Chornobyl's Legacy

One of the first photos of Chornobyl nuclear plant after the April 26, 1986, blast. A massive power surge at the plant triggered the explosion that blew the 1,000-ton lid off the No. 4 reactor.

The 1986 explosion released at least 100 times more radiation than the nuclear bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima during World War II, contaminating large parts of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. This is the nearby city of Pripyat.

Mourners light candles at a memorial in Slavutych, Ukraine, more than two decades after the disaster for tens of thousands of "liquidators" sent in for the cleanup effort at Chornobyl.

A brick chimney stands as the sole reminder of a house that was destroyed by fire in the abandoned village of Kazhushki, in the Chornobyl exclusion zone.

A child peers through a window at a children's hematological and oncological center in Minsk that was built after the Chornobyl nuclear accident. The scale of the health problems resulting from radiation remains difficult to assess.

An employee from the Belarusian radiation ecology reserve measures the level of radiation on canisters in the village of Gubarevichi, outside the 30-kilometer exclusion zone around the Chornobyl nuclear reactor, some 360 kilometers from Minsk.

A wooden house stands among abandoned homes in the Chornobyl nuclear power plant's 30-kilometer exclusion zone in 2006. Although the initial radiation killed much of the local flora and fauna, many wild animals continue to live in the restricted zone.

The sarcophagus meant to contain the radiation at Chornobyl was built hastily, and deteriorated quickly. Work continues on a new steel dome designed to last 100 years, labeled the New Safe Confinement.

In Belarus, the Chornobyl disaster persists as a political as well as an environmental issue. The opposition adopted the issue, arguing that the government of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has failed to address Chornobyl's residual effects.

A woman cries in front of a memorial dedicated to firefighters and workers who died after the Chornobyl nuclear disaster during a night service near the Chornobyl plant in the city of Slavutych on April 23, 2012.

A man carries a cross on April 23, 2012, at a cemetery in the abandoned Belarusian village of Dovliady in the 10-kilometer exclusion zone around the Chornobyl nuclear reactor.