Their mission was to clean up the worst nuclear accident in history.

Following the April 26, 1986, explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, soldiers, firefighters, engineers, miners and medics were summoned from across the USSR. They were known as “liquidators” — an ominous Soviet-era catchall term for those assigned to eliminate a problem.

Over four years, 600,000 people joined the dangerous cleanup. Helicopters hovered above the exposed radioactive core, dropping sand and other materials to smother the fire. Workers washed radioactive dust from buildings and roads, buried poisoned machinery, cleared forests and even hunted animals to slow the spread of radiation.

Many had little knowledge of the dangers they faced.

A group of the workers who live in Ukraine’s Poltava region returned ahead of the 40th anniversary of the accident for a one-day excursion to Chernobyl, which is transliterated in their native language as “Chornobyl.””

https://apnews.com/photo-essay/ukraine-chernobyl-nuclear-soviet-union-photo-liquidators-c6d693f2867b2b86ff4d097aba7962f0