Chernobyl, Ukraine
Agriculture
A nuclear accident devastated the region near Chernobyl, Ukraine, on April 26, 1986. These images show the area around the nuclear power plant three days after the accident, and then years and decades after the accident.
The Landsat 5 image from April 29, 1986, was the first civilian satellite image of the accident. The data from Landsat were used to help confirm that an explosion had happened at Chernobyl and that the plant had been shut down.
Location
Apr. 29, 1986, Landsat 5 (path/row 182/24) — Chernobyl, Ukraine
Apr. 29, 1986, Landsat 5 (path/row 182/24) — Chernobyl, Ukraine
July 26, 1992, Landsat 4 (path/row 182/24) — Chernobyl, Ukraine
June 5, 2011, Landsat 5 (path/row 182/24) — Chernobyl, Ukraine
Aug. 11, 2018, Landsat 8 (path/row 182/24) — Chernobyl, Ukraine
Chernobyl, Ukraine Additional Imagery & Stories
Abandonment
Near the common borders of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant lies near the Pripyat River at the northwestern end of a co...
Cooling Pond
The Landsat 5 image acquired before April 26 shows heated water being pumped from the plant into the adjacent cooling pond and circulating countercloc...
New Safe Confinement
A temporary structure was quickly built over reactor number 4 to contain radioactive material. A more permanent solution was needed. About two decades...
Reactor Number 4
A closer look at the site of the power plant in the 1986 image shows a red spot near the location of reactor number 4. The high brightness of those...
Wildlife
The exclusion zone is not officially a wildlife preserve, but with virtually no human intervention in the 1,600-square-mile zone since the accident, w...
References
Bauer, S., 2017, World's largest moveable steel structure shelters sarcophagus at Chernobyl: Phys.org, accessed online April 19, 2019, at https://phys.org/news/2017-04-world-largest-moveable-steel-sarcophagus.html.
Borys, C., 2017, A vast new tomb for the most dangerous waste in the world: BBC Future, accessed online April 19, 2019, at http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170101-a-new-tomb-for-the-most-dangerous-disaster-site-in-the-world.
Central Intelligence Agency, 1996, Radiation hotspots resulting from the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant accident, in Handbook of international economic statistics, 1996: Washington, DC, Government Printing Office. (Also available at http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/belarus.html.)
Choi, C.Q., 2018, Chernobyl’s Radioactive ‘Wildlife Preserve’ Spawns Growing Wolf Population: Live Science, accessed online April 19, 2019, at https://www.livescience.com/62964-chernobyl-wolves-spreading.html.
Davids, D., and Doulgeris, A., 2007, Unsupervised change detection of multitemporal Landsat imagery to identify changes in land cover following the Chernobyl accident: Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, 2007. IGARSS 2007. IEEE International, Barcelona, p. 3486–3489. (Also available at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/icp.jsp?arnumber=4423597.)
Dubchak, A., 2018, Under the Shield—Inside Chernobyl's New Safe Confinement: Radio Free Europe, accessed April 26, 2019 at https://www.rferl.org/a/inside-chernobyl-nuclear-power-plant-conferment-shelter-photo/29583945.html.
Harrell, E. and Marson, J., 2011, Apocalypse Today—Visiting Chernobyl, 25 years later: Time Science, Apr. 26, 2011, available online at http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2067562,00.html. (Accessed February 15, 2012.)
Marples, D.R., 1986, Chernobyl and nuclear power in the USSR: New York, St. Martin's Press, 228 p.
Medvedev, Z.A., 1990, The legacy of Chernobyl: New York, W.W. Norton, 352 p.
Mould, R.F., 1988, Chernobyl—the real story: Oxford, Pergamon Press, 255 p.
Park, C.C., 1989, Chernobyl—the long shadow: New York, Routledge, 207 p.
Pearce, F., 2016, Wildlife heaven or nuclear hell—Chernobyl’s future up for grabs: New Scientist, accessed online April 19, 2019, at https://www.newscientist.com/article/2081032-wildlife-heaven-or-nuclear-hell-chernobyls-future-up-for-grabs/.
Sadowski, F.G, and Covington, S.J., 1987, Processing and analysis of commercial satellite image data of the nuclear accident near Chernobyl, U.S.S.R.: USGS Bulletin 1785, 19 p. (Also available online at http://pubs.usgs.gov/bul/1785/report.pdf.)
Schmidt, K.F., 1995, The truly wild life around Chernobyl: U.S. News and World Report, July 17, 1995, p. 51–53.
Stebelsky, I., 1995, Radionuclide contamination and settlement abandonment around Chernobyl: Annals of the Association of American Geographers, v. 85, p. 291.
University of Georgia, 2019, Wildlife is abundant in Chernobyl, study reveals: ScienceDaily, accessed online April 19, 2019, at https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190131143410.htm.
USGS, 2016, Landsat Played Role in Confirming 1986 Chernobyl Disaster: Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center, accessed online April 19, 2019, at https://eros.usgs.gov/image-of-the-week/landsat-played-role-confirming-1986-chernobyl-disaster.
Wendle, J., 2016, Animals Rule Chernobyl Three Decades After Nuclear Disaster: National Geographic, accessed online April 19, 2019, at https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/060418-chernobyl-wildlife-thirty-year-anniversary-science/.
Williams, N., 1995, Chernobyl—life abounds without people: Science, v. 269, p. 304.
USA Today, 2016, Chernobyl Disaster—30 Years Later: USA Today, accessed April 19, 2016, at http://www.usatoday.com/pages/interactives/chernobyl/.