Do you think Chernobyl will ever become safely habitable again?

It's been just under 27 years since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. For those of you whom don't know what Chernobyl is, it was a catastrophic nuclear accident that occured on April 26, 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine, which at the time was under the direct jurisdiction of the Soviet Union. An explosion and fire released large quantities of radioactive particles into the atmosphere, which spread over much of Western USSR and Europe. The Chernobyl disaster is considered to have been the worst nuclear power plant accident in history. The explosion and fire spewed the equivalent of at least 20 Hiroshima bombs' worth of radiation and is 400 times more potent.

The city of Pripyat is still literally left the exact way it was when the 200,000 people were originally evacuted. The place is a creepy ghost town with houses still fully furnished and in some cases, even food left on the table. There's even a carnival and fair still set up from the day of the explosion when they were preparing for their annual May Day celebrations.

Scientists say that the radiation will effect Chernobyl for just under 50,000 years. They also believe humans can begin repopulating the area before then though. Just how long before then? The soil, the water, the wildlife, etc, all that stuff has been contaminated by radiation and it's hard to believe it will ever become habitable again. Some 150,000 square kilometers in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine are contaminated. An area spanning 30 kilometers around the plant is considered the "exculsion zone" and is the most dangerous.

Back in the late '90s scientists caught some animals and did testing on them to check their radiation levels. They carried more than 2000 times the safety norm. Mutations did occur after the incident among plants and animals. Some animals were born with physical deformities but they found the mutations to be largely among the plant-life. These mutations ranged from malformations, dwarfism, gigantism, strange discoloration and some even glowed. For example, they found yellow glowing mushrooms, four times the normal size, growing in a patch of moss.


So my question is, do you think Chernobyl will ever become safely habitable again?

I think I've heard that nuclear radiation sticks around for either 100 to 1000 years. Heck the Manhatten project nuclear bomb test sight still has moderite levels of radiation contamination according to a show I once saw on the history channel.

It's already http://grist.org/list/chernobyls-wildlife-may-be-surprisingly-healthy/. Higher rates of mutations and earlier deaths and complications, but it's habitable. Specific places in the zone are relatively safe already.

General humans won't life there for a few more centuries, though (minus desperate people).