Chernobyl new hot spot for tourist

'A symphony'

Several Ukrainian travel agencies offer tours from one to seven days, priced from $30 to $790.

The activities on offer include viewing the new shield covering the damaged reactor, feeding gigantic catfish in the radioactive waters of cooling pools, and driving past the "red forest"－where pine needles turned from green to red after the accident due to absorbing massive levels of radiation.

The trees were felled and buried during the cleanup operation, but even now, when a tour bus drives past the area without stopping, the tourists' Geiger counters all start beeping frenetically, signaling a very strong increase in radiation.

"A symphony," one of the tourists said.

The highlight of the trip is a visit to Pripyat, the ghost town built for nuclear workers a few kilometers from the plant. The nearly 50,000 residents were evacuated the day after the disaster, never to return home.

Blocks of flats and schools where children's toys, books and handwritten notes still lie abandoned and a big wheel still rises above an amusement park on the central square.

Adam Ridemar, a Swedish student who came with his father to see this "iconic place" said that it is "very cool to see all this, to see how a whole city is just a relic of what it used to be".

He voices surprise at the luxuriant vegetation, saying he had expected a "concrete jungle".

Nature is reclaiming the abandoned land with tarmacked roads gradually choked by wild grasses and apartment blocks disappearing behind green foliage－a sight that fascinates many visitors.

"It proves that nature is stronger than humans after all," Bandic said.

People "have sun, wind, they don't need nuclear energy: It's so dangerous", she said.

AFP-Xinhua-Reuters