AP Photographer Chronicles Chernobyl's Painful Legacy of Silence, Sacrifice and Danger
Efrem Lukatsky, a Kyiv-based photographer for The Associated Press, was living in the city on April 26, 1986, when the explosion and fire struck the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, approximately a two-hour drive away. He has visited the plant and the surrounding "exclusion zone" dozens of times over the decades, recalling the disaster that has haunted him and Ukraine for forty years.
The Initial Whispers and Official Silence
It began with whispers at work. There was no official announcement about the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant when it occurred in 1986—only fragments of information passed quietly among colleagues. Lukatsky was in his late twenties at the time, working as a specialized underwater welder for a Kyiv institute that sent him to offshore platforms and classified military bases across the Soviet Union.
No one spoke openly about what happened at Chernobyl—transliterated as "Chornobyl" in Ukraine—but unease was growing. He experienced a metallic taste in his mouth and a dryness in his throat, symptoms others shared without understanding why. The first official, brief acknowledgment came two days later, merely stating that an accident had occurred with no further details. People spoke in hushed tones about plant firefighters being flown to hospitals in Moscow.
Officially, life continued as normal. At night, they tuned into Western broadcasts, still considered subversive, for news the state would not provide. They learned the accident had spread a plume of radiation beyond the USSR's borders. Experts urged people to seal windows, wear masks, and give iodine to children. Lukatsky followed this advice, placing an iodine drop each day on a sugar cube to protect his thyroid gland from absorbing contamination.
Warnings and Unsettling Discoveries
Warnings from friends heightened the tension. In Kyiv, a neighbor warned him about radioactive dust; later, he saw her husband, a policeman, strip off his clothes in the stairwell and seal them in a bag before going inside. A friend who was a nuclear physicist called and urged him to leave Kyiv for good, and some residents sent their children to other regions. Lukatsky stayed, as his parents were there and it was his home.
He found an old military radiation meter and checked everything—his apartment, his clothes, the streets. The readings were unsettling. At a playground, they climbed far above normal; at home, they were even higher. He used tape to lift the dust off his clothes. Five days after the explosion, the annual May Day parade went ahead in Kyiv as planned, with thousands filling the streets, many of them children. Days later, the city hosted a cycling race, with spectators lining the streets as if nothing had happened. The state insisted nothing was wrong, but they already knew otherwise.
Evacuations and First Official Address
After the accident, long columns of buses moved slowly into Kyiv, carrying thousands of evacuees from Pripyat, the city adjacent to Chernobyl where most of its workers lived. Lukatsky remembers their faces—uncertain but calm. They were told they would be gone only a few days, leaving behind homes, belongings, and pets who died waiting for owners who never returned. Three weeks after the disaster, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev addressed the nation, giving no explanation for the delay or reporting fully what had happened.
First Visit to the Exclusion Zone
In autumn 1986, Lukatsky first visited what became known as Chernobyl's "exclusion zone," a 2,600-square-kilometer (1,000-square-mile) area, sent there as part of a team from his scientific institute and later as a stringer photographer for the Soviet magazine Ogonyok. Silent apartment blocks stood beside schools, swimming pools, and businesses that looked as if their occupants had just stepped out.
What stayed with him most were those sent to contain the disaster. Firefighters had dragged hoses across wreckage, trying to extinguish a blaze that water could not quench. Tens of thousands of cleanup crews, or "liquidators," were sent in to remove contaminated soil or seal the damaged reactor in concrete. Soldiers scraped radioactive debris from the plant's roof, risking lethal exposure in minutes. Coal miners dug tunnels beneath the plant to prevent radioactive fuel from reaching the groundwater, often stripped to their shirts in darkness and heat.
They had little protection—suits, boots, and masks—that felt inadequate. Before leaving, they were inspected and washed down, as if that could undo any exposure. After each trip, Lukatsky sealed his clothes in bags and discarded shoes and coats. Information remained tightly controlled, with photographers having to hand over film after each assignment.
Shifting Ground and Journalism Career
But the truth was already spreading. People spoke more openly in Kyiv. The first protests were small and tentative but soon grew into larger demonstrations demanding answers—rallies that in turn formed the nucleus of Ukraine's independence movement. That was when Lukatsky's career as a journalist began. His photos were shown at an amateur exhibition, then published abroad; he thought he might be arrested. By then, however, the Soviet system itself was under strain.
After the USSR collapsed in 1991 and Ukraine gained independence, he returned to the exclusion zone many times, often with scientists, police, and firefighters. He was hired by the AP in 1989. Another lasting image was seeing people awaiting medical checks. He photographed them—the very old and the very young—standing quietly for examinations for signs of illness.
Immediately after the accident, thirty plant workers and firefighters died from acute radiation sickness. Later, thousands of people died from radiation-related illnesses. Six photographers and cameramen sent there in the first days all died of illness later.
Inside the Control Room and Machinery Graveyard
Pripyat was frozen in time. At a hospital where the first victims were treated, radiation levels remained dangerously high. Nearby was a vast machinery graveyard: ambulances, buses, trucks, armored vehicles, and helicopters used in the cleanup were abandoned as too contaminated. To photograph them, they moved quickly to minimize exposure.
Inside the power plant, dust hung thick in the air, catching the light. They moved quickly but carefully to the control room, where a routine test for Reactor No. 4 had gone wrong at 1:23 a.m. on April 26, 1986, triggering two explosions. Many buttons from the panels were missing—taken as souvenirs. As they moved deeper into the plant, radiation levels rose, and they turned back. Some limits you do not cross.
Containment Efforts and Recent Threats
As years passed, the original shelter over the reactor deteriorated, opening gaps where radiation leaked out. In 2019, the entire building was covered by an enormous arch-shaped shelter, designed to last generations. It seemed the situation finally was under control.
But Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and Moscow's forces entered the exclusion zone, pushing toward Kyiv. The troops dug positions in contaminated soil, disturbing what had long been buried. Three years later, a Russian drone strike damaged the protective structure. There was no radiation leak, but it was a reminder that the danger persisted.
Nature's Recovery and Enduring Truth
Without people, the still-contaminated exclusion zone has recovered in unexpected ways. Forests have spread, wildlife has multiplied, and rare species now move through places once defined by disaster. Pripyat remains frozen, but it is no longer entirely empty, as animals roam through it.
After forty years, that could be the clearest truth: lives were upended, and for a long time, reality was kept hidden. But left alone, nature endures—even at Chernobyl. This is a documentary photo story curated by AP photo editors, capturing a legacy of silence, sacrifice, and ongoing danger.
