WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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I'm in the abandoned city of Pripyat, in Ukraine.
3km away is the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant,

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which exploded in 1986. And "nuclear power
plant" and "exploded" are never something

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you want to hear in the same sentence. It
caused the worst nuclear accident in humanity's

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history. So I'm here, and I have brought a
banana. For scale.

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Because bananas are radioactive. They're a
great source of potassium, and a tiny fraction

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of that potassium -- about one part in 10,000
-- is an unstable, radioactive isotope. Every

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second, a few hundred potassium atoms in this
banana decay. Which is enough that a containerful

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of bananas can cause false alarms at shipping
docks where they're looking for radioactive

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bombs. Bananas are called a "legitimate radioactive
material".

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So why are we still eating them? Well, that
much radiation is basically nothing. There's

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something called the banana equivalent dose:
it's not a serious measurement, particularly

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because your body regulates your potassium
levels anyway and you'd just get rid of it,

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but it's a good way to get an idea of how
dangerous something is, and how dangerous

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this city is.

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If you just spend a night sleeping next to
someone, anywhere on earth: you'll get half

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a banana's dose. We've got potassium in us
as well, so we're all very slightly radioactive.

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Being here, in the city next to the world's
worst nuclear accident? Three bananas an hour,

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rising to twenty or thirty in a few areas.
That sounds like a lot, until you realise

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that the cosmic radiation I got on the airplane
flight here was about a hundred bananas, or

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about a chest x-ray.

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The actual danger here in most parts of Pripyat
and Chernobyl, is not from background radiation.

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Nearer the plant, and in some less-travelled
areas, yes; the workers who are building the

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new confinement structure have very strict
limits on how long they can linger. But the

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danger here is from fallout, from material
left behind in the 1986 explosion, it's from

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the vegetation that's very good at pulling
radioactive particles into itself, it's from

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kicking up dust and breathing it in, it's
from things getting into your system and staying

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there. I'm not allowed to put any of my belongings
down on the ground just in case they pick

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up dust, and I'll be scanned for radiation
when I leave, just in case. Radiation isn't

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some terrifying spectre, if it's managed properly.
If it's not: well, even now, nearly thirty

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years after the Chernobyl disaster, everyone
in Europe is still getting about an extra

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twenty or thirty bananas of radiation every
year.

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