The world's worst nuclear accident in 1986 during unofficial testing at one of the Chernobyl nuclear reactors killed 31 workers, caused untold medical consequences to countless people, resulted in 350,000 people being evacuated. Although some of area contaminated has been cleaned up the authorities created a 20 mile human exclusion 'zone of alienation' which in turn has resulted in the creation of a post industrial wilderness inhabited by all kinds of wildlife including what is now believed to be the world's largest wolf population.
 
The decontamination involved, among other things, moving radioactive trucks, cars and aircraft to a mile long protected strip of land for the next 48,000 years. Recycling the metal by melting it down will not eradicate the radioactivity. It has been found that some parts have gone missing, especially intact engines, either to be sent for scrap or sold for reuse.
 
It is now possible to visit the area and the Ukraine government allows tourists to make brief visits. The largest movable structure ever built is being erected by French contractors to encase the defective reactor in a modern-day sarcophagus.