It’s been 40 years since the largest nuclear disaster in human history. The Chernobyl accident affected hundreds of thousands. Pripyat residents whose lives were torn apart in an instant, Chernobyl liquidators – scientists, military personnel, civilians, the scale of human sacrifice is impossible to quantify. But we are still here, living and breathing, walking proof that nuclear energy is still among the safest ways of pushing humanity forward.
In late 2021 I had an honour to stand in the very centre of this story, in the control room of the destroyed reactor 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Visitors are only allowed to experience it for a few minutes, even though measured radiation levels are far from harmful. My own Geiger counter and dosimeters handed out at the beginning of the tour can’t paint the whole picture. Plenty of hot spots can be found not just behind the ghostly panels in the control room staring at you with the gaping holes where the instruments and switches used to be, but also along the dark, winding corridors leading to them. Inhaling only a few highly radioactive particles might not sound serious, but the consequences can manifest themselves many years later. This is why each one of us sat in a chair loaded with radiation detectors for a few minutes before and after the tour while the power plant staff compared the readings.
I planned everything long before entering the control room 4 – how to photograph the eerie control panels, where take a few short video clips to share, I wanted look for the critical parts of the reactor operating system, but once I crossed the door I was simply too overwhelmed to remember any of this.
Nobody knows when, or if, it will be possible to return as Ukraine has now much more pressing problems to deal with. The results of the 2022 Russian occupation of the Chernobyl Power Plant can still be seen all over the Exclusion Zone.
I thought for a long time what to write on this special occasion, but what can I add to the ocean of words that have already been said by those who were there? I am merely a visitor, a curious explorer walking among the ruins of what once was a thriving city full of hope for the future.
Tonight, my thoughts are with the victims and their families.
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