Photo Gallery Chernobyl Up Close
The former director of the Chernobyl site, Viktor Brioukhanov, sits with his wife in their apartment on his return home after serving a ten-year prison sentence for his involvement in the catastrophe.
This photo was taken at 4 p.m from the window of the first helicopter to fly over the disaster zone to evaluate radiation levels above the site, 14 hours after the explosion. The overview of the exploded reactor is foggy due to radiation, which also explains why the shot was not taken too close to the window. Later, radiation experts learnt that levels reached 1500 rems, 200 meters above the reactor, despite the fact that their counters did not exceed 500 rems.
Between 1989-1990, a notable increase in genetic malformations in animals was noted. The following year, almost 400 deformed animals were born. In 1990, Igor Kostin took photographs of these mutations, including this eight-legged foal, and sent them to Mikhail Gorbachev to encourage him set up an international commission to investigate the causes of the changes; he received no reply from the Soviet leader.
Reservists working in the disaster area -- the so-called "liquidators." They are building makeshift protective suits from lead sheets.
When the Chernobyl plant was shut down, it was nevertheless necessary to assure its maintenance and surveillance. Employees head off by bus to begin another day's work in a highly contaminated environment.
In September 1986, reservists -- the so-called "liquidators" cleared 170 tons of rubble from the roof of the reactor complex. Normally, the liquidators ascended the roof only once, because the radiation dose they received there is the maximum authorised dosage a human being should receive in his entire life.
Igor Kostin discovered this deformed child in a special school for abandoned children in Belarus. The photo, published in the local Belarus press, named the boy "The Chernobyl Child". Following the publication of the image in German magazine "Stern", the photo appeared throughout the world and the child was adopted by a British family. The boy underwent several operations carried out by a British surgeon and is now living a relatively normal life and going to school.
Demonstrators request the government make Chernobyl secret documents public during a march that ended in the Dynamo stadium in Kiev. A banner reads "We demand a Nuremburg tral for Chernobyl."
One of several Ukrainian villagers who have refused to leave their homes in the "zone of exclusion."
Igor Kostin was born in Moldavia in 1936. After working as an engineer for ten years, he became a photographer for the Nowosti news agency. Kostin has been documenting the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster for 20 years.
