The disaster at the nuclear power station has drawn much attention from tourists who visit the surrounding area of Pripyat to marvel at the eerie town. At the heart, Chernobyl is still leaking to this day and an 18-mile exclusion zone is in place around the plant. But tourists are allowed to enter under guided tours providing they carry a personal Geiger counter.
A so-called ‘elephant’s foot’ mass of highly-radioactive material has been formed from the molten remains of reactor Number 4.
The toxic object carries a horrific death sentence which can take effect in just 300 seconds, according to The Sun.
The ‘foot’, named because of its striking resemblance to elephant’s skin, is considered to be the most dangerous piece of waste in the world and could still melt through the concrete base of the power plant.
After continuous melting for more than 30 years if the foot breaks through the concrete it could contaminate the water of nearby villages.
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The Chernobyl tour has said short-term trips are safe and levels of actual radiation sickness are only inside the sarcophagus surrounding the power plant.
Places on touristic routes, additional protective measures are not required according to Chernobyltour.com
But there were “cases of footwear contamination of the especially curious visitors” according to the website.
They said: “With the help of a brush and washing powder we always managed to decontaminate it, so on the exit of the radiation control point their footwear was clean.”
Tourists are also warmed to wrap tripods with plastic bags and not put any technical equipment on the ground.
Experts believe the city will be uninhabitable to humans for at least the next 100 years despite 400 people living there today.
Franka Hummels, a Dutch author and journalist who has spent time in the exclusion zone for research, said the people who live there are “healthy”.
She did say, however: “That doesn’t mean it is healthy to live there.”