A Polish photographer has managed to access the most secret areas of Chernobyl: here are the photos that document his explorations.
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves himThe Polish photographer and director Arkadiusz Podniesiński spent more than 10 years documenting the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster. Since his first trip to the site in 2008, he has never stopped immortalizing the nuclear power plant, the surrounding areas and especially the most secret and inaccessible ones, putting his own life at risk. Not always, and not everywhere, protective measures are in fact sufficient to protect the body from radiation.
@podniesinski (Abandoned laboratory)
@podniesinski (Inside the old sarcophagus)
@podniesinski (Interior of the hot chamber, where no one can enter)
Among the protagonists of his photos there are debris and objects abandoned for years, such as old porcelain services, documents and wall clocks, but also old buildings abandoned to themselves, invaded by the surrounding vegetation.
In an interview he gave to My Modern Met, he said that in the last 35 years, “the abandoned and unrenovated buildings, from which more than 100.000 people have been evacuated, are slowly but surely decaying. The main cause, of course, is the passage of time and atmospheric conditions such as snow, rain, frost and humidity which progressively destroy the steel and concrete structures of the buildings. "
@podniesinski (Porcelain left over in the power plant)
@podniesinski (Clocks in the BK2 office)
The photographer, who always wears a protective suit and a mask during his reportages, also documents the plans for dismantling and processing the fuel, although access is forbidden in some rooms.
Podniesiński explained that “working with hazardous materials required the design and construction of completely new structures such as the New Safe Confinement, which covers the old sarcophagus, or the design of new machinery and equipment to make the processing of radioactive materials possible. "
Nonetheless, nothing can truly protect, he said, from radiation deep within the old sarcophagus of reactor 4.
@podniesinski (NSC - New Safe Confinement)
@podniesinski (Provisional plant for the storage of spent nuclear fuel)
In the course of his explorations he even managed to capture the invisible radiation of a high-risk area in the form of small bright spots, as can be seen in the following photo.
@podniesinski (Invisible radiation points)
Podniesiński made a documentary film about Chernobyl, “Alone in the Zone” (2011, 2013), which explores the changing conditions of the site and the lives of those who inhabit it. And a photo album “HALF-LIFE: From Chernobyl to Fukushima” (2018), which took more than 10 years to write and which also documents the aftermath of Fukushima, examining the political and environmental impact of the nuclear disaster.
@podniesinski (Control Panel)
So let's go with him into the secret world of Chernobyl.
@podniesinski (Bunker)
@podniesinski (The old sarcophagus)
@podniesinski (Storage for empty radioactive waste containers)
@podniesinski (Concrete storage for fuel cans)
@podniesinski (Checking radiation levels)
SOURCE: My Modern Met
Read also:
- Large sliding sarcophagus installed in Chernobyl to contain nuclear waste (VIDEO)
- Chernobyl, so time has stood still in abandoned cities
- Chernobyl: 35 years the most serious nuclear disaster ever, but the terrible effects are still there for all to see
