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Top 10 Most Radioactive Places in the World


when your skin starts glowing green it’s
time to pack up and leave
welcome to watchmojo.com and today we’re
counting down our picks for the top 10
most radioactive places in the world
before we begin we publish new videos
every day
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content for this list we’re looking at
locations that have suffered either a
leak or an accident or that have natural
levels of radiation that are not safely
contained with a plant or power source
number 10 HD to Togo Yano Diageo terapia
go ice brazil this story started as a
petty robbery and finished tragically
when two thieves broke into the
abandoned guano Institute of
radiotherapy in 1987 the objective was
to steal scrap metal and leave among the
items taken was a strange device that
eventually glowed blue after the crooks
sold the dismantled device the scrapyard
owner showed it to family and friends
with it finding its way into the hands
of several owners and ultimately turned
over to a hospital the device turned out
to be a radioactive cancer treatment
instrument containing lethal doses of
radiation after those who handled the
device became ill authorities were
called to destroy it but by that time a
large area had become contaminated four
people died and almost 250 had elevated
levels of radioactivity in their bodies
number 9 my yak production association
as your scruffa the site of more than
one nuclear disaster this plant kept its
accidents quiet until the 1980s in 1957
when a cooling system surrounded one of
the waste tasks failed a huge explosion
rocked the plant and released deadly
radiation particles over a radius of
more than 7,700 square miles the
government didn’t acknowledge the
accident until decades later the 1957
kyshtym disaster killed about 50 people
and exposed 470 thousand people to
radioactivity and is considered one of
the most serious nuclear accidents of
its kind meanwhile the plant where it
took place has also been highly
criticized for pumping its radioactive
waste into neighboring lakes
number eight Sellafield Sellafield UK
containing multiple plants and nuclear
power stations sellafield
is another site known for pumping its
waste into a water source
once dumping over 8 million litres of
dangerous waste into the nearby sea
every day
in 1957 the same year as the MIAC
disaster one of its many facilities the
Windscale piles plant became the
location of the worst nuclear disaster
in Great Britain’s history after a
cartridge caught fire within one of the
reactors it spread and burned for over
three days releasing radioactive
particles including a known carcinogenic
particle across a large section of the
UK and Europe the disaster resulted in
the permanent closing of the reactors in
the plant and a cleanup that continued
until the early 21st century number
seven the Somali coast Somalia if you
thought organized crime wasn’t involved
in nuclear waste think again over a
period of years and in discrete
operations an Italian crime syndicate
called the Drang Gaeta allegedly loaded
ships with nuclear waste and sank them
off the coast of Somalia and other
developing African countries
contaminating the water because
long-running civil wars in Somalia
prevented the formation of a strong
government there was no one to really
pay attention to illegal dumping which
started in the 1980s Swiss and Italian
companies are thought to have used the
area as a dumping ground for years
nowadays the waters surrounding the
coast are reportedly highly toxic and
rumors have circulated that the dumping
is still going on number six Hanford
Nuclear Reservation Washington USA as
part of the notorious Manhattan Project
the Hanford Site was the planet’s first
full-scale plutonium production reactor
it was expanded throughout the Cold War
so it can make more than 60,000 weapons
worth of the radioactive chemical though
it was completely decommissioned by the
early 70s it left over 53 million
gallons of waste and numerous leaking
tanks that still had to be cleaned up
21st century investigations have shown
that the Hanford Site has been leaking
radioactive waste in
the ground since 2010 and pouring tons
of radioactive water into the Columbia
River over a 25 year period the site of
the largest environmental cleanup in US
history
it’s predicted that the Hanford Site
will remain contaminated for decades to
come
number 5 Siberian chemical combine
severe Russia originally constituted to
produce mass quantities of weapons-grade
plutonium and highly enriched uranium
this plant is located within a closed
town that requires entry documents to be
shown at a checkpoint in order to access
it
it’s Tomsk 7 reprocessing complex was
the site of one of Russia’s worst
nuclear accidents in 1993 while a tank
was being cleaned with nitric acid it
quickly overheated and caused an
explosion this severely radiated around
the plant and significantly raised
levels of radioactivity in the
surrounding areas while the facility’s
plutonium and HEU production
capabilities were shut down the isolated
and remote plant continues to store low
and intermediate levels of nuclear
material for weapons and radioactive
waste number 4 zappity mining and
chemical combine my Lu su Kyrgyzstan
from 1946 to 1968 this compound was one
of the largest mining and processing
facilities of uranium ore used for the
Soviet nuclear weapons program when it
shut down it left behind
numerous tailings or uranium pits on the
unstable hillside above the neighboring
town of my Lu su in 1958 a massive
landslide released over 1 million six
hundred thousand US gallons of
radioactive waste onto the town below
listed as one of the top ten most
polluted places in the world my Lulu
sues cleanup has been ongoing but slow
and threats of the hillside tailing
sites are still present and looming
number three
Shem a palate science test site also
known as the polygon Shem a palate
science
Kazakhstan before you start testing
nuclear weaponry you might want to make
sure no one lives in the area the
primary zone for Soviet nuclear testing
during the Cold War is an area dubbed
the polygon which was pronounced
inhabited by the government at the time
they apparently didn’t do too much
research as over 700,000 people resided
within the region while the tests were
going on only officially closing in 1991
the site remains one of the most
contaminated nuclear zones on the planet
with an estimated 200,000 people still
suffering ill effects from the radiation
emitted by the bomb tests number 2
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant
Fukushima Japan during the 2011
earthquake and tsunami massive waves
rocked the reactors at Fukushima Daini
and Daiichi power plants destroying
cooling systems and sending them into
danger of meltdown
while Fukushima Daini was shut down in
two days the Daiichi plant wasn’t so
lucky the resulting disaster included
the failure of emergency reactors three
nuclear meltdowns explosions and the
release of radioactive material into the
surrounding areas particularly
contaminating the Pacific Ocean in
addition to a four stage evacuation
order the Fukushima disaster considered
the most significant incident of its
kind and second only to our number-one
entry caused unknown amounts of damage
and likely increased the risk of cancer
deaths in the people who live nearby and
as of 2017 there are still no definite
decommission plans before we reveal our
number one pick here are some honorable
mentions
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number one the Chernobyl nuclear power
plant trip yet Ukraine the site of
what’s often considered the largest and
worst nuclear disaster in history the
Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster
released over 400 times the level of
radiation than the bomb dropped on
Hiroshima during a safety test an
explosion was triggered and the
resulting fissures of smoke exposed much
of the Western USSR and Europe to
dangerous levels of nuclear particles
with an estimated six to seven million
people now subject to the effects of
radiation the incident resulted in over
31 deaths with over a hundred more
hospitalized and multiple eventual
cancer deaths though this all occurred
in 1986 the Chernobyl site is still
closed today with levels of leftover
radiation so high that the area cannot
yet be fully cleaned do you agree with
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