A SHOCK discovery in mutant black frogs could lead to humans returning to the abandoned Chernobyl nuclear disaster zone.
Scientists have hoped their findings would bring civilisation back to one of the world’s worst disaster site.
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A 1986 meltdown at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Pripyat, Ukraine, caused the the largest release of radioactive material into the environment in history.
A 1,000-square-mile exclusion zone was created around the disaster site to avoid cancer-causing radiation, and only around 1,000 residents have returned to the area, in the nearly four decades since they fled.
Despite this, animals have roamed these forbidden lands and claimed this area as home.
One of these creatures has been the unique eastern tree frogs living near the site in northern Ukraine.
Researchers revealed in a 2022 study that these frogs had black instead of green skin.
New studies have disclosed that these Chernobyl frogs lived just as long as their green counterparts, and their ageing rate was not affected by the radiation levels.
This shock discovery could mean the 1,000-square-mile restricted zone could be safe for human habitation again.
A co-author of the new study, Dr Germán Orizaola of the University of Oviedo in Spain, explained what their discovery in frogs could mean for humans.
Orizaola said: “The age structure and average age that we detected in Chernobyl is similar to that from other populations of the species in eastern Europe or the Middle East.
“It’s also similar to populations of a sister species – European tree frogs, or Hyla arborea.”
The researcher added that the higher melanin pigment in the Chernobyl frogs’ skin protected them again radiation.
Despite this, Dr Orizaola explained this discovery could show the exclusion zone was show safe for human habitation once more.
He said: “We do not think that radiation is hurting these frogs now.
“One of the main reasons should be the decay in radiation levels during the last 38 years.
“More than 90% of the radioactive material released by the accident has already decayed and disappeared from the zone.”
Dr Orizaola added that “reoccupation of most of the zone by humans should be possible at anytime.”
What happened at Chernobyl?
THE nuclear catastrophe in Chernobyl claimed 31 lives as well as leaving thousands of people and animals exposed to potentially fatal radiation.
When an alarm bellowed out at the nuclear plant on April 26, 1986, workers looked on in horror as the control panels signaled 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.
ATOMIC ANIMALS
Black frogs have not been the only unique animal discovery in this nuclear disaster land.
Wild wolves in the area have developed a “superpower” due to this radiation exposure, The Sun has previously reported.
These mutant creatures could unexpectedly help give humans a better chance at surviving cancer.
The wolves have developed cancer-resilient genomes – which has been helpful in surviving the high levels of radiation that have plagued the human-free zone.
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