Chernobyl, the Ghosttown

It's now 18 years that a highly radiaoctive cloud gave practically everybody in Europe a rapid, un-anticipated lesson in the dangers of nuclear power. Agriculture all over Europe was impacted, and a huge area around the power plant in Chernobyl had to evacuated. Several hundred thousand Russians died in the following years due to the effects of the radiation and some areas will be too dangerous to live in for the next thousand years.

But now some people are visiting Chernobyl, more or less legally. Here is a photo report from a young Russian woman who has visited Chernobyl several times over the last few years on her motorbike.

Stunning, scary and thought-provoking.

We will have to live with nuclear power for the forseeable future and not all about it is bad considering the global-warming-inducing alternatives, but we should always remember Chernobyl as an example of what happens if we let our guard down.