Officials Seek World Heritage Status for Ghost Ruins of Chernobyl

In April 1986, the worst nuclear power plant disaster happened in Ukraine in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. According to the World Nuclear Association, the disaster in Chernobyl was due to the flawed Soviet reactor design ad some serious mistakes by the plant operators.

More than 30 years later, the site remains radioactive, which had led thousands of the citizens living nearby to evacuate the area when the disaster happened. But there is also an influx of tourists coming to Chernobyl that has motivated the officials to seek an official status from UNESCO.

Guide Maksym Polivko said that the Chernobyl zone is already a famous landmark, but it does not have an official status like other famous sites. The zone has become deserted Soviet-era tower blocks, shops, and official buildings where wildlife is taking over.

Chernobyl As A UNESCO World Heritage Site

Under the government's initiative of pushing Chernobyl to become a UNESCO World Heritage alongside the Taj Mahal of India and Stonehenge in England, officials hope that recognition from the UN's cultural agency will boost the zone's tourist attraction and strengthen efforts of preserving aging buildings and properties.

The nuclear power plant disaster in 1986 has left swathes of Ukraine and its neighboring Belarus severely contaminated with radiation, which led to the creation of an exclusive zone the size of Luxembourg, ScienceAlert reported.

Authorities said that it might take 24,000 years before the zone becomes safe again for humans to live in. But the wildlife is not taking over the place despite the threat of radiation it possesses.

Besides them, over 100 older people live in the area despite the radiation threat. The residents' old belongings can be seen in the eerie residential blocks in a ghost town near Chernobyl called Pripyat.

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Preserving the Crumbling Soviet-Era Infrastructure

According to Polivko, once Chernobyl is given the proper status, the officials would be encouraged to act more responsibly in preserving the crumbling Soviet-era infrastructure that surrounds the plant, which requires repair.

Moreover, Ukrainian Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko expresses similar sentiments, describing the recent number of local and foreign tourists coming to see the abandoned nuclear power plant as evidence for Chernobyl's importance only to Ukraine but to humankind as a whole.

In 2019, about 124,000 tourists visited the nuclear power plant, wherein 100,000 of those tourists came from abroad after the hit TV show entitled Chernobyl was released in 2019.

"The area may and should be open to visitors, but it should be more than just an adventure destination for explorers," Tkachenko said. Obtaining the world heritage title will promote the exclusion zone as "a place of memory" that would remind people of a nuclear power plant's dangers.

According to reports, the decision of making Chernobyl a World Heritage site could not come until 2023. For now, the government is planning to propose specific objects in the zone as a heritage site.