Gleb Garanich/Reuters
On April 26, 1986, a radioactive release 10 times bigger than the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power station inside the Soviet Union. It would go down in history as one of the worst disasters of its kind.
The explosion blasted radioactive gas and dust into the air, and winds carried it across central and southern Europe. Thirty-one people died in the accident, and countless lives have been affected long-term by the exposure to radiation.
Around 350,000 people were forced to evacuate their homes in the “Nuclear Exclusion Zone,” the area in a 19-mile radius around the plant. The town hardest hit was Pripyat, Ukraine — it was quickly abandoned and remains empty to this day.
Ahead, 17 photos that show what the zone looked like in 2016.
The cause of the explosion was two-fold. The first major issue was that the power station was built with faulty construction and what American physicist and Nobel laureate Hans Bethe has called “built-in instability.”
Gleb Garanich/Reuters
Source: PBS Frontline
At the time of the accident, the power station had four 1,000-megawatt power reactors in place. A fifth one was in the works.
Gleb Garanich/Reuters
One of the multiple issues was the reactor’s containment structure. Built entirely of concrete, it should have been reinforced with steel. Here, a view of a baby’s crib in the abandoned village of Zalesye.
Gleb Garanich/Reuters
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