The ancient world - or at least the classical world, which is the only bit that I'm qualified to discuss - was full of places to fear, places to avoid, and places of certain death.

There were, first, places haunted by ghosts and other malevolent spirits. In the Greco-Roman imagination, ghosts were imagined to be the souls of those who had suffered violent or untimely deaths. Although there were friendly ghosts - or at least ghosts who could be summoned to useful ends - most revenants were hostile, and haunted places were to be avoided, especially at night. There was a famous haunted house in Athens, and a haunted bath in another Greek city; an island in the Black Sea was said to be zealously guarded by the ghost of Achilles; and any crossroad - where Hecate, queen of ghosts, was liable to marshal her spectral hordes - was dangerous after dark.^(1)

There were places made deadly by natural hazards, like the the cavern known as the Plutonion at Hierapolis, where a poisonous mist seeping from the walls killed all who entered (except, for some reason, the eunuch priests of Cybele).^(2) Lake Avernus, near Naples, was said to emit vapors that killed any bird that crossed its surface.

There were places stricken by ancient disasters, like the sunken ruins of Helike, levelled by an earthquake in the fifth century BCE. The city's remains could still be seen under the water; for centuries, local fishermen snagged their nets on a submerged statue of Poseidon among the ruins.^(3)

There were places that bore witness to the rage of the gods. The plains around Megalopolis, strewn with the colossal bones of mastodons and other Pleistocene megafauna, were interpreted as the place where the gods had defeated the giants in dim antiquity. Sometimes, the lignite coal in which the bones were embedded would be kindled by lightning strikes and smolder, a lingering testament to the wrath of Zeus. A blasted region in what is now southern Turkey, likewise, was thought to have been devastated by Zeus' battle with Typhon.

And there were, finally, places destroyed by human hands. The most famous devastated cities of antiquity - Thebes, destroyed by Alexander, and Carthage, viciously sacked by Scipio - were rebuilt later, but the classical world was dotted with strongholds and settlements ruined by forgotten wars, and by mysterious older remains (like those of Mycenae and Knossos) that often came to be associated with the figures of myth. None of these were forbidden, but many of them came - at least in late antiquity - to be feared as nests of demons.

None of these examples is a precise counterpart to Chernobyl. But collectively, I think, they demonstrate that there were many places where the Greeks and Romans feared to tread.

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(1) For all these references, see the Google preview of the chapter on ghosts in my book.

(2) E.g. Strabo 13.4.14

(3) Paus. 7.24.12; Strabo 8.7.2

I would suggest that the reason that "everyone agreed to never go there again" is not so much that something terrible happened, but the danger of radioactive contamination.

However, there is a place that, in a way, fits both conditions:

In the Northern Territory, Australia is a region of the Kakadu National Park, known to the Jawoyn people, the traditional custodians of the land, as Buladjang, or "Sickness Country". There are a number of stories in the Jawoyn people's oral history which warn that the land must not be disturbed or settled on, and should be avoided (especially by the frail) because of the risk of becoming sick.

According to the Jawoyn people's oral history:

Jawoyn land was created by the powerful ancestor Bula, who came from saltwater country to the north. [...] Bula finally went under the ground at a number of locations north of Katherine in an area known to us as “Sickness Country”. It is called this because the area is very dangerous. Terrible sickness and disaster may result if Bula is disturbed.^(()^(Jawoyn Associatation Aboriginal Corporation))

The Jawoyn people's creation stories regard Bula, also known as Nagorkun, as a powerful ancestor responsible for creating the Jawoyn land. In Sickness Country, the "something terrible" that happened is Bula's demise:

Nargorkun was bitten on the knee by Palmura, the mud-dauber hornet, which caused him to swell up into all manner of monstrous shapes. He became very sick and thirsty and was so badly crippled that he had to crawl on hands and knees to move about... He crawled... to Yeleamukmoo, the Sickness Cave... He left his story and shades on the walls of the Sickness Cave, and a damp rock on the floor, before entering the ground to rest peacefully. He will remain there harmless and peaceful unless disturbed by excessive noise. If disturbed he will wake up and by rising he will split the world and destroy it. ^((Arndt, 1962. "The Nagorkun-Narlinji Cult"))

