CRI听力:Hundreds Mark Anniversary of Chernobyl Disaster

Hundreds of people gathered late last night in the northern Ukrainian city of Slavutych to mark the 29th anniversary of the world's worst nuclear disaster.

People laid flowers and candles at a memorial to victims of the Chernobyl disaster.

The city is 60 kilometers from the Chernobyl power plant and the closest inhabited city to the exclusion zone.

It houses many people who were displaced by the disaster in 1986.

Valentina Gondareva still has a fresh memory of the accident.

"The heat was oppressive and we all had burns and spotty, itchy skin. And then we were being taken out of the city. We waited for our turn to load onto one of the buses and left for some village. We left and that's it. Only later did we realize it was forever."

The initial explosion at Chernobyl on 26 April 1986 killed more than 30 people.

135-thousand people had to evacuate the city due to the high radiation levels.

The explosion released a lethal radioactive cloud which poisoned 150-thousand square kilometers of Ukraine and neighboring Belarus.

According to the Ukrainian government, more than 4-thousand of those who took part in the cleanup effort have died.

More than 70-thousand Ukrainians were left disabled by the disaster.