-Chernobyl is the site of the worst nuclear power plant disaster in history. The explosion, subsequent fire, and radiation that swept through the area surrounding the power plant have had devastating effects on generations of people. Thousands died, many were forced to evacuate, and the contaminated land is still not able to be farmed to this day.
Humans may have had to move on—but incredibly, some species have thrived in the dystopian wasteland.
1. The disaster
One of the worst mistakes in history
was a safety test in Chernobyl. Engineers wanted to study the efficacy of a new procedure to cool the reactors—but in order to perform the experiment, they had to shut down the power to simulate an outage.
In retrospect, it's easy to recognize the stupidity of the error. Soviet chemist Valery Legasov said in 1987: "It was like airplane pilots experimenting with the engines in flight."
An unexpected power surge caused an explosion, killing two people instantly and spreading radiation throughout the Ukrainian village. It's hard to know the full death toll because of the long-term, generational effects of the nuclear disaster. Estimates range between 4,000 and 93,000 deaths.
To this day, the ghost town is largely uninhabitable...for humans...
https://www.science101.com/meet-the-...-of-chernobyl/