30 years after Chernobyl - in photos

Inside the abandoned city of Pripyat

Inside the abandoned city of Pripyat

The town of Pripyat, which is located less than 3km away from the reactor, was constructed in the 1970’s for the power plant’s personnel. Its 50,000 inhabitants were evacuated 36 hours after the accident in 1986, turning it into a ghost town. 30 years after, this is what it looks like…

The Ukrainian city was evacuated 36 hours after the nuclear blast at Chernobyl. All photographs: Lynn Hilton

Pripyat’s Ferris wheel, a well-known symbol of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, in the city’s amusement park

An abandoned house in Pripyat, three decades after the catastrophe

Pripyat was declared too radioactively dangerous for human habitation for at least 24,000 years

The swimming pool in abandoned Pripyat

The sports hall has been left to ruin for 30 years

Evacuees were told to only take the minimum with them

An abandoned kindergarten in the Chernobyl exclusion zone

Inside the abandoned city, which was home to many people who worked at the power plant

The power plant

A rusting nuclear sign on one of the buildings in Pripyat

Source: The guardian