The Chernobyl Disaster


Igor Kostin (Igor Kostin/Reuters)

This image depicts the horrific working condition's of the Liquidator's. 600,000 men of the soviet armed forces who were sent in to work shifts to clear the debris from the roof of the Chernobyl-4 reactor. Because of the extreme levels of radiation these men had to work in eight man teams for no more than 40 seconds. This meant that these men had to run up the stairs to the roof wearing lead suits, pick up a shovelfull of debris and heave it into the huge gaping hole in the roof where Reactor No.4 once stood. They would then have to run back down the stairs again remembering to take their shovels with them. Usually most of these men only had enough time to heave just one shovelfull.

Igor Kostin a photographer for the Novosti Agency decided to accompany a group of Liquidators onto the roof of Unit 4. But all his photos came out black, so after lead-lining his camera and modifying his film he returned to the roof five more times in one week, staying two to three minutes at a time. He later said that he did it so "The sacrifice of these men sould never be forgotten". For years afterwards he has continued to photograph everything about this incident with an obsessive eye for detail including eight-legged colts, mutated apples and trees, stillborn babies with webbed fingers emering from their shoulders. Babies without arms or legs, children with Thyroid cancer (800 cases have been recorded by Kostin), Liquidators suffering from leukemia (60,000 have already died). As Kostin once said "I record everything, then it's up to the Scientists"

For his efforts Kostin recieved the World Press Photo award in 1997. Unfortunately he also recieved five times the accepted dose of radiation and has had to have several Thyroid operations over the years. As far as I know he is still alive and well and living in Kiev.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that Igor Kostin still owns all his negatives, but the image I have chosen, which I think was titled "The Liquidators" is now owned by Reuters. I'll try to confirm this for you.

Wikipedia page for Chernobyl
Wikipedia page for Igor Kostin
TIME: Chernobyl Ten Years On - Contains many images by Igor Kostin
BBC NEWS: On This Day - 28th April 1986 - The BBC news report on the incident (includes video's)

A GE placemark for Chernobyl can be found here.

I'd just like to say that for me, what this man did, in repeatedly placing himself in such serious personal danger just to document the work of these incredible heroes makes Igor Kostin and absolute legend in my eyes. I mean, I dont know about you, but if I was there and I saw the explosion, and I knew it was a nuclear power plant. I'd be No questions asked.