LATimes on the Chernobyl zone

"It is the zone that kills the young and leaves the old be," Laptev's mother, Roza Lapteva, said in a quiet, almost indifferent tone. "I don't know how it does it, but the zone is to blame."

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/24/world/la-fg-chernobyl-fear-20110424