{"id":392095,"date":"2026-04-22T12:28:35","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T12:28:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/392095\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T12:28:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T12:28:35","slug":"chernobyls-painful-legacy-of-silence-sacrifice-and-danger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/392095\/","title":{"rendered":"Chernobyl\u2019s painful legacy of silence, sacrifice and danger"},"content":{"rendered":"

Efrem Lukatsky, a Kyiv-based photographer for The Associated Press, was living in the city on April 26, 1986, when the explosion and fire struck the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, about a two-hour drive away. He has visited the plant and the \u201cexclusion zone\u201d around it dozens of times. He recalls the disaster that has haunted him and Ukraine for 40 years.<\/p>\n

It began with whispers at work.<\/p>\n

There was no official announcement about the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant when it happened in 1986 \u2014 only fragments of information passed quietly among colleagues.<\/p>\n

I was in my late 20s at the time and was a specialised underwater welder for a Kyiv institute that sent me to offshore platforms and classified military bases across the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n

No one spoke openly about what happened at Chernobyl \u2014 which is transliterated as “Chornobyl” in Ukraine \u2014 but unease was growing. There was a metallic taste in my mouth and a dryness in my throat. Others had it, but no one understood why.<\/p>\n

The first official, brief acknowledgement came two days later \u2014 that an accident had occurred. Nothing more. People spoke in hushed tones about plant firefighters being flown to hospitals in Moscow.<\/p>\n

Officially, life continued as normal.<\/p>\n

At night, we tuned in to Western broadcasts \u2014 still considered subversive in those days \u2014 for news the state would not provide. We learned the accident had spread a plume of radiation beyond the USSR\u2019s borders. Experts urged people to seal windows, wear masks and give iodine to children. I followed their advice, placing an iodine drop each day on a sugar cube to protect my thyroid gland from absorbing contamination.<\/p>\n

Warnings from friends<\/p>\n

\"Efrem<\/p>\n

Efrem Lukatsky, now an Associated Press photographer, wears protective clothes outside the sarcophagus that covers destroyed Reactor No. 4 in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

My family home was in Kyiv, where a neighbour warned me about radioactive dust. Later, I saw her husband, a policeman, strip off his clothes in the stairwell and seal them in a bag before going inside.<\/p>\n

A friend, a nuclear physicist, called and urged me to leave Kyiv for good, and some residents sent their children to other regions. I didn\u2019t go. My parents were here and it was my home.<\/p>\n

I found an old military radiation meter and checked everything \u2014 my apartment, my clothes, the streets. The readings were unsettling. At a playground, they climbed far above normal. At home, they were even higher. I used tape to lift the dust off my clothes.<\/p>\n

\"Bumper<\/p>\n

Bumper cars sit in a playground in the deserted town of Pripyat, Ukraine, Nov. 27, 2012. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

Five days after the explosion, the annual May Day parade went ahead in Kyiv as planned. Thousands filled the streets, many of them children. I marched too, past a monument to Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin, and was handed a banner praising the leadership.<\/p>\n

Days later, the city hosted a cycling race, and spectators lined the streets as if nothing had happened. The state said nothing was wrong, but we already knew otherwise.<\/p>\n

Evacuees arrive<\/p>\n

\"Beds<\/p>\n

Beds sit in a room of an abandoned kindergarten in the deserted town of Pripyat, Ukraine, Nov. 27, 2012, which housed Chernobyl nuclear power plant workers and their families. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

After the accident, long columns of buses moved slowly into Kyiv, carrying thousands of evacuees from Pripyat, the city adjacent to Chernobyl where most of its workers lived.<\/p>\n

I remember their faces \u2014 uncertain but calm. They were told they\u2019d be gone only a few days. They left behind homes, belongings and pets who died waiting for owners who never returned.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A broken clock hangs on a wall in a school in the deserted town of Pripyat, Ukraine, April 5, 2017. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

Three weeks after the disaster, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev addressed the nation, giving no explanation for the delay or reporting fully what had happened.<\/p>\n

A first visit<\/p>\n

\"Remains<\/p>\n

Remains of the collapsed roof at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, damaged in the separate 1991 fire in a turbine hall for Reactor No. 2, in Chernobyl, Ukraine, Oct. 13, 1991. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

In autumn 1986, I first visited what became known as Chernobyl\u2019s “exclusion zone”, a 2600sqkm area, having been sent there as part of a team from my scientific institute, and later as a stringer photographer for the Soviet magazine, Ogonyok.<\/p>\n

Silent apartment blocks stood beside schools, swimming pools and businesses that looked as if their occupants had just stepped out.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A pommel horse sits in a school gymnasium in the deserted town of Pripyat, Ukraine, April 5, 2017. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

