Wild animals are benefiting from the absence of humans in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, writes Hazel Healy.
New research has shown that the contaminated exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is now chock-a-block with wild animals, including boar, elk, deer and wolves.
The nuclear accident forced 116,000 people out of their homes back in 1986. Since then, radiation levels have reduced in some places within the 4,750 square-kilometre exclusion zone, which stretches between Ukraine and Belarus, but they remain high in others; it is too dangerous for humans to return.
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