The ghost city of Chernobyl: Eerie pictures that show abandoned disaster zone as world marks 25 years since worst nuclear meltdown in history

Twenty five years since the world's worst nuclear accident at the Chernobyl power station, the surrounding settlements are still ghost towns, with thousands of houses abandoned and left to fall into ruin.

Ukraine is today preparing to mark a quarter of a century since the disaster, which endangered hundreds of thousands of lives and contaminated pristine forests and farmland with deadly radiation.

The blast on April 26, 1986, spewed a cloud of radioactive fallout over much of Europe and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes in the most heavily hit areas in Ukraine, Belarus and western Russia.

Scientists are deeply divided on how many have died as a result of the explosion, which released about 400 times more radiation than the U.S. atomic bomb dropped over Hiroshima.

An international donors conference in Kiev last week raised £485 million of the £653 million needed to build a new shelter and a storage facility for spent fuel.

Soviet officials did not report the disaster for several days. Even in the plant workers' town of Pripyat, few knew what had happened when the plant's No. 4 reactor blew up around 1.30am in the morning. The official acknowledgement came three days later. Read More