Chernobyl

Carolyn and I visited Chernobyl with the Singularity University reunion in Kiev. Tours will take your right up to the containment structure covering the destroyed reactor.

This is the reactor containment building. There are places inside that are still very radioactive, but the grounds are not. They have been generally decontaminated and over the 25 years since the explosion, the topsoil has increased 10cm or so, so most of the radioisotopes are buried and surface radiation is low.

Construction is happening now on the new containment structure, a gigantic concrete shell that will be constructed just west of the containment building and will be moved over the entire building shown here and is designed to protect the site for the next 100 years.

Part of the tour took us to a school in Pryp’yat that was abandoned the day after the accident. There are some iconic pictures that all visitors take and which I also took and will share later (including the famous Ferris wheel), but a room with a sea of gas masks was striking and I hadn’t seen it before.