But what stayed with me most were those sent to contain the disaster. Firefighters, we learned, had dragged hoses across wreckage, trying to extinguish a blaze that water couldn\u2019t quench. Tens of thousands of clean-up crews, or \u201cliquidators\u201d, were sent in to remove contaminated soil or seal the damaged reactor in concrete. Soldiers scraped radioactive debris from the plant\u2019s roof, risking lethal exposure in minutes.<\/p>\n

\"Remains<\/p>\n

Remains of the collapsed roof at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, damaged in the separate 1991 fire in a turbine hall for Reactor No. 2, in Chernobyl, Ukraine, Oct. 13, 1991. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

Then there were the coal miners. To prevent the plant\u2019s radioactive fuel from reaching the groundwater, they dug tunnels beneath it through darkness and heat, often stripped to their shirts.<\/p>\n

We had little protection \u2014 suits, boots and masks \u2014 that felt inadequate. Before leaving, we were inspected and washed down, as if that could undo any exposure. After each trip, I sealed my clothes in bags and discarded shoes and coats.<\/p>\n

Information remained tightly controlled. Photographers had to hand over film after each assignment.<\/p>\n

Shifting ground<\/p>\n

\"People<\/p>\n

People hold signs reading “Down with the Chernobyl mysteries!” and “Who is responsible for Chernobyl?” during a protest rally demanding the truth about the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident at a stadium in Chernobyl, Ukraine, April 26, 1989. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

But the truth already was spreading. People spoke more openly in Kyiv. The first protests were small and tentative but soon grew into larger demonstrations demanding answers \u2014 rallies that in turn formed the nucleus of Ukraine\u2019s independence movement.<\/p>\n

That was when my career as a journalist began. My photos were shown at an amateur exhibition, then published abroad. I thought I might be arrested.<\/p>\n

By then, however, the Soviet system itself was under strain.<\/p>\n

After the USSR collapsed in 1991 and Ukraine gained independence, I returned to the exclusion zone many times, often with scientists, police and firefighters. I was hired by the AP in 1989.<\/p>\n

Another lasting image was seeing people awaiting medical checks. I photographed them \u2014 the very old and the very young \u2014 standing quietly for examinations for signs of illness.<\/p>\n

\"Ivan<\/p>\n

Ivan Kalenda turns away to wipe his tears as he visits his 3-year-old grandson Vitya, right, in the children’s cancer hospital ward in Gomel, Belarus, March 19, 1996. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

Immediately after the accident, 30 plant workers and firefighters died from acute radiation sickness. Later, thousands of people died from radiation-related illnesses. Six photographers and cameramen sent there in the first days all died of illness later.<\/p>\n

Inside the control room<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

An investigator points toward damaged Reactor No. 4 inside the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine, Nov. 10, 2000. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

Pripyat was frozen in time. At a hospital where the first victims were treated, radiation levels remained dangerously high.<\/p>\n

Nearby was a vast machinery graveyard: Ambulances, buses, trucks, armoured vehicles and helicopters used in the cleanup were abandoned as too contaminated. To photograph them, we moved quickly to minimise exposure.<\/p>\n

\"About<\/p>\n

About 1350 Soviet military helicopters, buses, bulldozers, tankers, transporters, fire engines and ambulances, all highly contaminated with radiation, sit abandoned in a junkyard, in Chernobyl, Ukraine, Nov. 10, 2000. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

Inside the power plant, dust hung thick in the air, catching the light. We moved quickly but carefully to the control room, where a routine test for Reactor No. 4 had gone wrong at 1.23am on April 26, 1986, triggering two explosions. Many buttons from the panels were missing \u2014 taken as souvenirs.<\/p>\n

As we moved deeper into the plant, radiation levels rose, and we turned back. Some limits you do not cross.<\/p>\n

Trying to contain radiation<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A dome-shaped shelter covering the damaged reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear plant is seen on the horizon, April 15, 2021. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

As years passed, the original shelter over the reactor deteriorated, opening gaps where radiation leaked out. In 2019, the entire building was covered by an enormous arch-shaped shelter, designed to last generations. It seemed the situation finally was under control.<\/p>\n

But Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and Moscow\u2019s forces entered the exclusion zone, pushing toward Kyiv. The troops dug positions in contaminated soil, disturbing what had long been buried. Three years later, a Russian drone strike damaged the protective structure. There was no radiation leak, but it was a reminder that the danger persisted.<\/p>\n

Without people, the still-contaminated exclusion zone has recovered in unexpected ways. Forests have spread. Wildlife has multiplied. Rare species now move through places once defined by disaster.<\/p>\n

Pripyat remains frozen, but it\u2019s no longer entirely empty, as animals roam through it.<\/p>\n

After 40 years, that could be the clearest truth: Lives were upended, and for a long time, reality was kept hidden. But left alone, nature endures<\/a> \u2014 even at Chernobyl.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Efrem Lukatsky, a Kyiv-based photographer for The Associated Press, was living in the city on April 26, 1986,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":392096,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39,1745],"class_list":["post-392095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-uk-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=392095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}