hello again. 0ur weather has been pretty mild welcome to bbc news, over recent days but we're broadcasting to viewers who ran away to join in north america the extremist group, about to turn the heat and around the globe. up even further. our top stories: the so—called yes, we'll be dragging up some air islamic state, in syria. coming off the north—west of africa, shamima begum was 15 the london teenager who ran away when she left london. pushing past spain, now 19, she's in a refugee camp in towards the uk as we get to join the islamic state extremists towards the end of the week in syria with a newborn baby and into the weekend. in syria has her citizenship and wants to return to the uk. that will boost temperatures revoked by the uk. and we could see highs, her family say they're very given a bit of sunshine, thousands take to the streets getting as high as 18. in 60 french cities in protest disappointed and hope to appeal. that is just about possible. at the rise in anti—semitic attacks. it depends on how much sunshine thousands have taken to the streets we'll see and the next few days look in 60 french cities in protest at a rise in anti—semitic attacks. cloudy even though we will be mild. this is the cloud we've got at the moment. the catholic church in india is hours earlier, almost 100 graves the weather system is pushing north were found desecrated with swastikas hit by allegations of sexual abuse at a jewish cemetery. and east, bringing wet and claims that top clergy weather with it. have failed to address them. visiting the site, president macron called it an act of absurd stupidity over the next few hours, the fashion world pays tribute to designer karl lagerfeld and said the offenders we have some rain around who's died at the age of 85. across scotland and northern would be punished. england, a few spots into the midlands but it's largely but it bernie sanders is making a second is largely dry in the south. bid for the american presidency some showers following in next year's election. to northern ireland. you'll notice a mild start to wednesday. the vermont senator is the best—known name in a crowded temperatures in the range of 7—11. and generally much younger field wednesday, a cloudy start for most of democratic party hopefuls. with outbreaks of rain particularly across north—western areas. his campaign team say the rain could be quite they raised $1 million heavy at times for wales, within four hours north—west england, western of his announcement. scotland, but there will be some sunshine coming out in the afternoon. the best chance of that is in east anglia, south—east england and also for the north—east

the trial of the man of scotland, slowly brightening up for northern ireland. in charge of policing on the day a mild day. temperatures between 11 and 1a. through wednesday evening of the hillsborough disaster and overnight, most of the rain in 1989 has heard he was will ease for a time "basically a spectator" but there could be more spits during the match. david duckenfield is accused and spots of light rain of manslaughter through gross and drizzle a round western coasts negligence after 96 liverpool and hills. fans died during a crush another mostly mild night at sheffield wednesday's ground. but with clearer skies towards the south—east and the countryside gets cooler here. for thursday, a greater prospect of seeing a little bit more mr duckenfield denies the charges. our correspondent in the way of sunshine breaking through. the best chance of that is the east judith moritz has more. of high ground, the midlands the crowd waiting to get and eastern wales, into hillsborough in april 1989 not doing too badly. east of the pennines was the biggest one police officer and eastern areas of scotland, says he'd ever seen. whereas in the west, with around half an hour a bit more cloud. to go before kick—off, it's notjust here in the uk that he said large groups has the mild weather. were still coming towards the stadium. temperatures on thursday up to 17 in paris and madrid and across the south of spain sergeant michael goddard was the police radio operator as we head the weekend, we could see the temperatures hit at the fa cup semifinal around 25 degrees celsius. between liverpool looking at the charts and nottingham forest. towards the end of the week, pressure builds a bit further he was based inside the police across england and that will punch control box in the corner a few more holes in the cloud. of the ground, which was next perhaps a bit of mist and fog to the terraces where the liverpool for some to start but for most fans were standing. of us, there should be more chief superintendent in the way of sunshine to go around. david duckenfield was also inside the control box. the sunshine will boost he was only given the role of match the temperatures 111—15 degrees at least. you could see highs going commander three weeks beforehand. a bit higher that that, today, it was said that he faced given some decent cloud breaks. the fine, dry, mild spell

