Chernobyl a Hot Tourist Attraction
MOSCOW — Ukrainian authorities are offering Soviet and foreign tourists a new suggestion: a tour of the radioactive contamination zone around the Chernobyl reactor that blew up in April, 1986.
All trips will begin and end with Geiger counter tests for visitors’ exposure to radiation. If treatment at a radiological medical center is needed, it will be provided “at no extra charge,” the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda reported.
The itinerary planned by the Soviet tour company, Kievturist, will include the city of Chernobyl, a radioactive waste dump at Kopachi and the concrete “sarcophagus” built around the reactor.
Official statistics say 31 people died when one of the four Chernobyl reactors exploded. But one Ukrainian investigator has said the actual toll was more than 500.
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