Deserted city near Chernobyl plant

Deserted city near Chernobyl plant

PRIPYAT, Ukraine - Photo taken Sept. 29, 2013, shows protective masks abandoned at a school in Pripyat, a deserted city near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. The masks were ditched by residents who evacuated the city following the 1986 nuclear disaster, as no one knew how to use them, according to people familiar with the situation at the time of the accident.

Deserted city near Chernobyl plant

Deserted city near Chernobyl plant

PRIPYAT, Ukraine - Photo taken Sept. 29, 2013, shows a dilapidated piano in a music school in Pripyat, a deserted city near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine.

Deserted city near Chernobyl plant

Deserted city near Chernobyl plant

PRIPYAT, Ukraine - Photo taken Sept. 29, 2013, shows an abandoned house in Chernobyl, Ukraine. The government of the former Soviet Union forcibly evacuated residents within a 30-kilometer radius of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant following the nuclear disaster in 1986.

Deserted city near Chernobyl plant

Deserted city near Chernobyl plant

PRIPYAT, Ukraine - Photo taken from the roof of a deserted house in the center of Pripyat, Ukraine, on Sept. 29, 2013, shows the building of the No. 4 reactor (L) that exploded in 1986 and a dome-shaped structure under construction to cover it at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

Deserted city near Chernobyl plant

Deserted city near Chernobyl plant

PRIPYAT, Ukraine - Photo taken Sept. 29, 2013, shows a Ferris wheel at an amusement park in Pripyat, a deserted city near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. The park has never been used as the facility was scheduled to open five days after the Chernobyl disaster occurred in 1986, and all residents of the city, about 2 kilometers from the plant, were forced to evacuate.

Deserted town near Chernobyl plant

Deserted town near Chernobyl plant

PRIPYAT, Ukraine - Photo taken on April 18, 2011, shows a Ferris wheel and apartment blocks in Pripyat, about 4 kilometers northwest of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine. The town, where the employees of the power plant used to live, was abandoned after the nuclear accident on April 26, 1986.