Helicopter Graveyard at Buriakivka, Ukraine

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Helicopter Graveyard at Buriakivka, Ukraine

 

These wrecked Mil Mi-24 Hind gunships are understood to have been used in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster to measure the level of radiation in the air around the nuclear power station.

 

The Soviet-era choppers were reportedly flown over the crippled reactor multiple times, and were deemed too contaminated to recover once their mission was completed. The abandoned helicopters were photographed in 2011, their broken fuselages dumped near deep trenches containing buried equipment from the ghost town of Pripyat.

 

 

Several miles to the west of Chernobyl lies the rusting remains of the rescue and subsequent clean-up operation. Contaminated from top to bottom, the abandoned vehicles comprise a toxic graveyard that will linger for many years to come.

 

Rotting away in a field deep within the exclusion zone, rows of abandoned vehicles entomb the ten battered helicopters that were used to drop water on the burning reactor.  Sadly, their operators were among the worst affected of the victims, with their role on the scene as primary emergency reponders guaranteeing them heavy exposure to the fallout.

 

 

If you are a Google Earth user, check out the vehicle graveyard at these coordinates: 51°09’16.16″N 29°58’57.41″E

 

Update

The vehicles have been removed, dismantled and buried in protected areas, however you can still see the radioactive shadows left by them on Google maps, if you look at the field, you can see the blurry glow of the radioactivity.