Why would/should anyone care to study the Chernobyl disaster?
The reason is twofold. When the reactor at the Lenin Chernobyl Atomic Energy Station exploded on that fatefull night, millions upon millions of curies of radioactivity where expelled high into the atmosphere. Most of the contaminated material then fell back to the earth’s surface and coated the countryside in radioactive dust and debris. After conducting extensive research and testing, the authorities where able to establish a rough map showing the distribution of contamination in the areas surrounding Chernobyl. For a variety of reasons, it seems that the bulk of the most contaminated debris landed in the sparsely populated region of western Belarus. This region of Belarus is therefore no longer inhabitable by humans, and was quarantined off by the Belorussian government shortly following the accident. Today, this region is known as the Belarus Radiological Preserve. Within the confines this densely wooded area exist large quantities of radionuclide that have contaminated both animal