an impossible learning curve. of weather is set to continue michael goddard said through the weekend and for many of us it looks dry into next week that david duckenfield was basically a spectator as well. that's your latest weather, bye—bye. inside the police control box. he said it was traditional to have a chief superintendent there at such a big event, but the more experienced ground controller, superintendent bernard murray, would have been running the operation on the day. with the terraces already becoming full, the jury heard the police were focused on the crush outside and didn't foresee any danger that would follow from opening an exit gate to the ground. sergeant goddard said... 96 liverpool fans died as a result of the crush on the terraces. david duckenfield denies gross negligence manslaughter. the trial continues. judith moritz, bbc news, preston. now on bbc news, it's time for our world. when the chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded 33 years ago,

it was the largest ever accidental release of radioactivity into the environment. but what's become of the people who refused to leave the exclusion zone, and the wildlife left behind? victoria gill has been given rare permission to go inside the zone and the plant itself. surrounding the site of the world's worst nuclear accident, more than 4,000 square kilometres, spanning ukraine and belarus, was abandoned. more than three decades on, in a post—human landscape, nature has taken over. what happened to those who refused to leave? has the truth about this place become lost in the infamy of the disaster? standing a kilometre

from where the nuclear accident happened, we're getting less of an external dose of radiation than on the flight over? three times less than what we got on the aeroplane coming over. all: i love you. what does the future hold for those who still live in the shadow of chernobyl? 130 kilometres north of the capital, kiev, part of ukraine has been cut off for more than 30 years. heading for the exclusion zone, which is quite exciting. sort of a forbidden place kind of shrouded in mystery. this is a controlled zone, a contaminated area almost twice the size of london, that we have special permission to visit.

we're going into the epicentre of an explosion. it happened on the 26th april 1986, a day the world never forget. archive: the soviet union admitted this evening that there has been an accident at one of its nuclear power stations. archive: perhaps the worst accident in the short history of the world's nuclear power industry. we're taking a tour of the chernobyl nuclear power plant with our guide, stanislav. safety regulations mean we have to protect our clothes from radioactive dust. if know one rule. if you follow all rules, you do not break rules, everything will be ok. and 28 year, a little bit more past after my first coming to chernobyl

npp and everything is ok, god bless us. with us is a scientist whose life's work has hinged on that one terrifying night in soviet history. how long have you been studying the aftermath of what happened here? since 1990. have you ever been into the reactor building before? i've never been before. reactor number 4 still leaks radiation, so it's entombed by a steel confinement structure containing remains that were blasted apart. this is footage captured beneath that dome. a now solidified mass of concrete and nuclear fuel is still so radioactive that people can't be under here for more than a few minutes. but the plant continued to produce power until the year 2000, and the neighbouring reactor is still being decommissioned. few visitors are allowed in here

but we've been given permission to look inside. alarm beeping. is your alarm going off? that's my alarm going off, yeah. what is it? what have we gone up to? we've gone up to 1a, and i set the amber warning to be at10. right. so we've just gone over that. throughout our trip, jim is carrying a dosimeter, measuring the radiation dose we're getting every hour. we're still well below the level where i considered we didn't want to get to. but i'm just going to switch it off because we don't want it going all the time. there's a strange atmosphere to this place. and you're so trussed up, that there's a nervousness, there's a fear to that, i think. my heart's beating quite fast, actually! it was 1:23am when engineers cut power to parts of the chernobyl plant number 4 reactor. they were testing what would happen in the event of a blackout. what they did not know was

the reactor was already unstable. it wasn'tjust one person, it was a whole chain of people, from the reactor design people to the people operating it, to the whole kind of safety culture. the shutdown slowed turbines that drove a flow of cooling water to the reactor. the reactor collapsed, the reactor collapsed, everything collapsed, and when this engineer pushed the button to stop the chain reaction, big pressure of water, steam was coming from the bottom. a steam explosion blew the lid off the reactor, exposing the core to the atmosphere. airfuelled a fire that burned for ten days. that initial explosion killed two people. in the days that followed, emergency workers rushed in. people known as liquidators were sent to remove

highly radioactive material that had been blasted onto the roofs of nearby buildings so it could be swept up and contained. 134 emergency workers suffered acute radiation sickness. 28 died within months. another 19 have died since. some surviving workers today live with skin and eye injuries, from working in that highly radioactive environment. and the impact was not confined to this site or even to this country. a cloud of radioactive smoke and dust was carried on the wind around europe. information emerged only gradually from behind the iron curtain of the soviet union. that cloud, though, carried the truth of the disaster. the world held its breath. this was the largest accidental release of radioactivity into the environment in the history of nuclear power production.

