Where is Chernobyl and can I go there?
THE site of the world's worst nuclear disaster has seen a huge surge in visitors and had become a tourist hotspot.
Here's the latest on the Chernobyl power plant, and what has happened since the disaster.
Where is Chernobyl?
Chernobyl is a ghost city in the restricted Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, where a power plant explosion claimed the lives of dozens of people in April 1986.
At least 31 people died following exposure to radiation, but the World Health Organisation has estimated that thousands of people could eventually be exposed to fatal radiation.
Chernobyl is situated in northern Kieve Oblast in Ukraine, near the border with Belarus.
The site and the nearby city of Pripyat were evacuated on April 23, 1986, 30 hours after the most disastrous nuclear accident in history.
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The abandoned city of Pripyat had a population of zero in 2020, the city is far closer to the power plant than Chernobyl itself, and was built in the 1970s as a home for the power plant workers.
The city and surrounding area have been largely deserted ever since - although an estimated 60,000 tourists visited in 2018.
Is it safe to go there now?
Beginning in 2010 the site and Pripyat become a popular tourist spot.
Visitors were required to be screened before they entered the Exclusion Zone and were told not to touch anything within the cordon.
There are around 160 villages in the Exclusion Zone - the 18-mile radius around the power plant.
Most recently, on February 24, 2022 during , Ukraine .
An adviser to the Ukrainian President, Mykhailo Poldoliak, told reporters: "After a fierce battle, our control over the Chernobyl site was lost.
"The condition of the former Chernobyl nuclear power plant, confinement, and nuclear waste storage facilities is unknown." That same day Russian troops descended upon Chernobyl, capturing the area rapidly and killing those who stood in their way.
Ukrainian President tweeted that day in response to the events, “Russian occupation forces are trying to seize the Chernobyl [Nuclear Power Plant]. Our defenders are sacrificing their lives so that the tragedy of 1986 will not be repeated.
"This is a declaration of war against the whole of Europe.”
Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to the interior minister, told that Ukrainian troops had put up a "fierce resistance," but warned, "radioactive dust could cover the territory of Ukraine, Belarus and the countries of the European Union.”
Has it been made into a tourist site?
In 2019 Ukraine's president has said there were plans to turn the abandoned ghost town into an official tourist site.
At the time President Volodymyr Zelensky said that he wanted to open up the site in a bid to improve the area's reputation.
There was plans for walking trails and better mobile phone reception in the area, , which means the tourists who would have visited would've been able to get close to the haunting sights of the disaster zone.
Prior to , filming restrictions at the site were going to be lifted, meaning that people could have potentially live streamed their experience.
Previously, tourists could only visit the site with a guide - or enter illegally - and there were occasions where local police would need to be bribed.
Why have tourists been criticised?
Holiday companies previously offered packages that gave an official tour of the Exclusion Zone.
The ghost town also includes a school that features in Call of Duty - an abandoned Ferris wheel and homes frantically deserted when evacuation began.
Social media influencers have come in droves to visit the ghostly wreckage - one was seen posing half naked in a G-string and a hazmet suit.
Craig Mazin, the writer of Sky's acclaimed Chernobyl said it's "wonderful" that a "wave" of people had visited.
But he urged visitors to remember "that a terrible tragedy occurred there".
He wrote on Twitter: "Comport yourselves with respect for all who suffered and sacrificed."
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