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Chernobyl Becomes Tourist Hot Spot
prostoalex writes "18 years ago on April 26, the Chernobyl disaster occurred in Central Ukraine. Nowadays, as British Telegraph reports, the radioactive disaster area is becoming a tourist hot-spot with 3000 visitors paying $200 for a guided tour each year."
Look maw! 3 hands!
Is she guiding the tours?
Is motorcycle rental included?
Yes but apparently you have an 50 % higher chance of getting ill on such a trip. A lot of travel agents won't give you insurance.
While it is literally a Hot Spot, I would not call 8.2 visitors per day a Tourist Hot Spot. Your average Porta-Potty gets more visitors per day than that. Would you call a Porta-Potty a Hot Spot?
that man has a metal pot stuck to his head!!!
*click*
oh that will be a good one to scrap book!!
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
...no master ninjas visit there with 4 baby turtles and one rat.
But can they protect tourists from the mutants, stalkers, and sassy physicists daughters on Japanese rice burners?
"We're fine," she joked. "No health problems. The radiation has got used to us." Tatiana Khrushch, 66, agreed. "The air's clean, the water's lovely and the mushrooms are great," she said.
I bet they don't have health problems, or they THINK they don't have health problems. I bet they think they are Scooby-Doo too.
--
Just say no to karma whoring!
"I went to Chernobyl and all I got was this radioactive T Shirt"
Ahh, I guess slashdotters do go out for a vacation.
The radiation has got used to us.
Holy crap, it's true. In Soviet Russia (or the former Soviet Russia) radiation gets used to YOU!
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
glowing reports. It had to be said.
"Please do not touch the four-eyed mice"
"Please refrain from touching your complementary HazTag"
"Please do not stare directly into chernobyl zone"
"Please refrain from breathing chernobyl air"
"Please be respectful of our neighbors for we don't have many left"
So where is my Three-Mile island tour?
Dude, I live there. It's not that interesting. Nothing blew up, and there are only a few fish with three eyes. But it's near Hershey, so you could pick up some chocolate while you're there.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Will unscrupulous tourists pick up irradiated rocks and plants just like they steal from Petrified Forest National Park?
Well, if by 'hot' you mean radioactive. I'd hardly call 3k visitors a year (and at $200/pop that amounts to about $600k, hardly what you'd find in a place like galviston, TX)
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
My family visited Chernobyl and all I got was this stupid thyroid cancer!
Death and dismemberment turned into tourism and profit. I sense a distinct lack of respect for the dead. On the other hand, do they care?
Radiation levels are currently lower than the background radiation in Norway. The real problem is the insides of buildings which still contain trapped radioisotopes. Also, the nearby groundwater has a higher level of radioisotope contamination than normal. You get some radioisotopes in your food and drink all the time. The issue is that a higher dose of these isotopes you get, the higher your risk of cancer.
And comparing the stuff from a power plant to the stuff from a nuke is kind of stupid. Nukes are meant to make the biggest BOOM possible. They try to use the least materials to do it, and the force required tends to break the materials down into fairly non-dangerous stuff.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
have all been glowing.
I submitted a related story to this last month. Kidd of Speed" rides her Kawasaki Ninja into the dead zone through the abandoned towns, cities and villages surrounding Chernobyl.
The pictures are strikingly beautiful.
"I'm The Bounty Bear. I will find him anywhere. I'm searching."
The first appropriate Soviet Russia joke on /. Rejoice all ye nerds! An ancient artform has regained its quality!
This comment does not exist.
Hell, when I was a Navy Nuke working at the GE facility in Ballston Spa, NY we were decommissioning the S3G nuclear reactor and had to work in the reactor compartment daily. Of course we wore dosimeters and watched our daily exposure.
Routinely we were lazy and didn't want to work a full day so we would stand next to the main coolant pumps (one of the hottest spots for radiation in the compartment) and crank our dosage and be over our daily limit so we wouldn't have to work the rest of the day.
Now as I write this 10 years later I wonder why we just didn't take off the damn dosimeter and place it and not us next to the damn hot spot!