the cause, who is to blame, are issues still being debated to this day. every so—called accident, incident concerned with human factor. if there were some defects here in this type of reactor, who was the designer? a robot? no, a man. and if the personnel made some mistakes during that test, who were they, robots? no, the personnel. everywhere, we came to one conclusion and that is human factor everywhere practically. today, the consequences of that terrible accident are etched onto this region. within a boundary drawn at a 30—kilometre radius of the plant is the primary exclusion zone. no—one was allowed to return here to live.

but just beyond that, captured by an outer boundary, is a secondary zone where people have been left in limbo. the town of narodychi has a population of 2,500. tatyana runs the kindergarten. she remembers the evacuation. but the future for these children and theirfamilies is uncertain. narodychi has some of the lowest radiation levels in the exclusion zone,

but it's still officially designated contaminated. that means no agriculture is permitted and nothing new can be built here. so, could the secret for a new start for narodychi be hidden in the permanently abandoned primary zone? for many, it's a frightening place, but in the decade since the accident, hundreds of scientists have worked here, forensically examining chernobyl‘s aftermath. we're going to meet a true exclusion zone expert. dr sergey gashchak came here in the immediate aftermath as one of the thousands of liquidators. he's now a scientist. although it's not legal to live here permanently, he still works here from this previously abandoned house.

oh, this is a proper field station then. you have lockers for everybody‘s kit, somewhere to leave boots. yeah. this is very organised. is this a map of the exclusion zone? yeah. the red are the hot spots? yeah. where is the nuclear power plant? this is the power plant. for this international community of scientists, the zone is a vast laboratory allowing them to measure how a landscape recovers from nuclear catastrophe. altogether, this is the largest protected area in europe by a long way. they eat, sleep and discuss their work here but their days are spent out in the field. today, with the research team, we are looking for wildlife and following sergey, we eventually come across one of many now desolate villages. it's become a strangely rich habitat and a place sergey seems totally at home. i am a feral man. yes, you're a feral man! laugh.

yeah, sometimes i see my family not so often. it's just completely taken over. which is why these villages have sort of become hubs for where some of these ecological studies can be done, because this is just a totally different place. it's not a village anymore, it's sort of a rewilded landscape. inside some of these houses, it's still apparent just how quickly people had to leave. here, we can see someone's coat. yes, yes, absolutely. but some of what people left behind, through farming and gardening, has turned into provisions for wild animals. people, before the accident, introduced here a lot of plants. also, they fertilised the soil. and the soil in the villages is a little bit richer

than the surrounding areas. that is why, according to our study, they have started to observe higher levels of diversity of animals. we have wolf. just outside the village, there are some obvious signs of animal life that moved when people moved out. you wanted to see wolf faeces. we have fresh wolf faeces. jim smith is with sergey to check cameras and audio recorders that have been silently monitoring the wildlife. all these years combining the tracking of animal populations and measuring the contamination suggests wildlife is now thriving in a place that many had assumed to be toxic. yes, the exclusion zone's contaminated, but if we were to put it on a map of radiation dose a worldwide, only the small hotspots would stand out. natural radioactivity‘s all around us. it varies from country to country,

from place to place. and most of the area of the exclusion zone gives rise to lower radiation dose rates than many areas of natural radioactivity worldwide. it may seem strange that most of this wilderness, that was created by a nuclear disaster, has similar levels of radiation to many parts of the populated world. but being here, surrounded by nature that doesn't observe any boundaries of checkpoints, it actually feels that life is flourishing. apart from glimpses on camera traps, though, i am yet to get close to any of chernobyl‘s wildlife. dr marina is following an unusual experiment. in 1998, zoologists released a herd of endangered wild horses here in the hope they'd graze away over growth and reduce the risk of fire. marina's just spotted a whole herd.

