On April 26, 1986, a power surge at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant resulted in what is the worst nuclear disaster in world history. Thousands abandoned their homes and their worldly possessions, rendering much of the area surrounding the power plant nearly desolate to this day. However, some residents returned to their villages following the explosion, despite the toxic levels of radiation. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. On April 26, 1986, reactor number four at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, located in the then-Soviet Union, experienced a power surge, resulting in an explosion that sent a cloud of radioactive materials across parts of Europe. The accident has gone down in history as the world's worst nuclear disaster. Around 350,000 people were evacuated following the explosion, with many leaving their homes and all of their worldly belongings behind forever. The areas surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, including the nearby city of Pripyat, have since deteriorated into abandoned ghost towns. But some residents have returned to their villages following the explosion and evacuation, despite dangerous levels of radiation, and some remain there today. Here's what daily life looks like in one of the most polluted parts of the world.<doc-sep>As HBO's five-part Chernobyl miniseries depicts, the devastation caused by the 1986 Ukraine Nuclear disaster was wide-ranging and long-lasting. In the aftermath of the incident, Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant was left in near-ruins, the population (nearly 50,000 people) of the nearby town of Pripyat evacuated entirely, and kept empty to this day. Luckily, despite the complete shutdown of both the plant and the neighboring town, many photos exist of the devastation that was left in the footprint of the man-made disaster, both in Ukraine and the surrounding areas. Below, check out some of the most striking—and chilling—images from the aftermath of the incident.<doc-sep>4.8 ( 4 ) Drones and Artificial Intelligence (AI) combined have yet again emerged as the perfect solution for reconnaissance and data gathering over the inaccessible and hazardous Chernobyl’s “Red Forest” – one of the most radioactive locations on Earth which has just been surveyed by UK scientists using a suite of drones. The Red Forest merely 500m from the Chernobyl nuclear complex was affected in the immediate fallout from the 1986 explosion and fire in the plant’s number-4 flawed reactor . The novel sensors equipped robotic aircraft flew over the Red forest giving up-to-date information on the sites with the greatest contamination. Some areas are still strictly out of bounds to humans. The UK’s National Centre for Nuclear Robotics (NCNR) has developed a drone-mapping system that allows scientists to investigate hazardous places from a safe distance. The NCNR is a nationwide consortium of research experts tasked with developing the next generation of technologies that can be used to clean up Britain’s 4.9-million tonnes of legacy nuclear waste. A general radiation map is created by using data from fixed-wing craft flown in a grid pattern at approximately 40mph (65km/h) at treetop level. A follow up is then carried out by with rotary-wing drones which can hover and use their sensors to acquire high-resolution, 3D information. The drones also identified a few unexpected hotspots. Prof Tom Scott, from Bristol University and co-director of the NCNR, told BBC News, “They were trying to separate out the contamination and thereby reduce the volume of the waste, “adding, “The legacy left at that facility is essentially spent nuclear fuel scattered on the floor, which was giving a very high radiation dose -about 1.2 millisieverts an hour.” The NCNR team plans more surveys in the coming months of additional areas in Chernobyl’s 2,600km² Exclusion Zone, which has been permitting more people entry over time. Some 70,000 tourists have already visited the zone last year and plans are to use large areas of land deemed now to be low risk for solar generation. The British mapping exercise will help refine the protocols used to ensure the safety of all entrants to the exclusion zone. Specialists in robotics, artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning, sensors, electronics and materials are working across eight institutes, centred on a hub at the University of Birmingham with the goal of using autonomous robots to efficiently and safely curate the waste. These tools are far more advanced than the systems people will know from car assembly lines, said Prof Rustam Stolkin from the University of Birmingham. “These robots are completely autonomous; they use robotic vision systems; they see objects and understand their position, their size and their shape and can clear a random, cluttered heap of objects with no prior knowledge of those objects. This is the frontier of international robotics and AI research.” The NCNR’s drone system is already being tested for mineral prospecting. Prof Scott said, “The drones fly at a height which means they’re much more sensitive than if you fly in a helicopter or an aeroplane,” With such accuracy and reduced risk factor the NCNR drone technology will definitely serve as an important tool for research. How useful was this post? Click on a star to rate it! Submit Rating Average rating 4.8 / 5. Vote count: 4 No votes so far! Be the first to rate this post. As you found this post useful... Follow us on social media! We are sorry that this post was not useful for you! Let us improve this post! Tell us how we can improve this post? Submit Feedback<doc-sep>Since the explosion of a nuclear reactor prompted a mass evacuation in 1986, access to the 1,000sq-mile area around the Chernobyl power plant has been restricted to civilians. Only those with a day pass and a licensed tour guide may enter, or so they say. Flouting this restriction are the Chernobyl Explorers, who for the past nine years have been bypassing the visitor's centre and roaming the area on their own. The Explorers lead four-day long tours of the exclusion zone that visit sites which have otherwise been left alone since the explosion. They are not licensed so they are not subject to the rules of the official tours. Free-climbing the 150 metre-tall Duga radar tower for instance is not a licensed activity and while the official tours must return to Kiev every evening, the Chernobyl Explorers stay overnight in a flat in the ghost town of Pripyat. The tours are however illegal, but then urban exploring tends to be. While the Explorers do lead tourists into breaking Ukraine law, they insist that they follow the law of the urban explorer: “take only pictures, leave only footprints.”<doc-sep>
Did you know soon after HBO’s miniseries, which is hailed as the highest-rated TV series ever aired, the tourism spiked by 40 percent? Obsessed with the show, people apparently want to go and visit the nuclear disaster site, where one of the worst man-made disasters took place in 1986. So much so, that Instagram influencers are also flocking to Chernobyl and pictures from the worst nuclear disasters in history are all over the internet. And now, they have come under fire for striking irrelevant or provocative poses in the town of Pripyat, where thousands of people died after the safety test went wrong in 1986. These photos have been deemed “disrespectful.” “If you look for photos by location Chernobyl on Instagram, you can find this kind of stuff,” tweeted lettipop along with such pictures. “I don’t know about you but I see a place like this and I do not stop crying for days. I do not know how you can stomach doing these kinds of photos.” si buscáis las fotos por ubicación Chernobyl en Instagram os podéis encontrar este tipo de cosas pic.twitter.com/uxGF0jiOyp — lettipop (@lettipop) June 6, 2019 Meanwhile in Chernobyl: Instagram influencers flocking to the site of the disaster. pic.twitter.com/LnRukoLirQ — Bruno Zupan (@komacore) June 9, 2019 “People died there in a very horrific way, have some respect,” wrote another user Anna Taylor. “Shame on you,” added Nora Sang. It has now gotten to a point that show’s creator Craig Mazin has also urged people to “Comport yourselves with respect for all who suffered and sacrificed.”