Chernobyl is the site of the world’s most infamous nuclear power accident that occurred in 1986, but it will soon become a unique tourist location as the Ukrainian government opens it up in January 2011 for visitors. The plan is to define safe and informative travel routes around the nuclear site, allowing Ukrainians and foreigners to see for themselves the devastation of the nuclear accident, and how nature is coping with it.
The area around the Chernobyl reactor has been sealed off to visitors since Chernobyl's Reactor No. 4 had a meltdown event on April 26, 1986. The radiation spread over much of northern Europe, displacing upwards of 350,000 people from the Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. Highly contaminated areas still lie within a 30-mile (48-kilometer) radius around Chernobyl.
A few thousand employees still work to maintain the sarcophagus that was built around the reactor building to contain the radiation. Hundreds of evacuees also returned to their villages in spite of the government restrictions, and some tourist companies already offer illegal tours.
The existing sarcophagus is to be rebuilt by 2015, with a new structure 345ft (105m) tall, 853ft (260m) wide, and 490ft (150m) long, with a 20,000 ton weight (20,300 tons) and big enough to house the Statue of Liberty. The cost is covered by international donors, and is around US$1.15 billion (€870 million).
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