31 Years Later, Chernobyl Disaster Remembered

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, left, and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko visit the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine, marking the 31st anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, April 26, 2017.

Widows of Chernobyl victims hold portraits of their husbands who died following the clean-up operations for the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear explosion, at Chernobyl's victim monument in Ukraine's capital Kyiv, April 26, 2017.

Demonstrators march marking the 31st anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster in Minsk, Belarus, April 26, 2017. About 400 people have marched in the capital of Belarus to mark the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster and protest the construction of a nuclear plant in Belarus.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, right, and Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko visit the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine, April 26, 2017. April 26 marks the 31st anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

The entrance to the restricted Chernobyl zone, in which no one, on the Ukrainian side, is allowed to live within 30 kilometers of the destroyed nuclear reactor. (Arash Arabasadi/VOA)

A rusting ride for children in the highly radioactive abandoned amusement park in Pripyat. (Steve Herman/VOA)

A monument commemorating permanently evacuated towns and villages inside the exclusion zone. (Steve Herman/VOA)

A cashier uses an abacus at one of the few commercial establishments inside the Chernobyl exclusion zone. (Steve Herman/VOA)

The Ferris wheel in the Pripyat amusement park, now an iconic symbol to a younger generation born after the Chernobyl disaster, thanks to its inclusion in the video game: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

A monument in front of a Chernobyl fire station to the 32 firefighters who died responding to the explosion at Reactor No. 4. (Steve Herman/VOA)

Remote control equipment used at Chernobyl after the reactor explosion. Much of it ceased to function because the high radioactivity levels made electronic circuits inoperable. (Steve Herman/VOA)

Driver Igor Bordnarch, a frequent visitor to the Chernobyl reactor site, checks radiation readings just 240 meters from the destroyed reactor. (Steve Herman/VOA)

An unusually high radiation reading of about 172 micro-sieverts per hour over some vegetation on the ground of the Pripyat amusement park. (Steve Herman/VOA)

Ivan Semenuk, 78, has illegally returned to his home in the village of Paryshiv in the exclusion zone. (Steve Herman/VOA)