Keeping Chornobyl's memory alive - 4th May 2026

Residents in Slavutych, Ukraine, are commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Chornobyl disaster. The world's worst nuclear accident cost the lives of their many family and friends.

Reactor 4 at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded on 26th April 1986, spreading radioactive material across the Soviet Union and Europe. However, Soviet authorities only acknowledged the disaster when elevated levels of radiation had been detected in Sweden, two days after the disaster.

Although only two engineers were killed on the night of the explosion, radiation caused severe burns, and 237 workers were hospitalised. More than half were suffering from Acute Radiation Syndrome, which led to 28 deaths within three months.

Soviet authorities implemented a 30-kilometre exclusion zone due to high levels of radiological contamination, displacing 115,000 people. The city of Slavutych was built to rehome these survivors of the Chornobyl disaster.

Every year, Slavutych's residents honour their selfless sacrifice, explains Mayor Yuriy Fomichev.

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."

Since 1986, an estimated 4,000 to 16,000 deaths have occurred due to the long-term effects of the accident. If it hadn't been for the bravery of the 'Chornobyl liquidators', who risked their lives to contain the disaster, this number would be far higher.

In 2016, the New Safe Confinement arch was slid into place over Reactor 4's concrete sarcophagus. Designed to confine the radioactive remains for another 100 years, it was damaged by a Russian attack drone in 2025, compromising this function.

Remembering the past and her grandparents, who were Chornobyl liquidators, is important to Olga Shevchenko. However, with her father still working there, Chornobyl's future weighs equally on her mind.

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."