Chernobyl
Brooks Ward was sitting on a bus outside the abandoned city of Pripyat, Ukraine, where he had traveled in October to tour the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.
The bus driver stopped on a blacktop path surrounded by dense trees, turned to the 26 members of the group and told them they had two hours to explore the area.
Puzzled, Ward asked the driver what they were going to explore.
“He pulled out the map, pointed and said there’s a hospital, a day care, an apartment building,” recalled Ward, President of The Washington Hospital and executive vice-president/Chief Operating Officer of Washington Health System. “There were probably 20 buildings within three or four blocks, but you couldn’t see any of them because Mother Nature had taken over. And that’s when it dawned on me that what we parked on, this little narrow strip of blacktop, was actually at one point a four-lane highway, but you can’t tell.”
On April 26, 1986, an explosion and partial meltdown at Reactor 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant during a routine shutdown sent radioactive debris into the air, leading to the immediate deaths of more than 40 first responders and HOW MANY OTHERS.
The accident forced entire towns to evacuate, and the area within a 19-mile radius of the plant was declared uninhabitable for at least 180 years.
Three decades after the nuclear disaster, however, guided tours are taking tens of thousands of tourists deep into the Exclusion Zone.
Ward, who has photographed urban decay in places ranging from Detroit, Mich. and Manhattan to Bonaire, was intrigued by the post-apocalyptic atmosphere.
The now-empty city of Pripyat, once a town of 40,000 residents, appears eerily frozen in time.
A ferris wheel stands WHAT. A baby doll WHAT ELSE
Ward, a photographer who shoots “Urbanex” photos – abandoned buildings and landscapes – spent four days exploring portions of the 1,000 square-mile zone surrounding the Chernobyl power plant.
Minimal human presence has led to moose, Pripyat, Ward said, is a reminder of nature’s resilience and a warning about the consequences of manmade technology and its impact on the planet.
“When you go to Chernobyl, there are hundreds and thousands of buildings that are completely empty and devoid of people. Everything’s abandoned, and has been since 1986. Because of that, Mother Nature is completely re-taking everything over,” said Ward, noting the group saw animals including moose and observed plants and trees growing inside buildings and on rooftops.
While several tourists carried dosimeters, a device measuring radiation levels, Ward did not.
The amount of radiation
He and his son were among the tourists who drove two hours from Kiev to Train toes t town every day, about 2,000 people work at the power plant every day.
He said
Wildlife
Even though recent instability in eastern Ukraine has pushed the country off most travelers’ radars, Chernobyl still looms large in the global consciousness.
There are even hotels inside the Exclusion Zone. Visits are governed by security checks and by strictly guided tours. Visitors travel to the site, a two-hour drive north of Ukrainian capital Kiev, by tour bus.
Once there, they sign a disclaimer warning against touching any objects or vegetation, or even sitting on the ground.
Leaving the site is also highly regulated. Body scanners test for high levels of radiation. If the scanner alarm sounds, guards sweep the individual for radioactive dust before they’re allowed to leave.
A place where, 32 years after the fallout, humans stay away, but animals and nature carry on.
Surprisingly, he didn’t feel a melancholy atmosphere when exploring the area. Instead, he was transported into a HOW DOES HE EXPLAIN IT?