9781422269794

The Kyiv oblast’s ability to grow enough food for its population was threatened in 1986, however, when the world’s worst nuclear disaster occurred after a nuclear reactor exploded in Chernobyl, a city eighty miles north of Kyiv. In addition to the fifty people who died of acute radiation exposure—mostly first responders who fought the ensuing fire and officials trying to stop the radiation leaking into the atmosphere—it’s estimated that as many as 10,000 people have died since then from cancers related to long-term radiation exposure. One thousand square miles of contaminated land is still in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Nature, however, is resilient, especially plants. Part of the land contaminated included the Polesia forest belt. Called Europe’s Amazon, the Polesia spans Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia. Even though some areas have been damaged by mining and logging, much of it remains pure. Within three years of the accident, most

The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone contains more than a thousand square miles of contaminated land.

Chapter 1: Northern Ukraine

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