Twenty year after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, JULES PRETTY returns to the abandoned region and finds that wildilife has replaced the human population. TWENTY YEARS AGO this month, a catastrophic explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant covered a vast area of the former Soviet Union with radiation. Two days later, everyone was evacuated from the nearby city of Pripyat and surrounding villages, and an exclusion zone of 4,000 km~2 was created to try to contain the damage. It looked like the land would be contaminated forever and, some surmised, all life would be blighted. But, over the past 20 years, something extraordinary has happened.Today, you approach the Ukrainian exclusion zone from the east by crossing the wide Dniepr marshes and passing through a finger of Belarus. Roe deer scamper across the road that sweeps from dense forest to cross the power plant's great cooling ponds, now home to giant two-metre-long catfish. Wildlife is reconquering the region.
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