Haunting images from a drone recently flown over the Chernobyl-radiated city of Pripyat in the Ukraine reveal a desolate, rusting ghost town that was abandoned nearly 30 years ago when the Soviet nuclear power plant exploded and contaminated the area.
British filmmaker Danny Cooke created his "Postcards from Pripyat" film while creating a segment for CBS's "60 Minutes,"
according to The Mirror. Pripyat was evacuated in 1986 after the Chernobyl explosion. It had 49,000 residents.
"Chernobyl is one of the most interesting and dangerous places I've been,"
Cooke wrote on Vimeo. "There was something serene, yet highly disturbing about this place. Time has stood still and there are memories of past happenings floating around us."
"The nuclear disaster, which happened in 1986 (the year after I was born), had an effect on so many people, including my family when we lived in Italy. I can't imagine how terrifying it would have been for the hundreds of thousands of locals who evacuated," Cooke wrote.
One interesting part of the film is a view of the rusting amusement park in Pripyat that was never used. The Mirror reported that the park was within days of opening when the Chernobyl disaster happened.
Construction is underway to build a $2.1 billion coated steel, climate-controlled sarcophagus that would encase the failed power plant, which remains radioactive,
reported Fox News. Construction began in 2010 but work as slowed due to international financial backing, Ukrainian government stability and military conflict, according to
Fox News.
The dome-like structure has been planned in sections, comprising of two 300-foot-high arches that will cover the site and then be walled on the sides, noted Fox News. Officials admit, though, that the project is well behind its 2015 completion goal.
"In our financial analysis we are of course making the working assumption that it will not receive any money from Ukraine in the near term,” Vince Novak, director of nuclear safety at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said in an interview with Nuclear Engineering magazine.
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