I'm kind of afraid now my first kid will have an extra testical and be able to read people's minds.
The scenes filmed inside the lush nature of the Zone are in colour, this strangely adds to the eery impression, due to the contrast with the first part of the movie (the normal world) which is filmed in black and white.
If people want to go to a radioactive disaster, maybe they should pick a more current one and have a look at what depleted uranium weapons are doing to the locals. Levels of background radiation are 300 times what they were before the 'shock and awe' terrorist campaign.
Ah, nothing like a vacation in the former Soviet Republics. Radioactive bus tours, rampaging gangsters, bathtub gin, and smallpox. Sounds like going to Gary, IN but with a longer plane ride.
What's got three legs, walks backwards, and goes 'cluck cluck'?
A chicken kiev of course!
Perhaps it's simply a matter of wanting or needing the cash generated by tourists, but the area is hardly safe for those that live there. For example in nearby Minsk in Belarus most adults have had nearly 20 years to resign themselves to the consequences and their greatest concern right now is their children. There are programs that try to arrange for children to spend at least 3 months of the year outside the country to minimize the chances of cancer, infertility and birth defects of the next generation. The programs do not allow parents to travel with the children out of a concern that it is unlikely they would return. The "official" line is that everything is just fine of course.
According to the Swedish Aftonbladet Elena Filatov hasn't ridden a motorcycle in the zone (in Swedish). She hasn't got a father who's a nuclear physicist. The pictures were taken by Elena and her husband Igor under the supervision of the zone's administration.
think about it: average salary is $100 per month, or $1200 per/year. Now, assume that about 6 people probably take care of this, that's $100,000 per year, or 84 times the average salary!!
... any further questions?
Now let's transfer it in american terms:
Average salary (I assume): $30,000
84x that: over $2.5 million per year!!
Based on what we *know*, radiation is semi-cumulative. When the radiation hits your body, it can cause various forms of damage. A healthy body will attempt to repair this damage as if it were caused by normal background radiation. However, your body only has so much ability to repair. Thus a lot of radiation in a short time can have a cumulative effect. But low doses over long periods of time should have no discernible effect.
:-)
You also need to define what type of radiation you're talking about. e.g.:
Alpha - Only dangerous if emitted internally or through skin breaks
Beta - Similar to Alpha, but with more penetrating power. Basically an unfocused electron beam. A certain amount of voltaic pressure is required to penetrate the skin externally.
Gamma & X-Ray - High penetration power, more dangerous externally.
Neutron - Better hope you have good life insurance, because parts are going to start disappearing.
Gamma and X-Ray are what's known as "cosmic rays" because they are prevalent in background radiation. Alpha and Beta don't usually occur naturally. Neutron radiation is really only something you'd find at the heart of a reactor.
And that is your 10 minute science lesson for today.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Are you freakin' kidding me? If I was a kid again I would LOVE to have extra testicles and be able to read people's minds.
On the one hand, we have people such as the Kidd of Speed lady who travel there merely to take pictures, tell the story of what happened but above all leave everything alone.
On the other hand, I'm sure there's unscrupulous types who are going there simply to pick up souveniers and sell them to the highest bidder. This to me is no better than the people who where trying to sell steel from the WTC.
I hope the Russian government is controlling these tourist trips to make sure no one is profiting from the ongoing suffering of thousands of people.
What do other Slashdotters think?
at all the mutation jokes and all the stupid "in Soviet Russia" jokes (even though Chornobyl is not in Russia), take a look at the site of an organization that's actually doing something to help. Maybe even donate some money. This remains a human tragedy of massive proportions.
This is by far the best web tour of the area.
I was lucky to catch the movie "Pripyat" at my local film society a few years ago. It's a black and white documentary about the Zone and some of the people who live there. They also tour Chernobyl and talk to some of the people who work there. It's a beautiful and amazing film, and well worth trying to hunt it down. It's a shame it didn't get a wider release. I remember the engineers who currently work at Chernobyl rarely even get paid... those guys are scrounging for food while operating a nuclear power plant. I suppose they could always eat the local mushrooms... it's the gamma that makes 'em extra tasty!
