Haunting Photos of Ukraine’s Ghost Town Marking 35 Years Since Chernobyl

Ukrainians have commemorated those who died in the Chernobyl disaster on its 35th anniversary with an overnight vigil in the ghost-town of Pripyat.

Attendees lit candles, priests held a ceremony and artists performed in the central square of the town, which has been deserted since its 50,000 inhabitants were evacuated when a reactor at the nearby Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded in the early hours of the 26th of April 1986.

The explosion of the fourth reactor during a safety test caused the death of 30 power station operatives and firemen within a few days or weeks, including 28 deaths from radiation exposure. But thousands more are believed to have died from radiation poisoning following the disaster, in Ukraine, as well as neighbouring Belarus and Russia.

The exact number of deaths is the subject of debate as Soviet authorities kept information about the disaster hidden.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky is due to visit the exclusion zone and address Ukrainians about the disaster. The exclusion zone is a 30 kilometre (20 mile) radius around the power plant that was evacuated after the disaster and has been deemed unfit for human habitation for thousands of years.

There was also a memorial ceremony to the Chernobyl firefighters in the city of Slavutych, built to accommodate evacuated workers following the disaster.