so. the political. posturing more on aren't. sure is that so much of the same you're going to be making a lot of the play area look at twenty five years ago the world was coming to grips with the catastrophe unfolding in chernobyl today the same could be said about the shame that is the few. remaining to the latest in science and signal from around. the huge earth covered.

legs. i tell marvin here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture.

more news today violence has once again flared up. and these are the images the world in seeing from the streets of canada. china operations around the day. twenty five years ago the entire fifty thousand population over ukrainian town of previous was evacuated within three hours. could you please step aside and working and you getting in my short thank you they left the what they had here as

they were told they were leaving only for a couple of days but none of them has ever returned both thing they saw leaving their homes around what the fourth floor of the chernobyl nuclear power plant. explosion. where we going number not sure we need to go to previous post office. we recently i received an altercation to pick up a letter here in three parts the national that's impossible that post office isn't working for twenty five years i don't think it's for real. show me. storms range but according to the stamp this really has come from here you know where this post office is yes i know the big.

if. if it. but if it is a little bit of snow all these trees that you see they've all grown since the accident and right now we're going to be passing the house where i was born. feel that. we came to the chernobyl exclusion zone to investigate a very strange story this place has been deserted for a quarter of a century but recently some people started receiving post notices telling them to pick up letters at this post office in previous i'm holding one of those here and

indeed the stamp here proves that it came from the ghost town here. frankly speaking i don't know what to look for. many of. these notices have no addresses nor names of those who had sent them. you know where. you're going to be honestly speaking i don't think we're going to find anything here. most of the things that remains here and in the apartments were later buried. but i knew i didn't keep them because they were very radioactive.

stuff. and the rest was stolen by scavengers. look here's a letter with someone for you to send from here. there is a photo inside. it's lucky you. all the times i've been here i've never seen anything like this. this or this refused to do so phones work here. they work at a nuclear power plant and sometimes they work here hello hello i local law we're calling our high alderling somewhere tonight. from kindergarden comes running

to scuse me who is it me calling and then harden i must have that the wrong number . i don't get it you. our investigation brings us to one of three pits kindergartens and this one is truly horrifying scene most of the things one can see here have been left untouched ever since the catastrophe at the site which gives probably the best description and most dramatic one of the chernobyl tragedy is that children's toys are laying literally side by side with military gas masks. this is my kindergarten. i used to go here. we used to be many children people. specialists from all over the soviet union came

here to operate the nuclear power station all. mostly young people and they thought that they were waiting for a bright future. so this town experienced a baby boom. almost no one used the gas masks look out there because the catastrophe happened on a saturday. they've been kept here and were left untouched. what was in that letter you found. there is a photograph inside. here have a look. look look through the proper trickle it seems it was written by a child a small girl. trust me or try there i was so glad having received

your letter so i decided to reply at once my mom got me a new doll she's so beautiful that i'm sometimes afraid to play with her when i go to school in the morning i put her by the window and make a bus for her in the evening i love her dearly the weather has already been very warm here we'll be having a holiday soon my parents and i will go to a rally will be inflating balloons and after that there will be a concert in the house of cultural activities my sister will be dancing there even though she's small she's already a great dancer were missing you very much please come and visit us from the soundtrack we're missing you very much please i miss come visit us in the summer let's return to see a woman there simple as going to get mentions the first may vents in the reader's house of culture and kids from this kindergarten were to perform at a concert there. when was that letter written because there's such a push to all the date on the envelope as it was meant to be sentimental just of

just the day before the catastrophe. the coming nobody on the eve of the catastrophe many celebrations had to close for saturday and sunday they always schedule a wedding celebrations and children's concerts for the weekend but with even when the tragedy happened we didn't call off the festive events so the living children were breathing the c.e.o. as it was a hard j m the events were out in the open the many people were in the parks and i know that there were weddings and the house of culture in the end we were informed that it was very serious and that we were to go home and pack up for evacuation.

may the first was one of the biggest communist holidays in the soviet union the labor day people's house of culture still has a collection of posters with soviet leader they were meant to be carried at a traditional demonstration and the stage over here was meant to become a venue for a holiday concert. alexi they say it's not focused look what i found it's a fireman suit. could it be that it belongs to one of those firefighters who fought the blaze at the nuclear power plants then you have saluted no these questions but you get most of them died just the water and their gear was thrown radioactive. thrown through then it was destroyed almost immediately afterwards. the worst of all you know there used

to be an amateur theatre here maybe it's there's got a question is will there be honest i feel we're stuck with a script that we've got any ideas where we could go next. well there used to be a library here you could check out the rangers profile cards. you know the city was very beautiful work for what it was meant to be kind of a role model for others. like the best place communist society could ever be perfectly planned and constructed. a career but he was meant to be

a paradise for those building communism. ready wait a minute i found a note inside this picture book it looks like a page from someone's diary. is dated april the twenty fifth nine hundred eighty six we're preparing an experiment at the station we'll be bringing the reactor to a store where we have some heated debates most of us assured that we're doing everything right but still cannot come to a conclusion the times it seems we're talking and different languages come will make it come from you know there was a confrontation. before more workers did not want to keep the unstable reactor in operational. or even the flu from for appreciable cooling to conversations and documentation that have been published already from the reactor was out of control . on the twenty fifth of april employees was sighing that it was faulty

solution that the bosses that demanded that they should finish the experiment revealed they were performing on the unstable reactor. because danish time ago i saw a picture and daughters are good with a level audience our little i joke that we have now finally built it in we in the gray of the story or. i'm on top of pretty that's tallest building it is the best vantage points to see the chernobyl nuclear power plant straight after the disaster it was covered by steel lead cold the sarcophagus underneath it are still tons of radioactive fuel and deadly levels the radiation but if you don't know that from here almost looks alive.

