The Abandoned City of Pripyat

Cos

Sounds like the title to a blockbuster movie like an Indiana Jones movie (Indiana Jones and The Abandoned City of Pripyat) or a Harry Potter movie (Harry Potter and The Abandoned City of Pripyat) and I will admit the title of this post sounds like a pretty cool movie…and I might use the “The Abandoned City of _____” name for something I work on one day…unfortunately it comes from something pretty dark and scary.

What happened in Japan this past weekend is horrible and worse yet, if you could even conceive of it, it doesn’t seem to be over yet. The explosions from the Fukushima Nuclear power plant continue to grip the world on the edge of their seats.

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I remember when the first major Tsunami, in recent history, hit Indonesia and Sri Lanka. Around that time, I was driving cars while I was working at the car dealership and  I continually called “Tell Me” (800 555-8355) to learn about news on the disaster which was half a world away. I can remember sitting in awe getting gas in a Chevy something while I learned of the devastating death toll and how it grew. Six years later and the story is the in the same vein, only with even more on the line.

This time around not only is the devastation just as bad, but now they have to contend with the Nuclear power plants and how can news outlets bring up Nuclear power plants without talking about the most famous (or infamous)  one of all;  Chernobyl. The Chernobyl Disaster occurred on April 26th, 1986 and it is still considered the only level 7 event which is on the International Nuclear Event Scale; which up until today I had never heard of but it is like the Richter Scale of noteable Nuclear Events that have occurred in the world. See below for a picture of what it looks like.

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Anyway, I can see that I am loosing you, but like everything, I am telling the story that got us to the title of this blog posting; which happens so often. In hearing comparisons from the Fukushima power plant to Chernobyl I decided to look at some articles on Chernobyl and I happened upon a name of a nearby city which had over 40,000 people in it when the disaster happened. All of those people literally had to relocate overnight. And the name of that city of Pripyat. I saw a picture  on Wikipedia that reminded me of something that I had seen and I couldn’t put my finger on it too fast.

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It was of the abandoned buildings and in the distance a Ferris wheel; still standing over twenty years later. Very eerie I know, but I needed to find out where I had seen it before. I wracked my brain and realized it was on the History Channel special “Life After People“. The documentary showed what happens to a city 20 years after humans have disappeared over night. These people literally had to get up and go fast, leaving behind everything. The documentary goes on to explain that children’s belonging in the schools were left exactly where they were, the Ferris wheel was apart of a carnival that was set to open four days after the disaster (obviously set up prior to the event).

I found the clip from “Life After People” on youtube and you can view it below:

To tie everything together, I hope that everything that is currently going on in Japan doesn’t end up like what happened at Chernobyl (or as bad as the events of the 2004 Tsunami that devastated Sri Lanka and Indonesia)  and that none of the surrounding cities and people need to evacuate and leave a ghost town like Pripyat. As of this posting, the current state of the Fukushima power plant is at a level 6 and I hope for the best in getting that down and having everything fixed before this becomes much worse.

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