"40 Years After Chernobyl: The Few Remaining 'Liquidators' Reflect on Their Heroic Cleanup Mission"

IMMEDIATELY after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, hundreds of thousands of “liquidators” were sent in to clear up after the catastrophic explosion.

They charged straight into the danger zone when radiation levels were at their peak, desperately working to contain as much of the toxic material as possible.

Petro Hurin, 76, one of hundreds of thousands of liquidators brought to clean up the aftermath of the explosion that tore apart reactor Four of the Chernobyl nuclear plant Credit: Reuters Some 600,000 front line soldiers, firemen and civilians were deployed over four years to clean up after the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown Credit: AFP An aerial photo shows the Chernobyl nuclear power plant just days after the explosion Credit: AP:Associated Press

Almost 40 years on, Petro Hurin, 76, is one of the few of liquidators still alive.

Petro said his health has never been the same since he was dispatched to the disaster site after that fateful day in 1986.

He and 39 other workers were sent into the just a month after the explosion – today only five survive.

Petro said not a single worker who went to Chernobyl was ever in good health again.

“It’s death by a thousand cuts,” he said.

As the 40th anniversary of the disaster in approaches on April 26, the true story of sacrifices made by , is now being told.

In total, around 650,000 men volunteered to help contain the nuclear fallout.

Russian scientists estimate that up to 125,000 had died by 2005, although authorities deny a definite link between the fatality rate and radiation exposure.

Petro had been working at a company that supplied diggers and construction vehicles.

Some ​of his colleagues had produced medical certificates to excuse themselves from serving in Chernobyl.

But brave Petro was willing to help despite the fact that reactor four was spewing out dangerous waste that was carried on the wind across .

Working gruelling 12-hour shifts, Petro used an excavator to load dry concrete mixed with lead – shipped to the site by river barge – onto trucks for transport ​to the reactor.

The ingredients were then mixed to build a massive sarcophagus to contain the radiation.

Liquidators risked their lives to clean up the nuclear mess Credit: AFP Many got sick from the toxic waste they were cleaning up Credit: AFP

He said: “The dust was terrible.

“You’d work for half an hour in a ​respirator, and it would end up looking (brown) like an onion.”

But after just four days, Petro said he began experiencing severe symptoms such as headaches, chest pain, bleeding and a metallic taste in his ‌throat.

Doctors ⁠treated him but after another shift, he could barely walk. He feared he had “a day or two” to live.

“I was brought to the hospital, and the doctors did a blood test first,” Petro said. “They pricked all my fingers and a pale liquid came out, but no blood.”

Soviet doctors refused to diagnose radiation sickness, a finding he said was not permitted at the time.

Instead, he was told he had vegetative-vascular dystonia, a nervous disorder often linked to stress.

Before the disaster, Petro had never taken sick leave, ​but afterwards he spent around seven months ​going from one hospital to another ⁠to receive treatment, including a blood transfusion.

He says he has been diagnosed with anaemia – often linked to radiation sickness – angina, pancreatitis and a series of other conditions.

The last of Chernobyl’s reactors was decommissioned in 2000 and the Zone Of Alienation around the plant .

Intrepid visitors were fascinated by the .

Now retired, Hurin lives ​with his wife Olha ⁠in central Ukraine’s Cherkasy region.

Although he suffers from health problems, he finds joy in playing the bayan – a type of accordion – and writes songs and poems.

Petro at his grandson’s memorial Credit: Reuters Petro plays the accordion as his wife Olha listens in their house in the village of Khutory, Cherkasy region, Ukraine Credit: Reuters

He says he is fighting to access a special disability pension for liquidators of the nuclear disaster.

Tragically, Chernobyl is not the only disaster Petro and his family have had to weather.

His grandson Andrii Vorobkalo was 26 when he was killed in action fighting for his homeland against the Russian invasion.

Petro and his wife Olha had raised Andrii from the tender age of four.

Andrii was grown up and living in Greece when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

“He ​left everything behind and came to defend Ukraine,” Petro said. “We think of Andrii all the time.”

A number of team members that tried to cool the reactor in the immediate aftermath died within weeks Credit: Ihor Kobrin's Chernobyl Archive