‘20 YEARS AFTER CHERNOBYL: FROM TRAGEDY TO RECOVERY’ PHOTO EXHIBITION OPENS AT UN HEADQUARTERS

Note to Correspondents

‘20 YEARS AFTER CHERNOBYL :  FROM TRAGEDY TO RECOVERY’

PHOTO EXHIBITION OPENS AT UN HEADQUARTERS

A photographic exhibition entitled “20 Years after Chernobyl:  From Tragedy to Recovery” will open in the South Gallery of the General Assembly Visitors’ Lobby on 28 April, commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster.

This exhibition features a collection of photographs contributed by the Republic of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, the three hardest hit countries when two explosions destroyed the Unit 4 reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.  In the early morning hours of 26 April 1986, the explosions exposed the burning core and released vast amounts of deadly radiation into the environment.  The photos attempt to show the human dimension of the tragedy and recovery efforts.  Some of the images are of the heroes who risked their lives in the early phases of the response efforts to save others and some of them are men, women and children affected by the disaster.  Not many of them survived.

The photographs have been provided by Chernobyl 20, the Chernobyl Museum ( Kiev), the Chernobyl Union of Russia, ITAR-TASS News Agency, Anatoly Kleshchuk and Dzianis Ramaniuk ( Belarus), the Kurchatov Institute ( Moscow), Mondano, the National Photo Artists Union of Ukraine and RIA – Novosti News Agency.  The exhibit is sponsored by the Permanent Missions of the Republic of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine to the United Nations and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

For more information on United Nations exhibitions, call Jan Arnesen at tel.: (212) 963-8531 or Liza Wichmann at tel.: (212) 963-0089.

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For information media • not an official record