Micro Panorama Thumbnail for Social Sharing Sites

Best of 2007

(January 1st - December 28th, 2007)

W.D. Fuchs

Sea of Fog

Martin Frost

Chernobyl 21 Years Later

Nuclear Power Plant, Chernobyl, Ukraine

Loading panorama viewer ...
Configuring ...

© 2007 Marcin Mróz, All Rights Reserved.

Help
Caption
April 26, 1986. Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near Pripyat, Ukraine. At 01:23 local time the fourth reactor explodes and causes a nuclear meltdown, blanketing nearby towns with a lethal dose of radiation. Large areas in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia are badly contaminated, resulting in the evacuation and resettlement of over 336,000 people. According to official post-Soviet data, about 60% of the radioactive fallout landed in Belarus. The truth is that a plume of fallout drifted throughout western Russia and Europe, reaching its dark hands as far as the UK and even crossed the sea, to North America. A small handful of people perish, while tens of thousands feel the after effects for decades to come.

"To begin our journey", he tells us, "we must learn a little something about radiation. It is really very simple, and the device we use for measuring radiation levels is called a geiger counter . If you flick it on in Kiev, it will measure about 12-16 microroentgen per hour. In a typical city of Russia and America, it will read 10-12 microroentgen per hour".

In the center of many European cities there are 20 microR per hour, the radioactivity of the stone. One roentgen is 100,000 times the average radiation of a typical city. A dose of 500 roentgens within 5 hours is fatal to humans. Interestingly enough, it takes about 2 1/2 times that dosage to kill a chicken and over 100 times that to kill a cockroach. This sort of radiation level can not be found in Chernobyl now. In the first days after explosion, some places around the reactor were emitting 3,000-30,000 roentgens per hour.

The firemen, who were sent to put out the reactor fire, were fried on the spot by gamma radiation. The remains of the reactor were entombed within an enormous steel and concrete sarcophagus, so it is now relatively safe to travel to the area - as long as one does not step off of the roadway and does not stick in the wrong places.

More on side http://www.vrmag.org/issue28/CHERNOBYL_21_YEARS_LATER.html

26 panoramas on side http://www.360stopni.pl/text/47_pl.php


http://www.vrmag.org/issue28/CHERNOBYL_21_YEARS_LATER.html

http://www.360stopni.pl/text/47_pl.php
Equipment
Nikon D80, Sigma 8mm, f/3.5, Tripod Manfrotto (from utilized), MrotatorTCP, Panoweaver 5, Photoshop, Pano2QTVR

PLEASE RESPECT THE ARTIST’S WORK. All images are copyright by the individual photographers, unless stated otherwise. Use in any way other than viewing on this web site is prohibited unless permission is obtained from the individual photographer. If you're interested in using a panorama, be it for non-profit or commercial purposes, please contact the individual photographer. The WWP can neither negotiate for, nor speak on behalf of its participants. The overall site is copyright by the World Wide Panorama Foundation, a California Public Benefit Corporation. Webdesign © by Martin Geier www.geiervisuell.com