Yes Chernoble has been a great unintended research area, some species die off while other thrive. Even some complex animals are thriving there.
We keep finding "life" in extreme conditions we would not expect to find it, some form of life always seems to pop up and take advantage of whatever inhospitable conditions we can imagine.
This is why I believe humanity is incapable of destroying all life on Earth even if we tried, humanity might not be able to survive whatever comes but some lifeforms will. Those lifeforms will inevitably evolve into the next dominate species on Earth after we have long gone over geological timescales.