nuclear-news

I Visited the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone with an Infrared Camera

Jan 30, 2018

Vladimir Migutin

A few years ago, I visited the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone with an infrared camera. We always hear praises of the might of Mother Nature, how it renders useless mans’ creations and bears life above the ruins. Well, it’s something that is always felt, but never on such a huge scale. This place IS the place for these contrasts.

It’s pretty hard to describe the overall atmosphere I experienced during this trip. Despite the events of 1986, the ruins, and the rust, I didn’t have grim feelings while traveling there. On the contrary, it felt like I was in a “kind of” paradise on a different planet.

Thirty years after the fallout, while men still stay away, the forests, the animals, the plants, everything is thriving, revived by nature.

These photos were shot during a 2-day trip in Chernobyl’s exclusion zone with a full spectrum camera and a 590nm infrared filter from Kolari Vision.

Pripyat Sports hall, Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

Butterflies and flowers in the forest, Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

Simon – a human-friendly fox, whom often approaches groups in the exclusion zone, asking for food.

The monumental trail with the evacuated villages’ names on either side.

About the author: Vladimir Migutin is a photographer who explores the world with an infrared camera. This article was also published at Kolari Vision

Original source for this article which has many more great pictures of landscapes etc, worth a click! Arclight2011 ; https://petapixel.com/2018/01/30/visited-chernobyl-exclusion-zone-infrared-camera/

Note from Arclight2011 – It might be worth balancing the issue of a “thriving” ecology etc with these 4 quotes and links;

1/   Chernobyl London meeting (27 April 2013) Speech by Tamara Krasitskava from Zemlyaki

Tamara Krasitskava is a chairperson of Zemlyaki, Ukraine NGO in Kiev to represent those who had to collectively evacuate from Pripyat
* Speech was done by Russian, and interpreted into English.
* Chernobyl Day London Public Meeting was organized by “JAN UK” on Sat 27 April 2013.

“….On Sunday the 27 April 2013 in a little room somewhere off Grays Inn road London, a meeting took place. In this meeting was Ms Tamara Krasitskava of the Ukrainian NGO “Zemlyaki”.

In this meeting she quoted that only 40 percent of the evacuees that moved to Kiev after the disaster are alive today! And lets leave the statistics out of it for a moment and we find out of 44,000 evacuated to Kiev only 19,000 are left alive. None made it much passed 40 years old

“…..3.2 million with health effects and this includes 1 million children…”

T .Kraisitskava

“….I was told to not talk of the results from Belarus as the UK public were not allowed to know the results we were finding!….”

A.Cameron (Belarus health worker from UK)…..”

2/   Fukushima Consequences of Radiation on Wildlife

“….The birds

The feathers of birds take radioactive dust released into the atmosphere continuously by the wind. They therefore suffer permanent external irradiation.

We can see this dust by placing a contaminated bird on a radio-sensitive paper for a month. Here is an example with a bird picked in Iitate in December 2011.

Autoradiography also allows to highlight that the birds also undergo internal contamination…..”

3/   Genetic radiation risks: a neglected topic in the low dose debate.

“…..Taken together with other evidence from sex-ratio (discussed below) these studies indicate that hereditary effects exist in the children of exposed mothers…..”

4/   Life after Fukushima and Chernobyl nuclear disasters with Prof. T. Mousseau

“….Chernobyl, new mice study
Last week Tim said he produced a study showing heightened prevalence of cataracts in the eyes of mice.
and that this was corroborated with an earlier study on birds…..”

February 2, 2018 - Posted by arclight2011part2 | Uncategorized