Also in this area, Bolung, a creator being also known as "The Rainbow Serpent", is said to be resting in the "Second Gorge" of Nitmiluk (formerly known as Katherine Gorge), with warnings not to disturb and/or avoid the area:

Bolung rests in the deep water at the second gorge at Nitmiluk. The spirit being is an important life giving figure but may also act as a destroyer. Bolung can take the form of lighting and may bring monsoonal floods. Unlike other Jawoyn Dreaming figures which may be addressed for assistance in hunting and foraging [...] Bolung must not be spoken to and must be left undisturbed. Our people do not fish in the pools where Bolung sits. When fishing close to these pools, we can take only a small portion of the fish caught and throw-back the rest in order to appease Bolung. Drinking water must not be taken from these deep pools but rather from the shallow associated waters. Pregnant women and new initiates may not swim in the Katherine River for fear of disturbing Bolung.^(()^(Jawoyn Associatation Aboriginal Corporation))

A warning not to cross to the opposite shore of a creek within the Sickness Country area:

Here at Jarrangbarnmi, tourist mob musn't go close. That's dangerous. It's not allowed. ^((Sandy Barraway & Peter Jatbula, Jawoyn Wurrkbarbar clan. "Kakadu National Park Jarrangbarnmi fact sheet"))

It is easy to disregard all of this as myth, not history, but note that to Australian Aboriginal peoples, the stories from The Dreaming are believed to be truthful. In a modern context, the oral history of Aboriginal peoples is often considered to be derived from truth - that while some stories themselves might be outlandish, they were a way of passing down real historical lessons and information:

In reality, the term “myth” does have multiple meanings. It could be something imagined, but it could also be something based on reality. At some point the English-speaking world unofficially decided that the word myth would solely be understood as stories that were not real. As expected, many people placed Aboriginal stories into the category of the imaginary. But they always stayed truthful to us. [...] Our stories are derived from the truth. Something happened over 40,000 years ago that made my ancestors tell a story to protect their children. This relates to all of our stories. ^(()^(Jacinta Koolmatrie, Australian Museum, 2020. "Debunking the myth that Aboriginal stories are just myths: the Yamuti and the megafauna Diprotodon")^())

As it turns out, there is something that likely explains the warnings contained within these stories: the area is rich in uranium deposits.

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...the 'Sickness Country' coincides with areas that regionally have above average crustal concentrations of U and thorium. The granites and felsic volcanics in this region have extremely anomalous U concentrations of 10 to 30 ppm, and U can concentrate to values of up to 140 ppm in alteration zones along major shears. In addition, the U deposits in the South Alligator Mineral Field are also anomalously enriched in arsenic, lead and mercury. ^((L.A.I. Wyborn, E.A. Jagodzinski, M. Ratajkosko, 1995. "The Pine Creek Metallogenic GIS"))

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As the Dreamtime explains, the Jawoyn people who are the traditional Aboriginal land owners have long been aware of potentially adverse health effects from disturbing this land. Interestingly, the location of Sickness Country coincides with some of the largest uranium deposits in Australia ^((Ljung, Karin, de Vos, Annemarie, Cook, Angus, and Weinstein, Philip, 2010. "An Overview of Medical Geology Issues in Australia and Oceania"))

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One particularly interesting case of high element exposure is “sickness country” in Australia. This area in the Kakadu region of the Australian Outback has been known by the aborigines as an area that will cause sickness. Hence the area is regarded by the aborigines as taboo and should not be entered. Geochemical researchers may have found the reason for the sickness. The bedrock in the region consists of granites and volcanic rocks. These rock types contain elevated amounts of certain elements. The “sickness country” contains localized areas of unusually high natural levels of thorium, uranium, arsenic, mercury, fluorine, and radon in groundwater and drinking water. The aborigines had also used ochre as color pigment in painting. The ochre was shown to contain extremely high contents of uranium, lead, arsenic, and mercury. The naturally high levels of toxic elements in the land and water systems thus constitute a health hazard recognized eons ago by the local people ^((Robert B. Finkeman, Jose A. Centeno, Olle Selinus, Joy Jacqueline Pereira, 2004. "Medical Geology: An Emerging Discipline"))

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