The Economic Times

50,000 people lived here. Then a 1986 nuclear disaster turned the town into a ghost place overnight. The reason still haunts the world

Pripyat was a modern Soviet city of nearly 50,000 people before the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986 forced its residents to leave. About 45,000 people were evacuated within three hours on April 27, many believing they would return. They never did. Today, abandoned homes, classrooms and the amusement park remain, while nature reclaims the city, making Pripyat a haunting symbol of the disaster's human cost.