Inside creepy abandoned ‘nuclear powered’ lighthouse that’s left to rot on a remote chunk of rock

PERCHED on a remote rock and falling into ruins, this nuclear-powered lighthouse is an unlikely tourist attraction.

Yet every year hundreds of visitors make the bumpy voyage to climb the abandoned tower at Cape Aniva, in the far east of Russia.

The crumbling structure once housed 12 crew at a time, but now only seagulls and their chicks call it home.

Also known as Nakashiretoko, it was built by Japanese engineers from 1937 to 1939 at the southern tip of Sakhalin island.

At the time, the southern half of the 600-mile-long island was part of the Japanese empire while the northern half was Russian.

The cape at Aniva is inaccessible on land and hard to reach by boat, but the workers managed to build a nine-storey concrete lighthouse towering 100ft above the waves.

Its exposed position means the light - which revolved on a bed of liquid mercury - could be seen up to 19 nautical miles away.

And it was essential as the strait it overlooks is notorious for hazards, including underwater currents, frequent fog and hidden rocky shoals.

At the end of World War II the Soviet Union annexed the whole island and at least 100,000 Japanese people fled to Hokkaido.

The Soviets then took over the operation of the lighthouse - and installed "atomic batteries" to power it.

It was one of a total of 132 Soviet lighthouses that used radioisotope thermoelectric generators.

These are a kind of giant battery that convert the heat generated by the decay of a radioactive material - in this case strontium-90 - into electricity.

They are ideal in remote locations with no infrastructure, providing reliable power for up to ten years before they need to be replaced.

Similar generators have also been used on Nasa space probes.