In the years since the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe , the exclusion zone has morphed into animprobable nature reserve — wild and untouched and , well , still radioactive . A study warns that woods fires couldspread radioactive material from the site , but how dangerous the ash tree would be is unnamed .
The elision zone extends 30 kilometers , or 19 Admiralty mile , in all directions around Chernobyl . And it ’s been mostly uninhabited since the disaster in 1986 , spare afew hundred peoplewho resist to leave . As theNew York Timesnotes , Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and brush have since grown to cut through 70 percent of the zone . Radioactive materials such as cesium and strontium still lurk in the dirt and industrial plant , which could be released again in a forest fervour .
A new studypublished in Ecological Monographsnotes that three forest fires since 2002 have redeposit 8 percent of the cesium-137 from the original disaster . “ We ’ve invested 1000000000000 toput a new coverover the old reactor building , ” the study ’s co - author Timothy Mousseausaid to the Times . “ But woods fire have the power to remobilize radioactive material from the original event . ”
As the forest spring up thicker and temperature rise with climate change , fires could become even even heavy hazards in the future . It ’s still unclear whether the levels of radioactive material released would actually be dangerous for human health , but it illustrates yet again how the Chernobyl calamity could live on in unexpected way . [ New York Times , Ecological Monographs ]
Top : A photo of the destroyed Chernobyl nuclear reactor in 1998 . AP Photo / Efrem Lukstaky
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