“Postcards from Pripyat, Chernobyl”

I love this video and most everything about the serene, yet disturbing, interesting and dangerous beauty of abandonment. While filming for CBS News on a ’60 Minutes’ episode (aired on Nov. 23, 2014), Danny Cooke, armed with a camera, a dosimeter geiger counter and with the help of his guide Yevgen, also known as a ‘Stalker’, explored Chernobyl and the nearby abandoned city of Pripyat — this is his haunting document of the aftermath:

The Chernobyl disaster was a catastrophic nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine, and was the worst nuclear power plant accident in history in terms of cost and casualties.

Nineteen years after the accident, the empty schools and kindergarten rooms in Pripyat – once the largest town in the Exclusion Zone with 50,000 inhabitantsâ€”remain a silent testament to the sudden and tragic departure. Due to decay, this section of the school building has since collapsed. Pripyat, Ukraine, 2005 (Gerd Ludwig/INSTITUTE)

Built in 1970 for the scientists and workers of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, the city of Pripyat, located less than 3 km from the reactor, was once inhabited by nearly 50,000 residents and brimming with life. Authorities did not immediately warn residents of the accident and ordered the evacuation a full 36 hours after the explosion. Pripyat, Ukraine, 1993 (Gerd Ludwig/INSTITUTE)