Chornobyl’s surviving ‘liquidators’ return 40 years after nuclear disaster

Ukraine is marking 40 years since the explosion at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant, the world’s worst civilian nuclear disaster, with survivors of the cleanup operation returning to the site. About 600,000 'liquidators' were mobilized to contain and clean up the disaster, often unaware of the dangers they faced. The nearby city of Pripyat, once home to 48,000 people, remains a ghost town in an exclusion zone. Oleksii Lebedynets, a 65-year-old liquidator, shared his military service experience and the lasting health consequences he endured.