What it was like to visit the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster 33 years later

The Chernobyl incident took place in April of 1986, and today thousands of tourists visit to see the aftermath for themselves.Although radiation levels are higher than elsewhere in the world, a day in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone exposes a human to about as much radiation as they might experience on an hour-long flight.The settlement of Chernobyl actually has people living and working there.Pripyat, however, is a ghost town.Visit INSIDER's homepage for more stories.On April 26, 1986, a failure during a test in the No. 4 nuclear reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant caused an explosion. According to the World Nuclear Association, two people died immediately and 28 died within the next few weeks due to ARS, or Acute Radiation Syndrome.The somber truth is, though, these are merely the deaths which can directly be attributed to the disaster. It's impossible to know how the health of the citizens of Pripyat and the affected areas of Europe (even as far as Sweden) has changed due to the accident.The government tried its best to keep the disaster a secret, but it didn't take long for other countries to notice something was off. Other power plants measured higher than normal radiation levels even from over 1,000 kilometers away, but after examination, they realized the source was elsewhere. Additionally, it took over 24 hours before residents of Pripyat would be forced to evacuate, and even then they were told they'd be able to return home shortly after.But they never did, and Pripyat has remained uninhabited since.In March of 2019, nearly 33 years after the disaster, I ventured into The Zone to see what it was like today. This is what it was like to go into the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in Ukraine.