Pripyat, Ukraine, has been a ghost town for the last 25 years. On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant's No. 4 reactor experienced a sudden power surge resulting in several explosions and fires that sent a massive amount of nuclear debris into the air.
Thirty-six hours after the accident, the approximately 500,000 residents of Pripyat, many of whom worked for the power plant, were ordered to evacuate their homes and eventually told they could never return.
The accident killed two people instantly and a further 28 died of acute radiation in the three months that followed. One person died of cardiac arrest in connection with the incident. In a 2005 report titled "Chernobyl's Legacy," eight United Nations organizations (including the International Atomic Energy Agency) and the governments of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine estimated some 4,000 people could eventually die due to cancers caused by radiation exposure.
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