Green Cloud Over Moscow Spotted On Chernobyl Anniversary (VIDEO)

Russian media are reporting that a mysterious green cloud has descended over Moscow, just in time for the 26th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster.

While the cloud's ominous coloring and southwesterly approach -- Chernobyl is about 600 miles southwest of Moscow -- were coincidences that were not lost on alarmed citizens, the cloud poses no threat to residents of the Russian capital, apart from allergic reactions.

Scroll Down For Video Of The Green Cloud

According to Interfax, a non-governmental Russian news agency, the cloud is made up of pollen, not toxic chemicals. A Russian monitoring agency reports an abnormally high level of pollen in the air this season, due to warmer than average temperatures. The amount of birch pollen in the air, which has a distinctive green hue, is almost four times the average.

But this explanation of the phenomenon failed to convince some citizens, for whom the specter of the world's worst nuclear plant disaster still looms large. According to RT, which also provided the video for this post, some Moscow citizens "believe that the authorities are hiding information from the public" and that others "got so scared that even the official comments could not convince them [that there was no threat]."

An explosion and fire at the #4 reactor in Chernobyl released large amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere in 1986.

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Comments

[Fairytale Believer]

07:24 PM on 04/27/2012

That pollen is an excellent carrier of cesium isotopes and other radionuclides. Massive quantities of radionuclides are carried through the pollen in Japan and their pollen rates are abnormally high as well. I pity the Japanese as they are at ground zero, even though the western U.S. got hit hard as well and still is. No one deserves the eternal pain and suffering nuclear energy causes. Disease rates and incidences of tumors are already rising way above normal in the Japanese population with Fukushima residents bearing the brunt of it. It will never get better and Japan will eventually be off-limits for any rational human being. We cannot forget the innocents and burn the CEO's and politicians that manipulated the public into supporting the most dangerous, damaging, and most dirty form of energy production ever created. Shut them all down and grow up humanity. We don't need them!

[PoloniumMan]

09:17 PM on 04/27/2012

Keep up the good work. You are representing the oil and gas guardians well. Through the efforts of yourself and others like you, the freedom loving fossil fuel sellers will regain their 12 million barrels of oil per day market share that was unjustly taken from them by the evil fission masters.

[Kenz300]

11:01 PM on 04/26/2012

Chernobly is building a new containment structure to cover the old building that is collapsing.

This disaster continues today and the citizens are still paying for it over 25 years later.

[Fairytale Believer]

07:18 PM on 04/27/2012

And will continue to pay for it in the centuries to come. No matter how tough they build the containment structure, it is constantly bombarded by radiation weakening the material. That degradation just adds to the wear and tear the environment dishes out.

[jenniferkizzy]

07:47 PM on 04/26/2012

that is a little odd and dangerous

[Joe Bigg]

05:46 PM on 04/26/2012

Yeah, so those green clouds heading into Moscow are aokay?

Why is it that I feel that I do not want to visit Moscow anytime soon?

[Nancy Jo Daly]

05:01 PM on 04/26/2012

Move along people, there's nothing to see here..........yeah right.

[SRogers1]

04:54 PM on 04/26/2012

Strange way for the Russians to memorialize Chernobyl... I think they could have done better.