Why is Chernobyl deemed to not be habitable for 22,000 years despite reports and articles everywhere saying that the radiation exposure of being within the exclusion zone is less you’d get than flying in a plane or living in elevated areas like Colorado or Cornwall?

Question

Why is Chernobyl deemed to not be habitable for 22,000 years despite reports and articles everywhere saying that the radiation exposure of being within the exclusion zone is less you’d get than flying in a plane or living in elevated areas like Colorado or Cornwall?

In: 12368

Answer 1

Living in Denver Colorado gives you about [0.8 mSv per yearm](https://www.epa.gov/radiation/radiation-sources-and-doses).

That’s about equivalent to being in the [kindergarten near Chernobyl for 1 hour.](http://www.chernobylgallery.com/chernobyl-disaster/radiation-levels/) Hang out for a couple of days and you will have accumulated as much radiation in your body as you would get an entire lifetime in Colorado.

I have a beer every few days. Not remotely enough to be medically dangerous. But if I drank a year’s worth of alcohol in one hour, I’d be in rough shape. Taking a year’s worth of radiation in one hour is exceptionally dangerous. Probably won’t kill you, cuz it’s still less than, for example, a CT scan. But you wouldn’t take a CT scan every day for the rest of your life.