MINSK, BELARUS - APRIL 02: Oleg Chichkov, 76, a former Chernobyl "liquidator," holds an aerial photo of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant taken several weeks after the explosion on April 2, 2016 in Minsk, Belarus. Chichkov was a 46-year-old helicopter pilot in the Soviet air force at the time and spent six weeks participating at Chernobyl following the April 26, 1986, explosion at reactor number four that sent plumes of radioactive particles across the globe in the world's worst nuclear accident. Because he already had children, he says he volunteered to stay two weeks longer than required so that younger pilots could leave and face less risk of complications from radiation. One of his tasks was a difficult attempt to lower a thermometer attached to a cable from his helicopter into the smoldering, open reactor. Today Chichkov is bitter and says today's authorities in Belarus are eager to forget about the accident and gloss over any remaining threat from contamination. "They just tell us to shut up," he says of authorities. "The sooner I would die the better for them." (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
