Toxic Tour

A poisoned lake in Romania, carcinogenic mud in the south of France or radioactive wolves roaming the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Toxic Tour takes you to six places where beauty and ecological devastation go hand in hand.

In Germany's Rhineland, a gigantic open-pit coal mine is slowly swallowing up entire villages, wiped off the map by an ultra-polluting source of energy.

Germany: The Voracious Mine

Everything is red here. In Provence an alumina refinery has been dumping tonnes of toxic red mud in the countryside and into the sea since the 1960, all with the blessing of the authorities.

France: Radioactive Mud

In Provence an alumina refinery has been dumping tonnes of toxic red mud onto land and sea since the 1960, all with the blessing of the authorities.

In Romania, in the heart of the Carpathian Mountains, a village is disappearing every day, submerged by the waste from a nearby copper mine, opened in 1977.

Romania: The Poisoned Lake

In Andalusia, fish cannot survive in the blood-red waters of the Rio Tinto. Highly acidic, the river is also a favourite with tourists.

Spain: The Acid River

With its turquoise water and white sand, Rosignano beach in Tuscany looks like a surfer's paradise. But the immaculate sand is due to a chemical factory that has been dumping its waste into the sea for over a century.

Italy: Corrosive Foam

With its turquoise water and white sand, Rosignano beach in Tuscany looks like a surfer's paradise. But the water is polluted.

On 26 April 1986, the reactor core of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded in the world’s worst nuclear disaster. The contaminated exclusion zone, forbidden to humans, is now a nature reserve which wolves, lynxes and bears call home.

Toxic Tour

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Toxic Tour

Germany: The Voracious Mine

Toxic Tour

France: Radioactive Mud

Toxic Tour

Romania: The Poisoned Lake

Toxic Tour

Spain: The Acid River

Toxic Tour

Italy: Corrosive Foam

Toxic Tour

Ukraine: Wolves of Chernobyl