You're reading: German Press Agency: Fukushima stirs Ukrainian emotions still raw after Chernobyl

The explosion and partial roof collapse at Japan's Fukushima nuclear reactor on Saturday has stirred sometimes still-raw emotions all across Ukraine, site of the 1986 nuclear power accident.

‘I looked at the television screen and I thought the same thing I did all those years ago,’ said Igor Kostin. ‘Man has usurped the role of God, he is playing with fire, and he can only reap horror.’

The Chernobyl nuclear power accident took place on April 26, 1986 after a reactor went critical and exploded, killing dozens and raising a radioactive cloud of dust and smoke to drift as far away as Sweden.

Kostin, a news photographer, was on the ground for weeks to document emergency workers manhandling deadly high-isotope debris, in the early days with their bare hands.

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