Postcards: Air Chernobyl? Tourists get chance to fly over nuclear disaster zone
As Ukraine marks the 35th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, SERGIY KARAZY and MARGARYTA CHORNOKONDRATENKO, of Reuters, report a new venture to provide tourists with a birds-eye view of the disaster site…
Abandoned plant and wasteland: Ukraine eyes UNESCO World Heritage tag for Chernobyl
Kyiv, UkraineReuters A mothballed nuclear power station surrounded by wasteland, rubble and abandoned buildings is not what most people associate with a UNESCO World Heritage site. But that is exactly what Ukraine has in mind for Chernobyl. Hoping that such an assignation could mean more funding and more tourists, the government has begun a process […]
Pandemic could be WHO’s Chernobyl moment for reform – review panel
Geneva, Switzerland/London, UKReuters The COVID-19 pandemic could be the catalyst for much-needed reform of the World Health Organization just as the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986 forced urgent changes at the UN nuclear agency, an independent review panel said on Tuesday. The panel, set up to investigate the global response to the coronavirus, said the […]
“Nobody is not afraid”: Chernobyl pilot recalls his fear 33 years ago
Chernobyl, UkraineReuters More than three decades after he flew his helicopter above the radioactive volcano that was Chernobyl’s nuclear reactor number four, the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident, Mykola Volkozub recalls how he feared for his life. Now 87, the Ukrainian military pilot returned to Chernobyl last month for the first time since […]
HBO’s ‘Chernobyl’ gets mixed reviews from disaster’s survivors
Chernobyl, UkraineReuters Critics and viewers on both sides of the Atlantic have lined up to acclaim Chernobyl, a dramatisation of events surrounding the world’s worst nuclear accident – but the reactions of some of the survivors are less rose-tinted. Sergii Parashyn, the then chairman of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant’s Communist Party Committee, said the […]
Nuclear wasteland selfies draw ire as tourist flock to Chernobyl
Tbilisi, GeorgiaThomson Reuters Foundation A spate of selfie-taking tourists at Chernobyl – one wearing little more than her underwear – in the wake of a hit TV series on the world’s worst nuclear disaster has sparked anger, with the show’s author urging more respect for the dead. The nuclear plant and the abandoned town that neighbours it […]