It has been 40 years since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, still regarded as the most catastrophic nuclear accident in human history. To mark this grim anniversary, BBC correspondent Jessica Parker journeyed into the heart of the exclusion zone to document Pripyat, the once-thriving Soviet city that has stood empty for four decades.
Pripyat was purpose-built in the 1970s to house workers and their families at the nearby Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, a flagship energy project of the Soviet Union. At its peak, the city was home to nearly 50,000 residents, with bustling schools, hospitals, apartment blocks, and cultural centers that made it a model Soviet community. All of that changed on April 26, 1986, when a safety test gone wrong triggered a massive explosion at the plant’s Reactor No. 4, sending a plume of radioactive fallout across much of Europe.
Within just 36 hours of the blast, Soviet authorities ordered the complete evacuation of Pripyat, forcing residents to leave almost all of their belongings behind under the promise that they would one day be able to return. That promise never came to pass. Today, Pripyat remains a frozen time capsule of Soviet life, reclaimed gradually by overgrown forests and wandering wildlife. Decades of exposure to the elements have left buildings crumbling, ferris wheels stand idle in an abandoned amusement park built for the May Day celebrations that never happened, and children’s toys still lie scattered in empty schoolyards.
Parker’s on-the-ground reporting offers a new, intimate look at the long-term consequences of the 1986 disaster, four decades after the world watched in horror as the catastrophe unfolded. The visit also comes amid renewed global attention on the Chernobyl site, following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine that put the facility at risk of damage from military activity. While radiation levels in most areas of the exclusion zone are now safe for short-term visits, the site remains uninhabitable for long-term human settlement, a permanent reminder of the devastating risks of nuclear energy gone wrong.