After more than three decades in the shadow of the Chornobyl catastrophe — the world’s worst nuclear energy-related disaster — Ukrainians continue to live with nuclear power plants as part of their country’s landscape. A whopping 15 reactors power their towns and cities, while Ukraine’s total installed capacity makes it the seventh-largest nuclear nation in the world today.

At the same time, experts are still studying the cancerous, continent-spanning impact of the 1986 meltdown, which took place just outside the small town of Prypyat, some 150 kilometers north of Kyiv, and belched billions of radioactive particles into the wind.