Vasily Ignatenko, husband of Lyudmila, was one of the many firefighters that were first on the scene of the roof fire, unaware of the true extent of the situation. Coming face to face with the exposed reactor, Vasily and many of his colleagues would soon succumb to the symptoms of extreme radiation sickness, and he died in hospital 2 weeks later.

Lyudmila spoke to Belarusian journalist Svetlana Alexievich about the tragic circumstances of Vasily's death.

"He started to change; every day I met a brand-new person," she said. "The burns started to come to the surface. In his mouth, on his tongue, his cheeks - at first there were little lesions, and then they grew. It came off in layers - as white film ... the colour of his face ... his body ... blue, red , grey-brown. And it's all so very mine!"

"The only thing that saved me was it happened so fast; there wasn't any time to think, there wasn't any time to cry. It was a hospital for people with serious radiation poisoning. Fourteen days. In 14 days a person dies."

"He was producing stools 25 to 30 times a day, with blood and mucous. His skin started cracking on his arms and legs. He became covered with boils. When he turned his head, there'd be a clump of hair left on the pillow. I tried joking: "It's convenient, you don't need a comb." Soon they cut all their hair."

"I tell the nurse: "He's dying." And she says to me: "What did you expect? He got 1,600 roentgen. Four hundred is a lethal dose. You're sitting next to a nuclear reactor."