Chernobyl’s radioactive landscape is testament to nature’s resilience and survival spirit

Chernobyl’s radioactive landscape is testament to nature’s resilience and survival spirit


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On contaminated land that is too dangerous for human life, the world’s wildest horses roam free.

Across the Chernobyl exclusion zone, Przewalski’s horses — stocky, sand-colored and almost toy-like in appearance — graze in a radioactive landscape larger than Luxembourg.

On April 26, 1986, an explosion at the nuclear power plant in Ukraine sent radiation across Europe and forced the evacuation of entire towns, displacing tens of thousands.

Wild Przewalski horses graze in a field inside the Chernobyl exclusion zone in Ukraine on April 8, 2026. AP

It was the worst nuclear disaster in history.

Four decades on, Chernobyl — which is transliterated as “Chornobyl” in Ukraine — remains too dangerous for humans.

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But the wildlife has moved back in.

Wolves now prowl the vast no-man’s-land spanning Ukraine and Belarus, and brown bears have returned after more than a century. Populations of lynx, moose,

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