Wildfire rips through Chernobyl’s exclusion zone, raging just TWO MILES from crippled nuclear plant
13 Apr, 2020
Ukrainian firefighters are struggling to contain a blaze raging near Pripyat, in the contaminated area heavily hit by the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, as a wall of fire creeps dangerously close to its abandoned nuclear power plant.
Due to strong winds on Monday, the flames crossed over a firebreak and reached Yanov railway station near the town of Pripyat, the agency in charge of the exclusion zone said in a statement. Maps show that the station is located just three kilometers (1.9 miles) away from the ill-fated power plant.
Yaroslav Emelianenko, a member of the public council at that agency, described the situation as “critical” and posted photos of surreal orange-colored smoke coming from the burning forest on his Facebook page.
Chernobyl, which was the site of the worst nuclear disaster in human history in 1986, has again found itself in an emergency situation, piling even more headaches on Ukraine amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Read more at https://www.rt.com/news/485714-chernobyl-wildfire-exclusion-zone-nuclear/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Email
Forest fire around defunct Chernobyl nuclear plant put out, Ukraine government says
April 14, 2020
A huge blaze that tore through forests around the defunct Chernobyl nuclear plant has been put out, Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday, saying hundreds of emergency workers had used planes and helicopters to douse the flames.
Environmental activists had warned on Monday that the fire, near the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986, posed a radiation risk.
Chernobyl tour operator Yaroslav Yemelianenko, writing on Facebook, had described the situation as critical, saying the fire had reached the abandoned city of Pripyat, two kilometres from where “the most highly active radiation waste of the whole Chernobyl zone is located”.
But Ukrainian authorities said on Tuesday that though they had registered short-term spikes in Caesium-137 particles in the Kiev area to the south of the plant, radiation levels remained within normal limits overall and did not require additional protection measures. [L5N2C1279]
Read more at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-chernobyl-fire/forest-fire-around-defunct-chernobyl-nuclear-plant-put-out-ukraine-government-says-idUSKCN21W0VZ
