Chernobyl: The time frozen and ghostly town of Pripyat in Ukraine is encountering horrors since the world’s worst nuclear accident in 1986. Thousands of residences were forced to clear out due to the clutches of nuclear radiation.
After more than three decades, people are perceiving an influx of tourists and visitors which in return instigated the officials to claim for an official world heritage status from UNESCO. "The Chernobyl zone is already a world famous landmark," guide Maksym Polivko told AFP during a tour on a recent frosty day.
"But today this area has no official status," the 38-year-old said of the exclusion zone where flourishing wildlife is taking over deserted Soviet-era tower blocks, shops and official buildings. This could be a chance for the government to initiate the process for placing Chernobyl in the list of UNESCO heritage list among the landmarks like India's Taj Mahal or Stonehenge in England.
The officials pray that the status will not only boost the tourism but also initiate the process to glorify the country as well. The explosion in the fourth reactor at the nuclear power plant in April 1986 left swathes of Ukraine and neighbouring Belarus badly contaminated and led to the creation of the exclusion zone roughly the size of Luxembourg.