40 years remembering Chornobyl - 4th May 2026

Commemorating the 40th anniversary of Chornobyl's an act of tribute for the inhabitants of Slavutych in Ukraine, a city which wasn't even constructed when the world's worst nuclear accident started claiming the lives of its residents' friends and relatives.

On 26th April 1986, the explosion of Reactor 4 at Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant released radioactive contaminants across the Soviet Union and Europe. The disaster was only admitted by Soviet authorities two days later, after nuclear scientists in Sweden detected spikes in local radiation levels.

Although only causing two fatalities, the explosion released a cocktail of radionuclides, resulting in severe radiation burns and 237 workers being hospitalised. Over half these admissions were formally diagnosed with Acute Radiation Syndrome, and within three months, 28 had passed away.

The contamination saw a Zone of Alienation instituted by the Soviet authorities. 115,000 residents within 30 kilometres of the reactor were uprooted from their homes.

In Slavutych, built to rehouse Chornobyl's survivors, residents pay tribute to their relatives. Yuriy Fomichev's mayor of Slavutych.

Yuriy Fomichev: "April 26th is a significant date for our city. And every year on this night, we gather in the central square to honour those people who saved lives through sheer heroism. Not with technology, not for a large sum of money, but simply because it had to be done. It was necessary to save the world. It was necessary to protect the world from the danger that occurred at the Chornobyl plant."

Although estimated to have caused between four and sixteen thousand deaths, Chornobyl's long-term impact's been significantly reduced by the efforts of 'Chornobyl liquidators'. Without them knowingly exposing themselves to deadly radiation, the disaster wouldn't have been contained.

30 years after the concrete sarcophagus had been hastily constructed to confine Chornobyl's radioactive contents, the New Safe Confinement arch was inched into position over the remains of Reactor 4. Although built to last 100 years, the structure was compromised by a Russian attack drone in 2025.

With grandparents who were Chornobyl liquidators and her father currently employed at the site, Olga Shevchenko's both remembering the past and considering the daunting clean-up operation that remains ahead.

Olga Shevchenko: "Yet this disaster is so immense that it will take many more years to fully liquidate it. I don't know how many hundreds of years it will take. And that is why we must remember both what happened and what will happen, and I don't think the two are connected."