The
Pripyat River (
Ukrainian ????’???,
pronounced&_160;['pr?pj?t?];
Belarusian ???????, Prypiac,
['pr?p?ats?];
Polish Prypec,
['pr?p?t?];
Russian ???????,
['pripjat?]) is a river in
Eastern Europe, of approximately 710&_160;km (440&_160;mi) length. It flows east through
Ukraine,
Belarus, and Ukraine again, draining into the
Dnieper.
The Pripyat passes through the Zone of alienation around the Chernobyl reactor, where the nuclear disaster happened. Therefore it transported and still transports radionuclides downstream. The concentration of caesium-137 is still increasing in dredges and has not been reduced in the river sediments.
The city of Prypiat, Ukraine (population 45,000) was completely evacuated after the Chernobyl disaster.
There are three possible reasons for the name-
