Eighteen former residents of Pripyat who had not been in their hometown for many years decorated the Cristmass tree with their family photos taken in Pripyat when the city was not yet evicted. In the early hours of 26 April 1986 the Unit 4 reactor at the Chernobyl power station blew apart. Facing nuclear disaster on unprecedented scale, Soviet authorities tried to contain the situation by sending thousands of ill-equipped men into a radioactive maelstrom.
The explosion of Unit 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is still regarded the biggest accident in the history of nuclear power generation.
EPA-EFE/STEPAN FRANKO
