Until recent events in Japan, the disaster at Chernobyl 25 years ago today was the worst nuclear reactor meltdown in history.
"We were terrified to leave our homes," says Anna Kisil, as she remembered the accident in a Toronto Star article. "There was no protection. There was nowhere to hide."
She said there was a small paragraph buried in a Soviet-era newspaper about a minor mishap at the nuclear plant. Days would pass before the government told people it was a catastrophic accident.
Kisil says the streets turned yellow when it rained and she scrubbed her furniture, and floors several times a day to remove contaminated dust.
Today, the Japanese continue to search for bodies, while people in Ukraine hold memorial ceremonies and a Canadian group hopes people don't forget.
Just four years after the disaster, the Children of Chernobyl Canadian Fund was started to provide humanitarian aid to victims.
"The quiet killer has caused an increase in cancer, blood disorders, birth defects and other illnesses linked to radiation exposure," states the group's website. It distributes medication, medical equipment and supplies to hospitals and other places to improve the health of ill children.
Tonight, it opens a new art exhibit called Chernobyl: 25 Years Later. It's a photo essay shot by Toronto photographer Olena Serbyn-Sullivan while she was in the region with her father in August 2009.
The two also interviewed some of the approximately 130 elderly residents who continue to live in the area. They will share their experiences on Saturday during an event called Chernobyl Remembered. And, on May 6, the CCCF is organizing a commemorative concert to remember victims and survivors.
Kisil will be one of many survivors in the audience. She was pregnant at the time and living with her husband and young son about 500 kilometres away from the plant.
She tells the Star her family fled to her mother's home in the mountains and remained there for months. She later immigrated to Canada.
(Reuters Photo)
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