A tourist attraction with a half-life of 3.2 billion years. Now that's hot :)
My group was doing some neutron beam tests on computer components a few years ago with everyone involved wearing radiation badges. One of the guys stepped out to make a cell phone call, driving his badge to it's highest indication level in the process. Sadly he didn't discover this till he prepared to re-enter the radiation area and didn't take the indication that he had already received a dangerous (or lethal - I can't remember) dose of radiation too well.
Anonymous troublemaker
Depends on the isotope. The really dangerous stuff has less of a half life. It's more dangerous because it's decaying faster.
Please don't say something is dangerous because it has a long half life. There is an iron isotope (Fe-60) out there that has a half life of 3x10^5 years, but the only way you are going to get hurt by it is if someone smacks you on the head with it.
In fact, of the two fissile Pu isotopes (Pu-239 and Pu-241), Pu-241 has a half-life of 14.4 years, meaning that it has probably decayed into something else by now (Americium 241?)
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Quickly paraphrasing this from Walker's Physics, Volume II:
The RAD (radiation absorbed dose) is the amount of energy that is absorbed by an irradiated, regardless of the type of radiation. One rad equals .01 joule per kilogram.
More information is needed to have an indication of the biological effect a certain dosage will produce. This is called the relative biological effectiveness (RBE). Some values:
Heavy ions: 20
Alpha rays: 10-20
Protons: 10
Fast neutrons: 10
Slow neutrons: 4-5
Beta rays: 1.0-1.7
Gamma rays: 1
200-keV X-rays: 1
The biologically equivalent dose for humans, the REM (radiation equivalent in man), is just the dose of radiation times the RBE. So alpha rays have at least ten times the relative biological effectiveness than X-rays.
30 characters are fine for a s
Back in the good old days of the Cold War
(before global terrorism with WMD), the US
Dept. of Energy cajouled the private sector/
public utilities into building nuclear power
plants by promising electrical energy to
consumers that would be too cheap to meter.
Above ground nuclear testing (with live troops),
and down range fallout were dismissed with the
use of the term "sunshine units", as though
excess radiation was no greater a danger than
forgetting to put on sunscreen lotion before
going outdoors.
Little mention was made of the radioactive
isotopes that would increase the risk of
skin, lung, and thyroid cancers. The same
lackidasical attitude still exists in the DoD
with the possible long term effects of the use
of depleted uranium in tank and artillery shells.
The Middle East (and Iraq especially) will not
be a very healthy place to be for centuries.
Of course, we already have a scapegoat picked
out, in the form of Saddam Hussein (who was
already an "environmental terrorist".)
Personally, I would not consider either Iraq or
Chernobyl as a tourist "mecca".
Typical that these people worry about the toxicity of something being shot to kill. Reminds me of the worry about the effect on the ozone layer of the refrigerants released from cruise missiles after they have nuked the world.
Depleted uranium (U) has very little radioctivity. That is what "depleted" means. Being in the nuclear industry I know guys who handle natural (non-depleted) U all day. It is much more radioactive, but still trivially so.
U is toxic like lead (also used for ammo) and most other heavy metals. Take my advice and refrain from picking it up and eating it if you see any while walking around the Arabian Deserts.
These people are clutching at straws trying to argue that the combination is worst than the sum of the two effects.
Extra testicles, telepathy, not having to shit and FOUR vaginas?? Still not seeing a downside...
If anyone has information about specific types of radiation and doses which would cause these effects, please respond.
The biologically equivalent dose for humans, the REM (radiation equivalent in man), is just the dose of radiation times the RBE. So alpha rays have at least ten times the relative biological effectiveness than X-rays.
You are both right.
Alpha particles do more damage, but only if produced by ingested substances. From external sources, they won't penetrate the layer of dead skin on the surface of your body.
Heavy ions behave similarly (at least when in the same energy range).
Betas have a penetration distance of at least several millimetres, so they're definitely an external hazard (first poster was hazy on that).
