切尔诺贝利核事故28周年纪念

Saturday marks the 28th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the worst nuclear power plant accident in history.

On early Saturday, people in Kiev held a vigil to commemorate the victims. Then a bell tolled once for each year since the disaster struck. Many of those attending were former workers at the nuclear plant and people who lost their loved ones in the disaster.

At around 01:26 local time on April the 26th, 1986, No. 4 reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear plant exploded and spewed a radioactive cloud into the air. The radiation spread across Europe and former Soviet countries, with Ukraine, Belarus and western Russia hit heavily. 30 people were killed immediately and more than 330,000 people were evacuated from contaminated regions.