"Ruined Chernobyl Nuclear Plant Will Remain A Threat For 3,000 Years"

"PRIPYAT, Ukraine -- Before the fire, the vomiting, the deaths and the vanishing home, it was the promise of bumper cars that captured the imagination of the boys.

It will be 30 years ago Tuesday that Pripyat and the nearby Chernobyl nuclear plant became synonymous with nuclear disaster, that the word Chernobyl came to mean more than just a little village in rural Ukraine, and this place became more than just another spot in the shadowy Soviet Union.

Even 30 years later – 25 years after the country that built it ceased to exist – the full damage of that day is still argued.

Death toll estimates run from hundreds to millions. The area near the reactor is both a teeming wildlife refuge and an irradiated ghost-scape. Much of eastern and central Europe continues to deal with fallout aftermath. The infamous Reactor Number 4 remains a problem that is neither solved nor solvable."

Matthew Schofield reports for the McClatchy Washington Bureau April 24, 2016.

SEE ALSO:

"A Look At The 1986 Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster In Numbers" (AP)