The real danger at sites of nuclear accidents (or bomb tests, etc) is inhaling radioactive dust. That can get close enough to live tissue to give you lung cancer, and anything soluble can pass into the bloodstream and do more damage.
The danger from nuclear reactors and from long-term waste storage is from soluble radioactives getting into the local water supply and being ingested that way. This is why power plants have multi-stage heat exchange systems and why proposed waste storage sites are at the bottom of mines in non-porus rock, or under a few hundred feet of clay at the bottom of the ocean.
You're right. A fascinating, desolate, desert place
Places to visit in my lifetime.
... er, um ...
1. Hawaii
2. New Zealand
3. Japan
4. Egypt
5. Norway
5. Italy
You are OK. Step off and the radiation goes up exponentially. Tarmac is good for more than driving I guess.
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
U-238 certainly doesn't decay into Pu-239 (atoms don't gain mass by decaying, though they can by neutron capture). Nor into Americium-241. Pu-239 was present in the core when all hell broke loose, though, as was Am-241. U-238 decays into lead (Pb-206), with long stops at U-234, Thorium-230, and Radium-222 (and many shorter stops)
It turns out that almost all Boron and Beryllium in existence is formed when a cosmic ray nucleus like carbon, oxygen, or nitrogen smacks into an interstellar gas atom like hydrogen and breaks apart (it's called spallation). Only trace amounts of B and Be were produced during the nucleosynthesis phase after the big bang, and only trace amounts are produced in supernovae.
Fascinating stuff.
Don't Bogart the fish sticks
Well - there are good comments also.
The issue with the 1/2 life is that it is inversely proportional to the danger. Of course this is modified by what nuclear trash is ejected when a nucleus splits. This part should be obvious to all.
A second point is that the dangers of low level radiation are drastically overstated. While there is disagreement on the casualties, the fact there is a rift in the attributed numbers is very clear. The UN reports fewer than 50 people died and a few 1000 (horrible of course - I feel so sad for these people) with thyroid cancer. These numbers are in stark contrast to the 300,000+ that some people cite.
We can learn from the accident, learn a great deal and perhaps from this will come an understanding that nuclear energy has been bad mouthed for decades and has been the target of a rather large disinformation campaign.
It is my suspicion that the disinformation campaign was fueled by large Texan oil interests who collectively realised that in a nuclear economy - their oil would not be worth much... and hense their power base would erode.
So they bought themselves a few years of prosperity at the expense of mankind in general, because now this wonderful chemical feedstock has been burned about a fast as possible. From an economic point of view, oil resources are not valuable and the value can only be achieved by burning them up ass fast as freking possible and converting them into money. Right?
I personally think the disaster is a tragedy. I really feel for these people, they have suffered a great deal. Yet, we now see the beginning of a rebirth.
Perhaps what we should be looking to do is have all nuclear nations fund actinide transmutations technology based in Chornobyl. This is the perfect place to build these facilities and conduct this research. The area is alreay poisoned and public opion says it will be uninhabitalable for 1000+ years.
The Nuclear physists and engineers may choose to differ, and they should have the opportunity to put their money where their mouths are so to speak. The area is beautiful. Actinide transmutation technology can reclaim it.
Rather than be negative about this, lets be positive. Lets build the biggest bloody actinide transmutations lab, then facility in the world and end our nuclear waste problems in the process.
Stockpiling is just bullshyte. Burning the garbage gets rid of it and no-one can build a weapon out of nuclear isotopes after they have been burnt up. Its the perfect solution and the Ukrane can export the surplus power to Europe. Right?
1. Build a nuclear power plant 2. Let it explode 3. wait a few years 4. let it become a tourist attraction 5. profit!!!
What, no?
Why?
Victims' of Chernobyl suffering is a real fucking thing, I've seen it. This thread makes me sick.
-el
The NASA earth observatory thang has some images taken from MIR of the area. Maybe that's about as close as I'd want to get for now.
Reginald Molehusband. Edinburgh, Scotland