Inside the Chernobyl exclusion zone (2014) | 60 Minutes Archive

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minutes

rewind some tragedies never end ask people to name a nuclear disaster and most will probably point to fukushima in japan three years ago the nuclear meltdown at

chernobyl

in ukraine was 30 years ago but the crisis is still with us today that is Because radiation virtually never dies after the explosion in 1986 the Soviets built a primitive sarcophagus a tomb to cover the stricken reactor, but it was not intended to last long and engineers say there is still enough radioactive material there to cause contamination. A massive project to permanently seal the reactor has been underway for five years, but the task is three-quarters of a billion dollars short and the completion date has been repeatedly pushed back thirty years later, the reactor The paralyzed Chernobyl still has the power to kill its so-called

zone

and to enter is to cross the border into one of the most contaminated places on the planet.

The 20-mile no man's land was evacuated almost 30 years ago. Drive to the center of the area today and you will see a massive structure that appears to appear out of nowhere. It is an engineering effort the likes of which the world has never seen. With funding from more than 40 different countries, 1,400 workers are building a giant arch to cover the damaged reactor. like a casserole dish it will be taller than the statue of liberty and wider than yankee stadium, the largest mobile structure in the world, nicholas kai is supervising the construction of the arches, when you think about it, you know, here is this massive project in march, all these people are working here, they are spending billions of dollars because of one day 30 years ago, yes, yes, yes.

You're right, it was the nuclear industry's biggest disaster. Yes, the disaster was caused by massive explosions that tore off the roof of Chernobyl's number four reactor, spewing radioactive dust into the atmosphere. The Soviets recruited more than half a million troops to put out the fire and clean up the nuclear waste, thousands of people became seriously ill from radiation exposure three decades later, the cleanup continues, but as this recent video shows, the reactor It is still filled with poisonous mounds of twisted steel and concrete puddles of nuclear fuel that have hardened into a dense mass called an elephant's foot.

There is still so much radiation coming from the reactor that workers have to build the arch nearly a thousand feet below. distance protected by a massive concrete wall When completed, the arch will slide into place around the sarcophagus and then be sealed. We'll push In one go, the average speed will be around 10 meters per hour, so it might be the speed of a snail, right, but that's pretty fast considering the size of this thing. Yes, but the construction itself will have to move much faster. The old plant and the sarcophagus are falling apart. Just two years ago, a snowstorm caused the roof of one of the buildings to collapse, forcing workers to evacuate and raising fears of further contamination.

Radiation is not subject to the usual life and death rules. It is practically eternal. When Kai took us on a tour of the site, they put dosimeters on us to tell us how much we were exposed to, suddenly, sound we didn't want to hear. Hey, this VIP is going off, no, no, no, uh, it's normal. I'm sure, yes, yes, I'm definitely sure I don't like a pager and Chernobyl, no, I don't like that sound. Building the bow under these conditions is challenging enough, but some of the biggest obstacles have nothing to do with radiation; as violins took over Ukraine this year, one of the bows' contractors backed out.

The project also has a $770 million deficit and has been plagued by repeated delays, regardless of when it is completed. Large areas of the area will never recover. This is the city of Pripyat, two miles away. since the reactor thirty years ago the population was fifty thousand today it is zero pripyat was where many of the plant workers lived grateful for their fate in a city that was the model of Soviet modernity nine-story apartment buildings lined this boulevard still They are there, but you can't see them anymore, the forest has taken over a vision, perhaps of what the whole world would look like if people disappeared.

It was spring in Pripyat that day in 1986 and an amusement park was due to open in a few

minutes

. days andrei gluckoff lived here then so that ferris wheel never had children in it never had children these bumper cars to your left right never had children either when you talk to your old neighbors what do you call it the accident the catastrophe just call it 26   which was the date of the accident 26 April 26 something like the Americans called 911   exactly back then Glukov worked for the Chernobyl nuclear safety division   he took us on a tour of a part of the plant that had not been destroyed  he was out of service that night , but what he saw when he passed by the damaged reactor was like nothing he or anyone else had seen before.

This was a terrifying image. It looked like a sunset about 100 to 200 yards away from you and this was the bright core. of the reactor was the first and only time you saw it, no, it was the first time I realized the magnitude of the disaster. Bluecroft told his family in Pripyat to stay inside and close the windows. Soviet authorities shrouded the area in secrecy. They told the people they had nothing to worry about, but 36 hours later more than a thousand buses were sent to evacuate everyone, the authorities told the people it would only be for three days, one of many lies, the people never returned and Pripyat is being overwhelmed by the elements, one of the only.

What is still recognizable is that old Soviet iconography. Walk around the area and you will find that many villagers suffer the same fate as Pripyat. A row of simple markers has been placed with everyone's names, but in the middle of this desert, the strangest sight of all. Only a few Ivan Ivanovic and his wife Maria were evacuated to an apartment block near kyiv after the accident, but they couldn't stand it, they weren't cut out for the city, so two years later they returned, today there are three more people living in this town just a few miles from the old power plant when you decided to move back here did anyone tell you it was dangerous?

It's really good here. You know, when I lived in that apartment block I got sick all the time. The story will continue later. This despite the danger, Tim Musso also chose to be here for the last 15 years. Biologists at the University of South Carolina have been studying the impact of the pollution from a makeshift laboratory within the area. There aren't many serious labs I've seen that look like this. Yes, this is an opportunistic laboratory, it is an old villager's house. Rousseau's research has shown that the catastrophe continues to take its toll and we are going to try to measure how radioactive these mice are.

What is the comparison between the amounts of radiation that a mouse would emit? have here and a mouse somewhere else, some of these mice have on the order of 10,000 times more radioactivity in their bodies than in clean areas, the human cost has been profound and thyroid cancer and leukemia have affected thousands, although the exact number of deaths is not yet known. In what is being discussed, there is certainly evidence that some of the genetic damage that occurs at the DNA level can be transmitted from one generation to the next, which is why a nuclear disaster never ends; there will be areas that will be contaminated for thousands, if not millions, of For years, this makes the area unlike any other place in the world, which is why it attracts tourists.

If you've visited Paris and Rome, why not try a holiday in hell? Look at the apocalypse. How did your friends react when you told them you were coming on vacation? to Chernobyl uh they thought it was very strange yeah but I mean people have been coming here for a while so you know I guess it must be safe I guess it must be safe which makes you believe it's safe , well, you know, you would assume that the guides wouldn't bring people here if it wasn't safe. I hope you are right. Thousands of workers fled to the area every day to take care of what is left of the planet.

Others live here year-round in one of the few. safe enough places for the inhabitants the city of

chernobyl

itself yevgen ganshirenko was our guide he also lives here why do you live here and not in kyiv um because I like this place for me and it's very um interesting um maybe even uh holy place a sacred place to me, yes, he spends much of his time writing music with his bass, so desolate is the landscape around him, as desolate as the remains of this empire that disappeared long ago, a decade after the disaster, Workers here built a monument in honor of their colleagues. whose lives had been destroyed the workers and the firefighters made the monument themselves yes, yes, exactly, yes, and what does it say to those who save the world, to those who save the world, that may sound a little hyperbolic, but when the reactor It exploded in 1986.

Radioactive dust and debris was carried as far away as Italy and Sweden until the arc finally sealed that damaged reactor and no one knows when something like this could happen again, unlike other historical relics. Chernobyl does not belong to the past. His power will do it. never die chernobyl is forever