The Ruins of Chernobyl, Over 20 Years Later

By Lauren Davis, 2:00 PM on Sat Sep 26 2009, 23,181 views (Edit, to draft, Slurp)

Copy this whole post to another site

Slurp cancel

select site advertising consumerist deadspin defamer fleshbot gay fleshbot gawker gizmodo idolator io9 jalopnik jezebel kotaku lifehacker valleywag artists gawkershop sploid gawkertv

In 1986, the disaster at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant forced the residents of the town of Prypiat to evacuate, never to return. Today, Prypiat is a collection of crumbling buildings, and nature has begun to reclaim the city.

Before the Chernobyl Disaster, Prypiat was a thriving, modern city with a population 50,000, many of them workers and scientists at the plant. It was two days after the disaster before Prypiat was entirely abandoned, and many of the plant workers exposed to the initial wave of radiation were brought to the Prypiat Hospital for treatment, before it became clear that the hospital itself was dangerously irradiated. Unfortunately, intrusions of nature and normal decay aside, images of modern Prypiat don't necessarily offer a pure sense of the state in which the residents and rescue workers left the city, as items have been moved and removed by vandals, looters, and photographers looking for more emotional pictures. Still, the photos offer a sense of an aging, crumbling city, and how plant and animal life can quickly take over when humans have departed.

More images are available at Village of Joy [via Metafilter].