Photos of the infamous nuclear Chernobyl site show the abandoned power plant frozen in time — with a control panel still lit up ahead of the 40th anniversary of the unprecedented disaster.

Following the April 26, 1986, explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, soldiers, firefighters, engineers, miners and medics were summoned from across the USSR. They were known as “liquidators” — an ominous Soviet-era catchall term for those assigned to eliminate a problem.

After the catastrophic accident in the nearby nuclear reactor, the city of Pripyat had to be completely evacuated. Some 50,000 people left their homes forever. DW visited the town with a former resident 40 years later.

Chernobyl's Elephant's Foot still sits inside the damaged reactor as a highly radioactive corium mass. Its weakening but persistent radiation keeps it central to safety research and disaster memory.