what if there are those that would know that the apartment we're looking for should be somewhere here. do you know where this drawing came from. it appears here several years ago actually i don't know the elevator shaft is open so be careful we need to go this way or your let's go. i turn sion a new model here. i turned. the new mount i tension on one of the you know hombre it's got at. the council of the town i reports it was a usual saturday and it was a very warm day we did not feel like studying. after the second lesson teachers were called for a meeting and left us to ourselves at the time we heard that something bad had

happened at the reactor. many of the children's parents worked there and they talked about what they had heard from them. from i learned that there had been a blaze at the station and several people were injured. we could not imagine how serious it was thought that a fire was nothing to be afraid of at school we were told that it tomic energy was the safest in the world. other than the good. it was still a kid when the tragedy happened we waited our doors to the rooftop and saw the blaze at the station there was smoke coming out of the building from the explosion radiation levels were already extremely high. horse everyone young and old was exposed to huge radiation doses. and still works.

i seen she won yes there's almost nothing left here. i notice when you look through you are maybe there is some information about this person there yes just a second yes that yes i have something he was one of those who was supposed to be performing an experiment at the station which means that during the moment of the explosion he should have been there all of the workers who were working at the fourth block were immediately sent to a hospital as they were severely or radiated i mean from what we could go to the hospital maybe we can find something there. that is a good idea because the image. of what about his family. i don't know. i have no information on them.

the injuries were different the bullet to me but the majority were exposed to the fourth radiation levels. and received third or fourth degree burns and. one patient died of burns. me and the others were treated at el middle facility. and then the abort to moscow. shows with the fourth level of radiation grimshaw disorient and the rest.

i don't think the injuries are being brought here from the powerful arms they're all covered in radioactive dust and these historical we are receiving strong those disappeared so well and we're completely i'm ready for what has happened i don't believe in all this at the it just can't be happening this is real hell. what's that what because i know i found it inside with a patient record card and. we need to leave what's happening we are leaving. i.

but. see.

but you should just make your decision quicker the radiation levels are very high here.

for. just about all of us but the sucky please tell me what is this cross doing there and so on they can just say it's a protective cross you there are four of them in the ukraine west and they form a square garden in the south in the east and in the west this is the northern one. is your cell phone work you have a fever with no there's no signal whatsoever. well then we're stuck. there's a post here hold this book. there's

a village not far from here. because on the other side of the river a few elderly couples lived there before they might have a radiophone of craning sochi if not then at least we can stay over night. elite.

elite. as we walk through the field i saw a herd of wild horses where they come from very very little rock here straight up to the catastrophe in the ninety's and it was an experiment to see how they would survive the radiation and now they've grown into a huge population in the same happen to all the other animals on which there's no

people here because when they feel safe walking out of. what is this village who lives here there's a couple of elderly people that live here and that is the way them if they were evacuated out of the class they were going to take are they here they were mr sowell they came back they resettled here in their own free will oh hello in my free will and you know i have no hello hello they're looking for how do you live here on your own there's no transportation or facilities kaspar going it already provided us with the food goes to the city goes through they want when we need

something from the market it's usually the one some month or how often we put on your own now this is just a little bit now it's less often. this horse is used by everyone in this village when they need to carry something or at work you know what. it's not what you want to pluck the most if you wish to go over there near the stove maybe. that was i will give you blankets and pillows and at the time i met. on a blanket or something and set ourselves up. i

still don't understand those post notices. you remember the old man who appeared just across the river. apparently he's a post man. and once a fortnight it cruises up and down the river and delivers mail. so you think he did it for. you maybe i don't know me well maybe somebody else maybe it was a mistake. here it's interesting that a lot has a simple chemistry at first but there's such an easy solution as the. other one is

more time recently so we have seen him do you think anyone will ever come back here . i don't know. this is our god forgives they've built in one thousand nine hundred six i was in temporary they said it was temporary because it would last for twenty to thirty years now they're building a new one. this one's supposed to last a hundred years and you know it's funny when they also call it temporary that means that both you and i and our children will be gone and it will still be standing there after all who walks through. and haven't looked at these pictures i still don't understand why you describe this town as beautiful to me it looks like an ordinary sunday town typical buildings and planning there were thousands of towns like that across the country it was beautiful because we've lived here and you know i've been having this feeling that you just cannot let go of all that happened here . because if you continue fighting the zone ok how can i forgive it.

well maybe try talking to the zone. talcott it's not sending me letters well those i received were not directed to me either. and if they were not meant for you. then you would never have found them will read them in the first place. play. bringing you the latest in science and technology from. the future. please.