflict in Ukraine, the CEZ faced a new problem when Russian forces took control of the area for a short time.

The worries about possible harm to the environment and the global concerns show how tricky it is to balance political problems and the lasting effects of the Chernobyl disaster.

As the war goes on in Ukraine, we don’t know what will happen to Chernobyl. This shows the ongoing challenges in keeping the site’s historical importance and the strength it has gained safe.