Not only Pripyat. The 13 most radioactive places on Earth have been named

The city of Pripyat is one of the 13 most radioactive places on Earth. All of them are the consequences of human activity, from nuclear weapons testing and industrial accidents.

Highly radioactive areas can have serious health consequences for those who come close to them. The metro.co.uk website has collected the most radioactive places on Earth in no particular order.

Chernobyl nuclear power plant (Pripyat, Ukraine)

In April 1986, one of the worst nuclear accidents in history occurred. During a nighttime safety test at the plant, which was supposed to simulate a power failure at the plant, a massive steam explosion and an open-air graphite fire occurred. The fire sent columns of radioactive material high into the atmosphere, exposing more than five million people in the former Soviet Union alone to fallout.

Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant (Japan)

In 2011, the disaster at the Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant resulted in the leakage of radioactive material from three of the plant's reactors and the release of contaminated wastewater into the Pacific Ocean.

The city of Fukushima was hit by a 9.1 magnitude earthquake that triggered a tsunami, and the power plant's existing safety features were overwhelmed. The plant managed to survive the first earthquake, but the resulting tsunami was more than twice as strong as the plant could withstand. This led to the failure of the plant's bypass water pumps, which were designed to cool the reactors during a shutdown. The plant had to be shut down, but huge amounts of radioactive waste were still released into the environment. It is believed that it will take approximately four decades to fully decommission the plant.

Hanford (Washington, USA)

This place is now one of the most radioactive places in the world, as it produced about 74 tons of plutonium for US nuclear weapons.

Established in 1943, it was used during the Cold War and was one of the main US facilities for the production of plutonium for nuclear weapons. It is well known that it was part of the creation of the first atomic bomb.

Hanford produced almost two-thirds of the plutonium used in the US nuclear weapons stockpile, as it produced about 60,000 nuclear weapons, including the bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945.

The site is now decommissioned, but it still contains about 60% of high-level radioactive waste (by volume) and is currently managed by the U.S. Department of Energy. The vast majority of the waste was buried underground, but significant areas of groundwater have since been contaminated.

Test site (Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan)

The Semipalatinsk test site, which the Soviet Union used to test nuclear weapons, and it is estimated that a total of about 456 bombs were dropped there between 1949 and 1989.

The full impact of the tests only became apparent when it closed in 1991, as the Soviet Union never disclosed what their testing involved. The general consensus is that around 200,000 locals were affected, as many developed various types of cancer. In 2010, a BBC article reported that one in 20 children is born with genetic defects.

Mailuu-Suu (Kyrgyzstan)

A rich source of uranium lies underground in Mailuu-Suu in Kyrgyzstan. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union mined large quantities of uranium ore, and the highly contaminated mining waste was buried around the excavated areas, but significant amounts also remained above ground. This means that the waste also ended up in the river, and the effects are still ongoing. However, since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, local residents say there has been little or no monitoring and maintenance of the dumpsites.

About 10,000 metric tons of radioactive uranium were produced between 1946 and 1967, fueling the Soviet Union's first nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants.

Siberian Chemical Plant, Tomsk-7 (Seversk, Russia)

Back in Soviet times, one radiochemical plant at the Siberian Chemical Combine, called the "secret city" of Tomsk-7, now known as Seversk, had several nuclear facilities for the production of plutonium and uranium. The city was closed, and only plant workers and their families could live in the area. But in 1993, workers caused a massive accident that released radioactive gas, uranium, and plutonium into the environment for 28 km, and 177,000 people are believed to have been affected.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the site ceased production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium and is now a major site for the storage and handling of weapons-grade nuclear materials.

Sellafield (Cumbria, UK)

During the Cold War, Sellafield produced weapons-grade nuclear material for the British nuclear weapons program. Since then, it has been the world's first commercial nuclear power plant used for electricity generation, but this part of the facility has since been decommissioned and is currently being dismantled.

However, the plant still releases contaminated waste into the Irish Sea. However, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the radiation exposure from man-made radioactivity in the Irish Sea is very low compared to the natural radioactivity in the environment.

Somali coast, Somalia

The Somali coast has become a dumping ground for a large amount of nuclear and hazardous waste. The United Nations Environment Program believes that rusted casks of waste that washed up on the Somali coastline during the 2004 tsunami were dumped as far back as the 1990s.

It is estimated that at least 600 barrels of toxic and nuclear waste may have been dumped on their shores, meaning that an environmental disaster may be brewing in the future.

Karunagappalli (Kerala, India)

The coastal city of Karunagappalli in Kerala, India, is known for its high radiation background from the phosphate mineral monazite in its soil, which contains thorium. Thorium is a naturally occurring, slightly radioactive metal. Researchers have not found higher cancer rates among local residents in the area, but some reports have found higher radiation levels per person.

BOMARC Site RW-01, McGuire Air Force Base (New Jersey, USA)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has recognized the fenced-off annex to McGuire Air Force Base as highly contaminated. In June 1960, a fire destroyed a nuclear-tipped missile that released radioactive plutonium into the environment, while heat from the fire and firefighting efforts dispersed the plutonium across the site.

Church Rock Uranium Mill (New Mexico, USA)

In 1979, a major spill released thousands of tons of solid radioactive waste from the plant and gallons of acidic solution into the Puerto River. The fallout spread over 130 km and reached as far as Navajo County in Arizona. There is information that local residents who used the river suffered from the effects of radiation exposure, including some serious infections that led to amputations, and herds of sheep and cattle died after drinking contaminated water.

Kyshtym disaster (Mayak, Russia)

In 1957, a large-scale nuclear accident occurred at the top-secret Mayak nuclear power plant in the Soviet Union, which was one of the worst nuclear accidents in the world at the time, known as the Kyshtym incident.

The accident, which released more than 80 tons of radioactive waste in an explosion, spread large amounts of nuclear material over an area of more than 52,000 square kilometers (20,000 square miles), home to at least 270,000 people.

Around 10,000 people were evacuated, and waste from the plant was also dumped in the surrounding area and into Lake Karachai.

Incident in Goiania (Goiás, Brazil)

In 1987, thieves stole a teletherapy device containing cesium-137 from an abandoned medical clinic at the Goiano Radiation Therapy Institute in Goiania, Goiás, Brazil.

They then opened the machine, removed the lead capsule containing cesium, and unknowingly spread the radioactive material over a large area.

Four people were confirmed dead as a result of the incident, and about 250 people were severely contaminated. During the cleanup, topsoil had to be removed from several areas and houses had to be demolished. All items in these houses, including personal property, were removed and burned.

Despite the power of the explosions, people are still living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Instead, there is still an exclusion zone around the Chornobyl nuclear power plant, where it is dangerous to stay for a long time. And the point is not how much time has passed or the diligence of the Japanese. It is not so much the explosion itself that plays an important role as its consequences: that is, the amount of radiation released during the explosions.

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