Chernobyl, 30 years since the catastrophe

Pripyat, built in the 1970s as a model Soviet city to house the workers and families of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, now stands abandoned inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, a restricted area contaminated by radiation from the 1986 meltdown of reactor No. 4 at the nearby Chernobyl plant, the world’s worst-ever civilian nuclear accident, which spewed radioactive fallout across the globe.

Authorities evacuated approximately 43,000 people from Pripyat in the days following the disaster, and the city, with its high-rise apartment buildings, hospital, shops, schools, restaurants, cultural center and sports facilities, has remained a ghost town ever since.

The world will soon commemorate the 30th anniversary of the April 26, 1986, Chernobyl disaster.

Photography by Sean Gallup/Getty Images

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