I didn’t know that the ‘86 Chernobyl meltdown threw most of the fallout (80%) into Belarus… At that time, though, I guess they were both still part of the USSR, so technically they were the same country.
“Farmers grow some grain crops here. The radioactive material concentrates in roots and stalks, which they plough back into the soil after harvesting. So the soil is almost as contaminated now as it was after the accident. The Belarus government hopes that by growing biofuels and using the whole plant, it can cleanse the soil. ‘Instead of centuries of natural decay [of the radionuclides] this process will cut the time to 20 to 40 years.’”
If they can find a way to extract the radioactive isotopes from the soil, maybe this area could be repopulated once again.
