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jamesqf -

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Do a little more background reading. There are quite a few people (hundreds to a thousand or so) who've lived in the exclusion zone since the accident, because they refused to leave. There are also an unknown number of settlers who've moved in because - like the animals - they prefer the wilderness life.

There are also quite a number of places in the world with a higher level of natural radiation than you'd get in most of the exclusion zone. Ramsar, Iran tops the list: Ramsar, Mazandaran - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You are right, there's no incentive for you to move there. And yes, I did read about people living there before I posted :

Living in Chernobyl: "Radioactivity? That's Nonsense!" - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International - April 2006

Almost 200,000 inhabitants were evacuated from the contaminated parts of Ukraine in May 1986, areas that include the cities of Prypiat, Chernobyl and Poliske. The evacuation period was officially limited to three days, but those three days became weeks, months and finally years. According to Sergei Chernov, once a local reporter in Chernobyl, roughly 200 people secretly returned to their homes in 1987. Six years ago, twelve of the 80 towns were inhabited again. Today, only seven are.

Two elderly people live in Staryye Shepelichi, a town on the Ukraine-Belarus border, roughly ten kilometers from the disaster site. Between 60 and 70 people live in Chernobyl. In theory, all scientists and engineers who work in the area should leave for two weeks after a maximum of 15 days; in practice, no one enforces the rule.

The Aftermath of Chernobyl: A Visit to the Exclusion Zone - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International - April 2006

There are people who live within the exclusion zone. A number of older residents, unwilling to move away from the villages they lived in their entire lives, have returned. They receive food delivered from outside the zone along with regular medical checkups. For many, living inside the zone is a macabre wager -- that old age will do its damage before cancer takes hold.

Today, the town of Chernobyl itself is likewise home to some 4,000 residents. Radiation from reactor No. 4 still leaks in dangerous amounts through substantial cracks in the makeshift cover installed in the months after the disaster. And scientists, geologists and workers are temporarily stationed in the less-irradiated buildings as they construct a new sarcophagus to safely cover the radioactive substances that remain. But the vast majority of those temporarily living in Chernobyl are forestry workers. Should the forests around Chernobyl catch fire, a new radioactive cloud would be set free.

I am trying to google Hanna Semenenko. She would be 83 years old this year.

CarloSW2