• Ukraine announces official tours of 1986 nuclear disaster site • 2015 completion date of new sarcophagus for leaking reactor

This article is more than 9 years old

This article is more than 9 years old

Already been to North Korea? Hiking in Afghanistan a little bit too last year? Fear not. Tourism has a new frontier: the site of the world's biggest civilian nuclear disaster.

From next year the heavily contaminated area around the Chernobyl power plant will be officially open to tourists with an interest in post-apocalyptic vistas, late-period Soviet history, or both.

Ukraine's emergency situations ministry said today that visitors would be offered tours inside the 30-mile exclusion zone set up after reactor four at the plant exploded on 26 April 1986, showering northern Europe in radioactive fallout.

The disaster killed an unknown number of people – estimates for deaths from radiation exposure range from dozens to thousands – and forced around 350,000 people to leave their homes forever.

While the area remains heavily contaminated, a ministry spokeswoman said, tourism routes had been drawn up which would cover the main sights while steering clear of the dangerous spots.

Wandering would not be encouraged, Yulia Yershova said: "There are things to see there if one follows the official route and doesn't stray away from the group."

It is already possible to visit the area with private tour firms, usually operating from Ukraine's capital, Kiev, 60 miles south. The country's government, however, says these are illegal and tourists' safety cannot be guaranteed.

The itinerary of one such tour, which takes in the nuclear plant and even the remains of the number four reactor, contains elements as lunch (food is delivered from outside of the Chernobyl zone), passage through the Dytyatky control point and measuring of radiation.

Apart from seeing the remnants of one of the late 20th century's most dramatic events, trips to the exclusion zone offer visitors a peek into a macabre, Mary Celeste world where tens of thousands of homes were abandoned. Particularly chilling is Prypyat, once a 50,000-strong city but now a ghost town, where books still sit on school desks and May Day decorations flutter in the streets.

The plant itself, which kept generating power until 2000, still has 2,500 staff making the site safe, working in strict shifts to minimise radiation exposure.

Ukraine's government said that it hoped to complete a new sarcophagus for the exploded reactor by 2015. The existing concrete structure is cracking and leaks radiation.

• This article was amended on 15 December 2010. The original referred to the Marie Celeste. This has been corrected.