Most radioactive places on earth
I recently visited Iwaki, Fukushima province to visit Spa Resort Hawaiians. Partially because it sounded interesting, and partially to buck the trend of overseas tourists avoiding Fukushima province.
I noticed publicly visible radiation counters while I was there. The one below, in a photo taken by a taxi driver who noticed me trying to take a photo by myself, was near Iwaki train station, but there was also one near the Iwaki City Coal and Fossil Museum.
![Photo of me next to a radiation counter, wearing an "I [akabeko] Fukushima" tshirt. Reading is 0.164 microsieverts per hour](https://i.stack.imgur.com/lUMxn.jpg)
Although I assume the counters were designed to reassure locals and tourists that radiation levels are reasonably low, for me it served as a bit of a "been there, done that, got photo proving it" thing, even if it turns out 0.164 microsieverts per hour is less than the global average of background radiation. It got me wondering which places on earth that I can visit have the most radiation.
Criteria:
- Both man-made and natural radation are of interest: I'm interested in both human history and in geology.
- Reasonably accessible: something accessible to ordinary tourists, not only journalists or nuclear scientists or local residents.
- Well documented: an area having information about its radiation (eg how a nuclear accident occurred, or the history of nuclear weapon testing at the place) would be preferable.
- Radiation levels available: ideally some public structure like the one I was photographed with, but otherwise a place where radiation measurement devices are not prohibited.
- Tourists welcome: if tourists aren't welcomed in an area by locals for legitimate reasons, then I'd be understanding of that.
- On earth. Can't be the moon or Mars!
If there's a place on earth that has the least amount of radiation, and it is open to tourists, then I'd be interested in visiting that as well.
Best Answer
You can book tours (from several operators, easily found on the web) to the Chernobyl power plant, including visits to the abandoned city of Pripyat and the red forest (an area where intense radiation fallout killed most of the vegetation).
I believe that the tour guides will have radiation measurement devices to show that the background radiation is back to normal - but you'll be within a short distance of the concrete "sarcophagus" around the reactor where the accident occurred, and the deeper levels of soil are still heavily contaminated in some areas. Eating any local fruit should of course be avoided - I recently saw an interesting TV show about research in that area on various plants' very different reaction to radiation. IIRC birch trees easily survived while spruce trees proved much less resilent - and some fruit and vegetables (or even parts of them) are much more dangerous than others, e.g. you can eat cherries but must not swallow the pits.
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Quick Answer about "Most radioactive places on earth"
- Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant, Japan is one of the world's most radioactive places. ...
- Chernobyl, Pripyat, Ukraine is also pretty radiated. ...
- The Polygon, Semiplataninsk, Kazakhstan is another radiation polluted area.
Where is the most radioactive place on the earth?
Fukushima is the most radioactive place on Earth. A tsunami led to reactors melting at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.What is the most radioactive on earth?
The radioactivity of radium then must be enormous. This substance is the most radioactive natural element, a million times more so than uranium. It is so radioactive that it gives off a pale blue glow.Which country has most radioactive element?
1. Australia. Australia possesses around 30% of the world's known recoverable uranium reserves.The Most Radioactive Places on Earth
More answers regarding most radioactive places on earth
Answer 2
So it depends a lot on how you define it.
If we go the Wikipedia route, it'll be Lake Karachay in Western Russia. The Soviet Union used Karachay as a dumping site for radioactive waste from Mayak, the nearby nuclear waste storage and reprocessing facility, located near the town of Ozyorsk (then called Chelyabinsk-40).
Then we have the Irish source, which claims that the most radioactive place on Earth is in Cumbria, England - the problem being that nobody knows for sure how radioactive it is, or what's inside - a fact backed up by Wikipedia.
Finally, and this one's far more interesting, is Shinkolobwe, in the Congo. It's where a large amount of the world's uranium has come from, and certainly at least several thousand tons of uranium has gone from there to the US alone, including the uranium in the atomic bombs dropped on Japan. The mine has long since (allegedly) closed, but again allegedly - people have been sneaking in to get bits of uranium out to sell on the black market. This is covered in great deal in this Scientific American excerpt of Tom Zoellner's book Uranium.
Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Images: Artem Podrez, Artem Podrez, Nothing Ahead, Andrea Piacquadio