29 Most Toxic Places On Earth

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Chernobyl, Ukraine

Source: https://inhabitat.com/

This city in Ukraine is known for the nuclear disaster that occurred in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on April 26, 1986. It is recognized as the worst nuclear disaster in history, releasing significant amounts of radioactivity, in the form of particulate and gaseous radioisotopes, into the atmosphere. Compared to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, about four hundred times more radioactive material was unleashed from the Chernobyl disaster, contaminating air, mountain regions, and groundwater. The accident also adversely affected flora and fauna, causing the death of evergreen, coniferous trees and sickness and sterility in animals. Hundreds of animals born after the incident carried deformities such as missing limbs, ribs, eyes, heads, or deformed skulls.

The UN estimates 50 people died as a direct result of the nuclear catastrophe, and 4,000 more might eventually perish from exposure to radiation. While exposure to radioactive iodine was a main health concern immediately after the tragedy, today, the ghost city that used to be home to 14,000 residents will remain contaminated and desolate for the next 300 years.