Slavutych Residents Mark 40th Anniversary of Chernobyl Disaster with Vigil

Larysa Panova, 67, often recalls the day of the April 26, 1986 accident that forced her to leave her native hometown of Chornobyl 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, Larysa Panova said. “I never stop thinking of Chernobyl as my homeland,” Larysa Panova said.

Before Russia’s full-scale invasion, Larysa Panova regularly travelled back to visit relatives who remained in Chornobyl or simply to spend time in the land where she grew up. With the war, access to the Chernobyl exclusion zone became restricted. Slavutych endured a brief Russian occupation during Moscow’s push to seize the Ukrainian capital in the early days of the war.

Blackouts during the last winter forced some residents of Slavutych to cook meals over open fires in the streets. The city of Slavutych is located around 50 kilometers (32 miles) from the former Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Soviet authorities began building the city of Slavutych in late 1986 to house workers from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and their families.

The first residents moved into Slavutych around 1988. The Chernobyl disaster occurred on April 26, 1986, in the Soviet Union. Soviet authorities did not report the explosion for two days after it occurred on April 26, 1986.

Winds carried the fallout from the Chernobyl explosion across Europe after April 26, 1986. Swedish experts went public with their concerns about the Chernobyl fallout after April 26, 1986. About 600,000 people, referred to as Chernobyl’s “liquidators,” were sent in to fight the fire at the Chernobyl nuclear plant and clean up the worst of its contamination after the April 26, 1986 disaster.

Thirty workers died within months from either the explosion or acute radiation sickness following the April 26, 1986 Chernobyl disaster. The Chernobyl accident exposed millions in the region to dangerous levels of radiation. The Chernobyl accident forced a wide-scale, permanent evacuation of hundreds of towns and villages in Ukraine and Belarus.