Memorial service held for Chernobyl fire fighters

A memorial service was organized for the firefighters who died fighting the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986. On the night of April 26, one of the reactors of the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl exploded and caught fire. It caused massive fallout of radioactive material and dozens were killed while fighting to contain the damage.

Chernobyl (Ukraine): A memorial service was held in Chernobyl on Monday to commemorate the firefighters who died in the aftermath of the 1986 nuclear disaster.

Reactor No. 4 at the power plant 110 kilometres (65 miles) north of Ukraine's capital Kyiv exploded and caught fire deep in the night on April 26, 1986, shattering the building and spewing radioactive material high into the sky.

Firefighters from the local town of Chernobyl were the first on the scene.

Dozens were killed – both in the immediate aftermath, or later from injuries sustained during their work at the destroyed reactor.

Soviet authorities made the catastrophe worse by failing to tell the public what had happened — although the nearby plant workers' town of Pripyat was evacuated the next day, the two million residents of Kyiv weren't informed despite the fallout danger.

Read: Biden says US determined to help India amid COVID-19 crisis

The world learned of the disaster only after heightened radiation was detected in Sweden.

Eventually, more than 100,000 people were evacuated from the vicinity and a 2,600-square-kilometer (1,000-square-mile) exclusion zone was established where the only activity was workers disposing of waste and tending to a hastily built sarcophagus covering the reactor.

The town of Chernobyl is now like a ghost town – where no one has lived since the evacuation in 1986.

A roaming tour around the town showed dilapidated buildings covered in overgrown shrubbery.

(AP)