these are the przewalski's horses. gonna see if we can get a little tiny bit closer. they're a productive herd. so they have adult females, several cubs. several babies, foals. yes, ah, some of them are one years old, some of them are two years old. these animals are native to be open plains of mongolia, but marina's work is revealing some unexpected behaviour that's helping them thrive here. they use the abandoned buildings, because they are avoiding mosquitoes and heat and wind inside. so they're adapting to the exclusion zone? yeah. they were laying and sleeping inside.

so they have really good adapted to this place. they're really using the buildings. amazing. wildlife may be making the most obvious place, but not every village was left for natures to reclaim. we're deep in the permanently abandoned zone. and some people still live here. victoria. nice to meet you. today is maria's 78th birthday and she's made us breakfast. oh wow. thank you. up to the day of the accident, this had been the only home she knew. her family then travelled back across a then patchily enforced

boundary. they refused to abandon the place. maria and her neighbours make up a remote community ofjust 15. a tiny village reclaimed after the disaster. the residents of this village are amongst just 200 self settlers who returned and stayed.

the vast majority who lost their homes in the exclusion zone have no hopes of ever coming back. almost 50,000 of them lived here in pripyat. this was the soviet dream town, purpose built for workers at the power plant. it was evacuated overnight. no residents were allowed to return. just a few kilometres from the plant, this is in one of the zone's hotspots.

and after the city was permanently abandoned it gradually turned to ruin. but in recent years, human activity has come back. pripyat has been deemed safe to visit for short periods and is now a tourist destination. 60,000 people came here last year, keen to witness the decay. chernobyl was number one on the list. because it's, like, something that was in the news a lot when i was growing up as a kid. so it really took on the imagination. i wanted to see what it was like. it is sort of the post—apocalyptic environment, which, ithink, is very scary. the sense of danger here is now a selling point. but should we fear this place? that is a question only be decades of research can answer. 0n the dry bed of what was the reservoir providing water to cool the nuclear reactors, we've come, with jim, to meet this team.

we were just fly with the helicopter to look at the plant area, collecting samples of water, soil. he first came here just three months after the accident. his work helped shape the exclusion zone. this is more than half of my life. in the early stage of the accident, the most important was to understand what is the extent. to draw up the first map... to draw up the first maps, yes. then, of course, much later, as we know, the pattern of contamination is significantly different all over this area, yes. and in this spot, with the help ofjim's dosimeter, it's clearjust how much the contamination varies and how much this place has changed. so here, standing essentially in the cooling pond of the nuclear power plant, a kilometre from where the nuclear accident

happened, we are getting less external dose of radiation than on the flight over. three times less than what we got on the aeroplane coming over. so what could that mean for the outer zone? for narodychi? this is a community on the brink of change. the objective is to support and pray... jim and his colleagues are here for a meeting that could remove this district from the exclusion zone. meaning they could start farming and building again. all of the stakeholders are here, representatives of the local community, the administration, those who run the exclusion zone, hopefully that agreement will be hammered out today. many here still fear chernobyl radiation, how it might affect their and their children's health. long—term impacts, though, have been

hugely complicated to unpick. estimates of cancers directly caused by the radiation range from a few hundred cases to many thousands. the contamination is known to have caused 5,000 people, who were children at the time, to develop thyroid cancer. the vast majority were treated and cured. among numerous reports of birth defects and other health problems, it's just not clear if any were linked to radiation. what is conclusive, according to the world health organization, is that people's mental health has been damaged by fear of radiation and the disruption to their lives. this meeting could lift restrictions that this community has lived with ever since the accident. how did today go, do you think? we are certainly in agreement here that there needs to be change. so the next step is to communicate with the politicians, tell them what our scientific conclusions are, tell them what the narodychi district want, and we hope that they will take

action. what's finally on the horizon means that these narodychi's children may no longer be the children of chernobyl. if that political agreement can be reached, the next generation here could shape its own future. that disaster still casts a long shadow here and what happened in 1986 will always be a feature of this place, but the research that's being carried out here shows that over 30 years the situation has changed and now, perhaps, for the sake of people who live here, 00:25:57,584 --> 4294966103:13:29,430 it's time to move forward.