Last Sunday, Ukraine marked the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. On April 26, 1986, the plant’s No. 4 reactor exploded, spewing radioactive material that spread across Europe.
The official death toll from the Kornobyl incident, as it is known in Ukrainian, is 31, but the wider impact of the accident remains controversial and difficult to judge.
A 2005 study by several UN agencies concluded that as many as 4,000 people could die as a result of the accident. Other estimates suggest the number may be higher.
The BBC’s Jessica Parker visited the nearby city of Pripyat, where Chernobyl workers lived but was abandoned soon after the disaster.
