It was the worst nuclear disaster in history, spewing thousands of tons of radioactive waste into the atmosphere and prompting the evacuation of more than 100,000 people.

But thirty years after its reactor number four exploded in a pillar of radioactive smoke, the abandoned wasteland around the Chernobyl nuclear power station is one of the most important habitats for scientists studying native wildlife in Europe.

“Thirty years ago, two things happened at once. The whole area was contaminated with radiation, and the human population vanished,” said professor Mike Wood, a Salford University naturalist, as he pushed plastic sampling sticks into a patch of irradiated earth.

“That gives us a unique opportunity to compare the impacts of both.”