{"id":36622,"date":"2026-09-10T11:07:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T15:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/?p=36622"},"modified":"2026-09-10T07:07:29","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T11:07:29","slug":"a-dark-shape-under-chernobyls-green-water-went-viral-as-a-mutant-catfish-but-the-real-transformation-began-when-the-pumps-stopped","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/a-dark-shape-under-chernobyls-green-water-went-viral-as-a-mutant-catfish-but-the-real-transformation-began-when-the-pumps-stopped\/36622\/","title":{"rendered":"A dark shape under Chernobyl\u2019s green water went viral as a mutant catfish, but the real transformation began when the pumps stopped"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A viral video of an enormous fish swimming in a water canal at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant<\/a>, sparked the idea that the radiation created radioactive \u201cmutants,\u201d but science demonstrated that there was nothing of \u201cmutant\u201d in them. The Welsh catfish is naturally one of the biggest freshwater species in the world. The real historical change started in 2014, when the water cooling pumps were shut down and the gigantic reservoir started to dry up and turn into an ecosystem of wetlands and forests, breaking into residual lakes and wetlands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fish looks monstrous because Wels catfish already are<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Wels catfish<\/a> is the biggest freshwater fish in Europe. To give you an idea, it is confirmed that they can reach 2.73 meters<\/a> (nearly 9 feet) and 130 kilograms (287 pounds).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is something dramatic in the videos, and this is because a large fish filmed close to the phone’s lens, without any reference object to compare its size, can fill the whole screen. The long life of these animals also influences this, since investigations show that the Wels catfish<\/a> can survive for many decades and continue growing until they reach enormous sizes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Several Wels catfish move beneath the water at Chernobyl. Their imposing size helped fuel stories about radioactive mutants, although large body size is a natural characteristic of the species.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Why the pumps ran for 13 years after shutdown<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The last unit (Unit 3)that kept operating at the plant was shut down on December 15, 2000. But the problem was that the pond was constantly losing water through filtrations and evaporation. So, keeping it full meant paying an impossible electricity industrial bill in order to pump replacement water from the Pripyat River.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Read More: A dark shape under Chernobyl\u2019s green water went viral as a mutant catfish, but the real transformation began when the pumps stopped<\/a><\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The pumping station was finally switched off in May 2014 and it was in August 2016 that the water levels divided the pond into three separate bodies, where the satellites showed that 42 percent of the surface area had become dry land one year later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Read More: Forty years after Chernobyl, its legacy still echoes across health, politics, and the land itself, and the disaster\u2019s long tail has not stopped reshaping lives<\/a><\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Was there when willows, silver birches, marsh grasses, and a few Scots pines really advanced over the former bottom of the pond. Finally in August 2019, the plant informed that the area<\/a> was turning into an wetland ecosystem with its water levels that now depend on the rainfall, groundwater and river flow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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