Grigorii Khmel, the driver of one of the fire-engines, later described what happened:

We arrived there at 10 or 15 minutes to two in the morning ... We saw graphite scattered about. Misha asked: What is graphite? I kicked it away. But one of the fighters on the other truck picked it up. It's hot, he said. The pieces of graphite were of different sizes, some big, some small enough to pick up ...
We didn't know much about radiation. Even those who worked there had no idea. There was no water left in the trucks. Misha filled the cistern and we aimed the water at the top. Then those boys who died went up to the roof - Vashchik Kolya and others, and Volodya Pravik ... They went up the ladder ... and I never saw them again.

 

The fire inside Reactor No. 4 continued to burn until 10 May 1986

There were fears that if it continued to burn, it would burn through the concrete base of the reactor. If that happened, the white hot radioactive debris would make contact with the pool of water under the base and this could cause a second, even more catastrophic explosion.

The fire was finally extinguished by a combined effort of helicopters dropping over 5,000 tonnes of materials like sand, lead, clay and boron onto the burning reactor and injection of liquid nitrogen.

 

Because of various factors, including the shift leader at the plant trying to play down the accident, the near-by city of Pripyat, just 8KM to the northwest of Chernobyl, was not evacuated until 2PM on the 27th April.

Pripyat was home to nearly 50,000 residents, most of whom worked at the power plant.

To avoid panic and to reduce baggage the people of Pripyat were told that the evacuation would only be for a few days. They were allowed one suitcase.

These people left most of the treasured belongings behind, including family photographs, children's favourite toys, pianos, and other personal items.

 

They never returned.

 

A lot of the buildings in Pripyat have fallen prey to looters. It is estimated that over 10,000 metal radiators alone have been removed from the town.

These people have no morals and are perfectly willing to risk their own health and the health of others to steal potentially highly contaminated artefacts from the town.

There has also been a spate of Graffiti in the town. I like graffiti, but I'm not sure how I feel about it here....

 

Our trip

I had been interested in Chernobyl for a few years. As an urban explorer it had obvious appeal, but it was more than that.

I remember the accident being all over the news when I was a kid. I was 12 when the accident happened, and I remember it being one of the few things on the news that interested me and frightened me too.

It was very scary at the time - the plume of radioactive dust was falling all over Europe but no-one seemed to be able to answer any questions about how dangerous it was with any authority. I also remember the grownups being scared - and that was even more frightening.

In late 2008 I was on a website about the Zone - www.Pripyat.com - and came across a post on the message forum - a film-maker was looking for people to visit the zone and be filmed for a documentary on "extreme tourism".

I contacted him and managed to get a place for me and my boyfriend on the trip...

 

Into the Zone

Our trip out to the zone started on the 7th January 2009. We arrived in Kiev to a temperature of minus 16 - we were lucky, a few days before it had been minus 25.

We checked into our hostel and then went out to see if we could find food.

We found a lovely little pizza place just round the corner - and we ended up eating there a few times during our stay - the food was good and although that staff spoke hardly any English, they were helpful and pleasant.

Everyone we met in the Ukraine was the same - lovely people and very helpful. There are some beautiful buildings in the Ukraine too - see some of them in my "More photos" section....

Next morning we got up nice and early to make the trip into the Zone of Exclusion.

We'd had to go through numerous criminal and military checks before we were given clearance to enter the zone and still had to take our passports with us to prove we were the ones with clearance.

We had to do some filming before we set off and on the journey, which put us a little behind schedule and was a bit cold :)

We got through the checkpoint and into the zone. We drove through mile upon mile of abandoned villages, but as we got closer to the power plant I was surprised at how many people seemed to be around.

Turns out that even though the power plant has been closed since 2001, there are still a lot of people living and working in the zone. For instance when we stopped for lunch after visiting the Reactor, one of the ladies that served us with a brilliant four course meal was the wife of our guide...

After visiting the reactor and having lunch we moved on the Pripyat - once home to nearly 50,000 people.

The city is vast, and unfortunately we didn't get to see as much of it as I would have liked. By the time we got there, the sun was starting to set, we still had filming to do and we eventually lost the light. It was almost night by the time we left the zone.

I think the pictures tell the story of what it was like there better that I could do, so I'll leave it at that. But I WILL be going back... preferably in summer :)

I'll leave you with what I think is the best photo taken during our trip - I didn't take it, my boyfriend Jester did. This was a tree growing inside the hotel, the sun was just setting and the colours were awesome.

 

Visited Jan 2009

 

 

Here is a short video that I made using some of my pictures and other footage. i have tried to tell the story of what happened on the day of the accident and show the differences in the city of Pripyat then and now..