The Chernobyl nuclear meltdown - from radioactive wasteland, to tourist trap, to TV mini-series

From radioactive death zone, to Ukrainian tourist attraction and now the inspiration for a top-rating TV show - the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown site has come a long way in 33 years, but has much further to go before it returns to anything like its pre-disaster state.

The story of Chernobyl features in the HBO five-episode historical drama of the same name. It quickly leapt to the top of IMDb's all-time rankings of TV shows, beating favourites including Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones.

But the new drama has reportedly not gone down well at the Kremlin and a Russian series on the disaster is being made. It is said to be a patriotic push-back in which a spy for America is on a sabotage mission at Chernobyl.

The catastrophic accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in the then-Soviet Union occurred early in the morning of April 26, 1986, when a reactor was being shut down for routine maintenance. Contrary to safety regulations, important control systems were switched off, allowing the reactor, which had design flaws, to reach unstable, low-power conditions, leading to a power surge and explosions.

Thirty-one people died within a few weeks of the accident from the initial steam explosion, exposure to radiation and thermal burns, and one due to cardiac arrest, said the United States Nuclear Energy Institute.

A United Nations atomic radiation committee has said it was the most serious accident to occur in the nuclear power industry.

The nuclear reactor's 10-day fire released large amounts of radioactive material which fell mainly on the Soviet republics around the site and, to a lesser extent, on the rest of Europe.

Decades after the Chernobyl area and the city of Pripyat were abandoned and decayed into a post-apocalyptic wasteland, they have become an attraction for international tourists keen to poke around in the fallout zone, which remains radioactive.

By 2016 tour guides armed with Geiger counters where showing around more than 10,000 travellers a year inside an exclusion zone surrounding the power plant that exploded. They are told not to touch anything or even sit down and are swept for radioactive dust before leaving.

The screening of the HBO miniseries has coincided with a 30 per cent bump in Chernobyl tour bookings.

READ MORE:
• Tourists flock to radioactive site of the Chernobyl nuclear explosion

• Return to Chernobyl: How HBO's TV series is fuelling nuclear tourism

What happened at Chernobyl?

One of four nuclear reactors at the power plant in northern Ukraine - part of the Soviet Union at the time - exploded in the early morning of April 26, 1986.

The reactors were unstable at lower power levels. Reactor number four was run at very low power, without proper safety precautions, according to the US Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry organisation. There was an uncontrollable power surge, causing sudden overheating that ruptured fuel tubes.

This caused a steam explosion, further damaging the reactor and exposing its core to the environment. The fire burned for 10 days, releasing a large amount of radiation into the atmosphere.

How many died?

This is still uncertain. The institute said 31 died within a few weeks.

New Scientist said two died immediately from the blast and 29 died in hospital in the following days. One expert told the magazine the only firmly established deaths were 28 victims of acute radiation syndrome and 15 cases of fatal child thyroid cancer.

Another expert cited predictions out to the year 2065 of about 16,000 cases of thyroid cancer and 25,000 of other cancers.

The Nuclear Energy Institute said a United Nations scientific committee last year reported the accident was also responsible for nearly 20,000 cases of thyroid cancer among people aged under 18 at the time of the accident.

How was the disaster site managed?

Some 115,000 people were evacuated from the area in 1986. A further 220,000 people were later resettled.

The crippled number four reactor was enclosed in a concrete structure. Later it was entombed in an enormous steel and concrete sarcophagus. This is expected to last for a century.

The number two reactor was shut down after a building fire in 1991, number one in 1996 and three in 2000.