It was 30 years ago on April 26, 1986 that the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl in the then U.S.S.R. took place. It was one of only two level 7 events, the highest level, on the International Nuclear Event Scale to have ever occurred.
The disaster affected over 500,000 workers, killed 31 people (and thousands upon thousands more later from the effects of the accident) and cost an estimated 18 billion rubles (about $275 million in today’s dollars).
This video shot using drones between 2013 and 2016 shows the nearby city of Pripyat and the nuclear facility which are both still uninhabitable due to radiation levels still being too high 30 years later.
Here are a few still shots from the video and the video itself which contains so many more images that are a haunting reminder of that day’s catastrophic events.
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