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Respects were paid at a memorial dedicated to firefighters and workers who died after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster (Dan Bashakov\/AP)<\/p>\nResidents of Slavutych show up for the vigil each year despite current wartime curfews and official warnings against large gatherings during Russia\u2019s war on Ukraine.<\/p>\n
The April 26, 1986 Chernobyl disaster shone a spotlight on lax safety standards and government secrecy in what was then the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n
The explosion was not reported by Soviet authorities for two days, only after winds had carried the fallout across Europe and Swedish experts had gone public with their concerns.<\/p>\n
About 600,000 people, often referred to as Chernobyl\u2019s \u201cliquidators\u201d, were sent in to fight the fire at the nuclear plant and clean up the worst of its contamination.<\/p>\n
Thirty workers died within months from either the explosion or acute radiation sickness. The accident exposed millions in the region to dangerous levels of radiation and forced a wide-scale, permanent evacuation of hundreds of towns and villages in Ukraine and Belarus.<\/p>\n
Respects were paid at a memorial dedicated to firefighters and workers who died after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster (Dan Bashakov\/AP)<\/p>\n
Slavutych, around 32 miles from the former plant, dates to this period. While most evacuees were resettled across nearby districts in Kyiv region, in late 1986 Soviet authorities began building what would become the city to house workers from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and their families. The first residents moved in around 1988.<\/p>\n
Since then, the city has endured a brief Russian occupation during Moscow\u2019s failed push to seize the Ukrainian capital in early days of the war, as well as harsh winters \u2013 especially the last one, when blackouts forced some residents to cook meals over open fires in the streets.<\/p>\n
People of all ages gathered in the square, some arriving as families carrying spring tulips and daffodils. They lined up in a broad plaza framed by Soviet-era apartment blocks, where a memorial stands near a row of posters honouring local residents killed in the war.<\/p>\n
Liudmyla Liubyva, 71, came to the ceremony with a friend. She used to attend with her husband, who worked at the Chernobyl plant but later developed a disability linked to radiation exposure, and lost the ability to walk, she said.<\/p>\n
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Some people dressed in white protective suits to symbolise the 600,000 \u2018liquidators\u2019 sent in to fight the fire and clean up the worst of the contamination (Dan Bashakov\/AP)<\/p>\n
Ms Liubyva said it is important to honour those who sacrificed their health in the aftermath of the disaster, but Russia\u2019s war has revived fears that the danger was never fully left behind.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the drone struck the arch, it felt like the world could return to 1986,\u201d she said, referring to a Russian drone strike in 2025 that damaged the New Safe Confinement structure, the massive dome built to contain radiation from the destroyed reactor.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all \u2013 young and old alike \u2013 must protect our land, because it is so vulnerable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Soft music played in the background as poetry about the disaster drifted over loudspeakers. \u201cYears pass, generations change, but the pain of Chernobyl does not fade,\u201d a woman\u2019s voice recited.<\/p>\n
As the words echoed across the square, people dressed in white protective suits and face masks, symbolising the liquidators, stood in silence holding candles.<\/p>\n
Larysa Panova, 67, often recalls the day of the accident that forced her to leave her native hometown of Chernobyl and begin a new life in Slavutych. Though the new city has long since become home, she still thinks of the forests and rich nature of the place she left behind.<\/p>\n
Before Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion, she regularly travelled back to visit relatives who remained there or simply to spend time in the land where she grew up. But with the war, access to the exclusion zone became restricted.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never stop thinking of Chernobyl as my homeland,\u201d she said. \u201cYou remember your school, your childhood, your youth \u2013 everything happened there, in Chernobyl.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Residents of Slavutych show up for the vigil each year despite current wartime curfews and official warnings against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":176423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[128,130,129],"class_list":["post-176422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}