Inside Chernobyl now - chilling corridors, eerie photos and unexpected signs of life - The Mirror

Chernobyl: Countdown to Armageddon, a new documentary on Channel 5 presented by Ben Fogle, unmasks the events that led to the 1986 nuclear accident, giving a fascinating glimpse into what it looks like now

Ghost towns, crumbling buildings and an overwhelming sense of eeriness are now synonymous with Chernobyl.

It was the worst nuclear disaster in history, releasing more than 400 times as much radioactive material as the Hiroshima atomic bomb. Some 38 years since the disaster, adventurer and presenter Ben Fogle revisits the area giving viewers a fascinating glimpse into what it looks like now.

The three-part documentary on Channel 5 looks at how an uncontrollable chain reaction inside the reactor caused a deadly radioactive meltdown, leading to at least 62 deaths and the evacuation of 350,000 people. The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone was set up in a 20-mile radius from the damaged reactor and was later expanded as radioactive clouds travelled across Europe.

While only a few people have been given access to the nuclear plant, Arkadiusz Podniesiski spent two days at the site in Ukraine in March 2021 later sharing his photographs with the world.

His images capture the now-abandoned building in eerie snaps that show miles and miles of corridors that snake through the building. Arkadiusz gained exclusive access inside the power plant, including a rare tour inside the sarcophagus - the huge metal and concrete structure built to encase the radioactive reactor at the plant.

He has been documenting the effects of the Chernobyl disaster since 2008 and his images show once-used porcelain tableware with the power plant’s logo, shattered clocks and abandoned giant telephone switchboards. The insides of the airtight caissons and hot chambers are shown as well, this is where the radioactive waste produced by nuclear fission is cut, shredded and sorted by radioactivity before it’s compressed and incinerated.

Talking about what it was like inside the reactor building, he told the Daily Mail: “In this labyrinth of near-identical corridors, I quickly lose my sense of direction and, after a while, I stop paying attention to the signs. I blindly follow the dosimetrist.

"Although the masks prevent us from breathing in radioactive dust, there is nothing we can do to protect ourselves from the gamma radiation penetrating our bodies. Unseen dangers may lurk around every corner. In such a situation, the dosimeters are our eyes; thanks to them we know how far we can go.”

Before Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, tourists flocked to the area to see the ghost town of Pripyat in northern Ukraine which has stood abandoned since the 1986 crisis. For the last two years as the war between Russia and Ukraine has been ongoing, Russian forces took over Chernobyl, with soldiers seen carrying out training exercises near the Belarus border.

Chernobyl remains the world's worst-ever nuclear accident, but some Ukrainians resettled there despite the health risks. However, one unexpected side-effect has been the re-emergence of wild animals - horses, deer and stray dogs freely roam its perimeter which has become an unlikely nature reserve.

Chernobyl: Countdown to Armageddon airs tonight on Channel 5 at 10pm