“Is there anything more frightening than people?”

–Svetlana Alexievich

A reactor at a nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine exploded on 26 April, 1986. According to a report carried out by the BBC, the explosion released ‘at least 100 times more radiation’ than the atomic bombs detonated in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The seriousness of the event was not immediately recognised. Two individuals died on the day of the explosion, followed by an additional 29 deaths due to radiation in the weeks following the accident. However, to this day the long-term effects of the explosion in the form of cancers and physical and mental deformities resulting from radiation exposure are still being accounted for.