THE Chernobyl TV writer has blasted the selfie-loving tourists for flocking to the nuclear disaster site demanding they have some “respect”.
Craig Mazin, who wrote the HBO/Sky Original mini-series, tweeted: “It’s wonderful that #ChernobylHBO has inspired a wave of tourism to the Zone of Exclusion.
“If you visit, please remember that a terrible tragedy occurred there. Comport yourselves with respect for all who suffered and sacrificed.”
Interest Chernobyl power plant and Pripyat, the Ukrainian ghost town where it’s located has spiked since the series aired last month as it has also drawn attention from the social media influencers keen to snap sexy selfies in the Chernobyl death zone.
In recent days, snaps of a woman posing half naked in a g-string and a hazmet suit with another donning a helmet and white coat while tagging the Chernobyl nuclear plant control room have appeared online.
More images of the Instagram model with a gas mask on have also been shared on her social media account.
The site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster has become a lewd hotspot for Instagram influencers to capture the perfect selfie in light of the recent gripping Sky/HBO series Chernobyl.
The modern recount which tells the true story of the nuclear power plant’s fallout has sparked a tourist boom.
Others have criticised those posing for “insensitive” photos that disrespect the history and torment of the people who died or were forced to flee.
Commenters hit back online, describing the photos as “stupid” and “disrespectful in the extreme”.
One person said: “People died there in a very horrific way – have some respect.”
Another follower responded to a photo of Instagram user nz.nik posing with her bra and underwear, saying: “This photo is disrespectful to the people who lost their lives. How insensitive can you be?”
Others said the photos were “opportunistic” and “dumb”.
One of the unnamed models Veronika Rocheva has since revealed she lied to imply her racy pictures were shot at Pripyat, but were really taken 2,146 miles away at a disused canteen in Siberia.
The 23-year-old has also apologised for tagging the photos at the nuclear disaster site.
She told Russian life.ru publication: “This was not in fact even Pripyat, we did the shoot in a deserted location in Novosibirsk.
“It looked in a way similar to Pripyat and we just tagged the location as ‘Pripyat’.
“We simply didn’t expect to get such outburst of negative reaction. We didn’t think about the consequences.”
The Instagram model said: “In fact I was doing a vlog about the environment when I got inspired by the HBO Chernobyl series.
“This is what made us link the location we used for filming to Pripyat, they just looked so equally abandoned.”
She added apologetically: “We didn’t want in any way to hurt or insult people that went through such a horrendous tragedy.
“We pay deepest respect to the story of Chernobyl.”
Despite this, scandal has increased her followers to around 13,000, and rising.
Other pictures confirm that the model is from Novosibirsk, the largest city in Russia’s vast Siberia region.
People died there in a very horrific way – have some respect.”
Instagram follower
All that remains since the 1986 catastrophic accident – which saw plumes of radioactive material decimate towns and animals nearby – is a haunting ghost town.
An accident in the early hours of the morning of April 26 in 1986 led to a sudden and unexpected power surge and a series of explosions which released 400 times more radiation into the atmosphere than the Hiroshima atomic bomb.
More than 100,000 people were forced to flee their homes.
The blast was the equivalent of 500 nuclear bombs.
The final death toll caused by the disaster is unknown, and widely disputed, with United Nations figures claiming 4,000 people have died as a result of the accident at most.
There’s no denying the horrifying impact the radiation had on the people living in Pripyat – the city founded in 1970 to serve the Chernobyl power plant.
The areas surrounding the power plant – 350,000 people – weren’t evacuated until 36 hours after the explosion, and in the period since some five million people have been exposed to radiation, living on contaminated land in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.
Bookings in the area are said to be up 40 per cent, according to local travel agencies.
Yuriy Morozov, 42, a tour guide in the area, told The Sun that more visitors than ever are flocking to the disaster zone.
The dad of two said: “People want to see Chernobyl for themselves after the TV show. They are fascinated.”
A favourite spot for day trippers is an abandoned theme park, which was supposed to open a week after the disaster.
Its giant Ferris wheel is silhouetted against grey clouds and bumper cars rust and crumble.
The unsavoury posts are part of a rise of “dark tourism” which sees tourists visit locations home to a dark past.
Tourists have also reportedly been visiting the dangerous Chernobyl radiation site to party at raves and enjoy group stag dos.
Though radiation levels have been passed safe for short periods inside the Exclusion Zone, hot spots still exist.
An alarm bellowed out at the nuclear plant on April 26, 1986, as workers looked on in horror at the control panels signalling a major meltdown in the number four reactor.
The safety switches had been switched off in the early hours to test the turbine but the reactor overheated and generated a blast the equivalent of 500 nuclear bombs.
The reactor’s roof was blown off and a plume of radioactive material was blasted into the atmosphere.
As air was sucked into the shattered reactor, it ignited flammable carbon monoxide gas causing a fire which burned for nine days.
The catastrophe released at least 100 times more radiation than the atom bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
Soviet authorities waited 24 hours before evacuating the nearby town of Pripyat – giving the 50,000 residents just three hours to leave their homes.
After the accident traces of radioactive deposits were found in Belarus where poisonous rain damaged plants and caused animal mutations.
But the devastating impact was also felt in Scandinavia, Switzerland, Greece, Italy, France and the UK.
An 18-mile radius known as the “Exclusion Zone” was set up around the reactor following the disaster.
At least 31 people died in the accident – including two who were killed at the scene and more who passed away a few months later from Acute Radiation Syndrome.
The actual death toll is hard to predict as mortality rates have been hidden by propaganda and reports were lost when the Soviet Union broke up.
In 2005, the World Health Organisation revealed a total of 4,000 people could eventually die of radiation exposure.
About 4,000 cases of thyroid cancer have been seen since the disaster – mainly in people who were children or teenagers at the time.
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