Ukrainian artist preserves family photos left behind after Chernobyl nuclear disaster

Ukraine makes headlines day after day as the Russian invasion presses into its third month.

But 36 years ago, the world watched a different disaster unfold north of Kyiv: The Chernobyl reactor meltdown.

At least 31 people died in the immediate aftermath of the nuclear accident, and many more fell seriously ill after a plume of radiation spread across parts of the Soviet Union and Western Europe.

The day after the disaster, Soviet officials evacuated the area. No residents returned. The area became a 1,000 square mile exclusion zone – where Ukrainian photographer and artist Maxim Dondyuk ventured years later.