Pripyat River

From Freepedia

Pripyat River
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Origin	Ukraine
Mouth	Dnieper
Basin Countries	Ukraine, Belarus
Length	710 km (441 mi)
Source Elevation
Avg. Discharge
Watershed Area

The Pripyat River (Ukrainian: Прип’ять, Pryp”yat’; Belarusian: Прыпяць, Prypiać; Polish: Prypeć) is a river in Eastern Europe, of approximately 710 km (441 mi.) length. It flows west through Ukraine, Belarus, and Ukraine again, draining into the Dnieper.

The Pripyat passes through the thirty-kilometer zone around the Chernobyl reactor, where the catastrophic nuclear accident 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 accident.