"The spectre of the Chernobyl disaster casts a long shadow over the Ukrainian psyche. More than a quarter of a century ago, on the outskirts of the Soviet city of Pripyat in the Ukraine, the Chernobyl nuclear facility was rocked by a huge explosion that blasted radioactive fallout over much of the former USSR and Europe. Beyond the 30 to 70 killed (reports from the USSR varied) by the explosion and radiation sickness, the human cost of the disaster is hard to quantify. Some estimate there will be between 50- to 60,000 excess cases of cancer attributable to Chernobyl." -James Cullinane editorial director of Gameplanet ANZ.

Metro: Last Light hands-on - Gameplanet New Zealand


More than a quarter of a century ago, on the outskirts of the Soviet city of Pripyat in the Ukraine, the Chernobyl nuclear facility was rocked by a huge explosion that blasted radioactive fallout over much of the former USSR and Europe.
Beyond the 30 to 70 killed (reports from the USSR varied) by the explosion and radiation sickness, the human cost of the disaster is hard to quantify. Some estimate there will be between 50- to 60,000 excess cases of cancer attributable to Chernobyl.


In the four years after the event, Ukrainian farmers reported more than 350 animals born with severe deformities such as missing or extra limbs, eyes, heads and ribs.
The city of Pripyat was entirely evacuated. Now it’s a ghost town of stodgy Soviet apartment blocks and a solitary, forlorn Ferris wheel deep within the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.
This is the setting not in which Metro: Last Light takes place, but against which it is developed. “There's no way this game is made anywhere other than there,” the game’s producer, Dean Sharpe, famously told media in 2011. “Because Ukraine is a depressing f**king place. Ukraine is just as depressing as hell – especially in the winter.”
“I now have a fake sun light I sit with for an hour every day just so I don't shoot myself.”

For more of this article, go to:
METRO: last light hands-on by JAMES CULLINANE

(An article by: James Cullinane  editorial director of Gameplanet ANZ)

Les fantômes de Tchernobyl La ville fantôme de Pripyat, 27 ans après la catastrophe nucléaire. (Mis à jour le: 25 avril 2013 14:45)

La ville fantôme de Pripyat, 27 ans après la catastrophe nucléaire - Les fantômes de Tchernobyl -

"La ville de Pripyat, en Ukraine, est abandonnée depuis l'accident nucléaire survenu le 26 avril 1986 à la centrale nucléaire de Tchernobyl.

Les photos qui suivent montrent ce que les habitants de Pripyat ont laissé derrière eux."
(MSN actualités Mis à jour le: 25 avril 2013 14:45)



 



La ville, construite pour héberger les travailleurs de l'usine, était peuplée de quelques 49 000 habitants.













Située à environ 3 kilomètres de la centrale, elle se trouvait au cœur de la zone d'exclusion mise en place autour de celle-ci après la catastrophe.

 



L'entière population de Pripyat fut donc évacuée et, 27 ans plus tard, la ville demeure déserte.

"Wright has visited a number of times and so far has spent nine days in the zone where he has concentrated on photographing the abandoned town of Pripyat, once home to the plant's workers and their families. The town's 49,000 inhabitants were told to leave 36 hours after the explosion on 26 April 1986." (c) BBC UK

In pictures: Dark Pripyat

Urbanpixels - Ric Wright