Red Forest

The Red Forest is the ten-square-kilometre area surrounding the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant within the Exclusion Zone located in Polesia. The name "Red Forest" comes from the ginger-brown color of the pine trees after they died following the absorption of high levels of ionizing radiation from the Chernobyl accident on 26 April 1986. In the post-disaster cleanup operations, the Red Forest was bulldozed and buried in "waste graveyards". The site of the Red Forest remains one of the most contaminated areas in the world today. ()