60 minutes rewind
some tragedies never end ask people to name a nuclear disaster and most will probably point
to fukushima in japan three years ago the nuclear meltdown at chernobyl in ukraine was 30 years ago
but the crisis is still with us today that's because radiation virtually
never dies after the explosion in 1986 the soviets built a primitive sarcophagus a tomb
to cover the stricken reactor but it wasn't meant to last very long and it hasn't engineers say
there's still enough radioactive material in there to cause widespread contamination
for the last five years a massive project has been underway to seal the reactor permanently but
the undertaking is three-quarters of a billion dollars short and the completion date has been
delayed repeatedly thirty years later chernobyl's crippled reactor still has the power to kill
it's called the zone and getting into it is crossing the border
into one of the most contaminated places on earth
the 20-mile no-man's land was evacuated nearly 30 years ago the drive to the center
of the zone today and you'll see a massive structure that appears to rise out of nowhere
it's an engineering effort the likes of which the world has never seen
with funds from over 40 different countries 1400 workers are building a giant arch
to cover the damaged reactor like a casserole it will be taller than the statue of liberty
and wider than yankee stadium the largest movable structure on earth
nicholas kai is overseeing the arches construction you know when you think about it here's this
massive project going on all these people are working here billions of dollars being spent
because of one day 30 years ago yeah yeah yeah you're you're right it was the biggest disaster of
the nuclear industry yes the disaster was sparked by massive explosions that tore the
roof off of chernobyl's reactor number four spewing radioactive dust into the atmosphere
the soviets drafted over half a million troops to put out the fire and clear the nuclear
debris thousands got seriously ill from radiation exposure three decades later the cleanup continues
but as this recent video shows the reactor is still packed with poison heaps of gnarled
steel and concrete pools of nuclear fuel that have hardened into a dense mass called the elephant's
foot there's still so much radiation coming from the reactor that workers have to construct the
arch nearly a thousand feet away shielded by a massive concrete wall when finished
the arch will be slid into place around the sarcophagus then sealed up we will push it in once
the average speed it will be around 10 meter an hour so it's a possibility the speed of of a snail
right but that's pretty rapid considering the size of this thing it is yes but the construction
itself will have to move a lot quicker the old plant and sarcophagus are falling apart
just two years ago a snowstorm caused the roof of one of the buildings to collapse
forcing workers to be evacuated and raising fears of further contamination
radiation is not subject to the usual rules of life and death
it is virtually eternal when kai took us on a tour of the site we were fitted with dosimeters
to tell us how much we were being exposed to suddenly the sound we didn't want to hear
hey this vip is going off no no it's not uh it's normal you're sure yes yes yes i'm
definitely sure i don't like a beeper and chernobyl i don't i don't like that sound
building the arch under these conditions is challenging enough
but some of the biggest obstacles have nothing to do with radiation
as violins gripped ukraine this year one of the arches contractors backed out the
project is also 770 million dollars short and has been plagued by repeated delays no matter
when it's completed vast stretches of the zone will never recover this is the city of pripyat
two miles from the reactor thirty years ago the population was fifty thousand today it is zero
pripyat was where many of the plants workers lived grateful for their posting in a town that
was the model of soviet modernity nine-story apartment buildings lined this boulevard
they're still there but you can't see them anymore the forest has taken over a vision
perhaps of what the whole world might look like were people to just disappear
it was springtime in pripyat that day in 1986 and an amusement park was due to open in a few days
andrei gluckoff lived here then so that ferris wheel never had any kids in it never had any kids
these bumper cars on your left right had never kids on it too when you talk to your
former neighbors what do you call it the accident the catastrophe we just call it 26
which was the date of the accident 26 26th of april sort of like the americans called 911
exactly back then glukov worked for chernobyl's nuclear safety division
he took us on a tour through a part of the plant that had not been destroyed
he was off duty that night but what he saw when he drove past the damaged reactor
was like nothing he or anyone else had ever seen this was a terrifying picture it looked like
sunset in a distance about 100 200 yards from you and this was the glowing core
of the reactor was the first and the only time you saw it no that was the first
time when i realized the scale of the disaster
bluecroft told his family in pripyat to stay inside and close the windows
soviet authorities covered the area with secrecy told people they had nothing to worry about but
36 hours later over a thousand buses were sent in to evacuate everyone authorities told people
it would only be for three days one of many lies the people never came back and pripyat is being
overwhelmed by the elements one of the only things still recognizable is that old soviet iconography
drive through the zone and you'll find that many villagers suffer the same fate as pripyat
a row of simple markers has been planted with the names of each one
but amidst this wilderness the strangest sight of all people
just a few ivan ivanovic and his wife maria were evacuated to an apartment block near kiev after
the accident but couldn't take it they weren't made for the city so two years later they came
back today there are three other people living in this village just a few miles from the old
power plant when you decided to come back to live here did anyone tell you it was dangerous
it's really okay here you know when i lived in that apartment block i got sick all the time
the story will continue after this
despite the danger tim musso also chose to be here for the last 15 years the university
of south carolina biologists have been studying the contamination's impact from a makeshift lab
inside the zone aren't many uh serious labs i've seen that look like this yeah this is a
an opportunistic lab it's an old villager's house rousseau's research has shown that the catastrophe
continues to take its toll and we're going to attempt to measure just how radioactive these
mice are what's the comparison between the amounts of radiation a mouse would have here
and a mouse somewhere else some of these mice have on the order of 10 000 times
more radioactivity in their bodies than in clean areas the human toll has been profound as well
thyroid cancer and leukemia affected thousands though the exact number of deaths is still being
debated there certainly is evidence that some of the genetic damage that occurs at the level of
the dna can be transmitted from one generation to the next so a nuclear disaster is never over
there will be areas that will be contaminated for thousands if not millions of years
this makes the zone like no other place on earth which is why it's attracting tourists
if you've done paris and rome why not try a holiday in hell check out the apocalypse how
did your friends react when you told them you were coming on vacation to chernobyl uh they thought it
was very strange yeah but i mean people have been coming here for a while so i you know i guess it
must be safe you guess it must be safe what makes you believe it's safe well you know would assume
that the guides wouldn't bring people here if it wasn't safe well i hope you're right so do i
thousands of workers fled into the zone every day to look after what remains of the planet
others live here year round in one of the few places safe enough for inhabitants the town of
chernobyl itself yevgen ganshirenko was our guide he lives here too why are you living
here and not in kiev um because uh i like this place for me and it's very um
interesting um maybe even uh sacred place a sacred place for me yeah
he spends much of his time writing music on his bass guitar
music as desolate has the landscape surrounding him
as desolate as the remains of this empire that has long since disappeared a decade after the disaster
workers here built a monument honoring their colleagues whose lives had been destroyed
the workers and the firemen made the monument themselves yeah yeah exactly yeah and what what
does it say thing to those who save the world to those who save the world that may sound a
bit hyperbolic but when the reactor exploded in 1986 radioactive dust and debris were carried
as far away as italy and sweden until the arch finally seals up that stricken reactor
and no one knows when that might be something like that could happen again unlike other historic
relics chernobyl does not belong to the past its power will never die chernobyl is forever