Chernobyl Forest Fire Nears Nuclear Waste Storage Site

The forest fire raging in the exclusion zone around the defunct Chernobyl nuclear power plant is less than two miles away from the nuclear waste storage, the Ukrainian official overseeing the restricted zone said Monday

KIEV (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 13th April, 2020) The forest fire raging in the exclusion zone around the defunct Chernobyl nuclear power plant is less than two miles away from the nuclear waste storage, the Ukrainian official overseeing the restricted zone said Monday.

"The fire has reached Pripyat and is now two kilometers [1.

2 miles] away from the Podlesny nuclear waste storage site, where the most radioactive waste from the entire Chernobyl zone and the nuclear power plant is kept," Yaroslav Emelianenko wrote on Facebook.

The storage site is located in the former village of Podlesny, some 1.5 kilometers north of the crippled power plant. The waste is stored in containers made of reinforced concrete.