This is how the Village names surrounding Chornobyl now appear. When leaving villages here, the sign is simply the name of the town crossed out. These signs though, tell everyone that they are affected by radiation and are not inhabitated. [There are some older people who still live in these villages. Disregarding the warnings and threat of radiation, they chose to return to their homes, where they had lived for their lives. They aren't functioning towns, however.]
Gas masks worn by people working in the radiation. While some had this protection, for the most part people were exposed with nothing to protect them. To get an idea of how extreme the radiation was- the normal range for radiation was between 15 and 20. Immediatly after the explosion, it rose to over 3000. In most cases, it was off the charts. This cloud of radiation affected most promienently northern Ukraine and Belarus, but quickly spread as far as Sweden. Eventually, an increased level of radiation was documented in the US, Canada, Japan, parts of China, Russia and all of Europe, all resulting from the Chornobyl Explosion.
In Prypiat, there were around 50,000 residents prior to the accident. 17,000 of these were children. These are just some of the pictures of children who lived there. This city was young and considered to be one of the "hot spots" to live. Soviet Nuclear Power Plant workers lived there and worked in Chornobyl.
The crowns of flowers represent the heads of two birds, while their bodies are made up of clothe and photographs. The white bird on the left is everything good in life and the black bird on the right is everything that is bad or challenging. Together they form life.
Pictures taken just last year in Prypiat.
And again.
School children from Japan sent these paper cranes to show their empathy for the people affected by the explosion. [There was a small side exhibit of the after effects of the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima- it was terrible.]
This painting is done entirely with words. It's a poem entitle "Uprooted" and is about the affects that the expolsion has had on the heritage of the Ukrainians who were forced to leave their homes and history behind. The artist is American, but I can't remember her name.
A baby pig with two bodies and one head. Because radiation can't be seen, heard, tasted or felt, it's affects are still being explored.
Photographs of the destruction of an entire town. The radiation was so thick there, they had no choice but to bury it under ground.
On the right side of the part of the river that looks like a lake is Chornobyl. The city of Pripyat is on the left of this body of water. It was hit the worse with radiation. Scientists say that it won't be safe to inhabit for at least another 500 years.
Artwork and pictures depicting the effects of the expolsion.
At the Museum there was a lot of symbolism. The rootless apple tree, depicted here, is one of the main symbols. It represents knowledge, and how we can use it for good and evil, to destroy or build up.
This is what village signs look like in Ukraine. These are just some of the villages that had to be evacuated because of explosion.
The New York Times had half of the front page and part of the second page covering the Chornobyl nuclear explosion. The Soviet paper had five sentences.
Aerial photograph of the power plant the day after the explosion.
A model of how the Nuclear Power Plant worked and where it went wrong.
The time stopped at 1:26 am on April 26, 1986 when reactor #4 exploded at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant.
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