Lush greenery inside the Chernobyl exclusion zone has been photographed by urban explorer Roel can Wanrooy. Photographs showing everything from plants gradually creeping into a rusting bus, a forgotten fairground and a hastily abandoned tower block inside a city that once housed 50,000 people. Scroll through to see these incredible, haunting images...
A rotting ferris wheel pictured inside Pripyat's iconic abandoned amusement park when Dutch urban explorer Roel van Wanrooy, 43, visited the area. 'It was a very exciting place to be,' the urban explorer said after his trip. 'It has been left to rot for 35 years now and parts of area will be uninhabitable for thousands of years. Only a few people which were evacuated returned because they could not get used to living anywhere else.'
Lush greenery was also shown reclaiming this abandoned building in Pripyat, which was built for workers at the power plant. Pripyat and the surrounding areas were not initially evacuated as local authorities waited for orders from Moscow before establishing whether the reactor had exploded. The lost hours meant that weddings went forward, children played in the street and babies were pushed around in prams in the shadow of the smouldering reactor as it shot radioactive waste into the sky. When the evacuation was eventually carried out, residents were told that they would be returning to the city in three days.
A broken stained glass window display shows the advance of trees. Authorities took hours to establish that the reactor had exploded and 36 hours to evacuate the city during the disaster in April 1986.
An empty swimming pool, with trees poking through its windows, was also pictured in Pripyat - which once housed 50,000 people.
While visiting the reactor Mr van Wanrooy also found clothing abandoned by workers after they had cleaned the reactor roof. Left in Pripyat's hospital, it was emitting radiation of 881.4uS. Normal levels are 0.2 - 0.4 uS. 'The hospital was probably the most interesting place to investigate because the brave men and women who dealt with the reactor were treated there,' he said, adding: 'Inside the cellar were all of their clothes which were very dangerous because of their radioactivity.'
Van Wanrooy also said: '(I also saw) anti radiation boots in the Pripyat hospital where the liquidators (cleaners of the reactor) were treated (and maybe died) after they cleaned up the damaged roof of reactor building four.' The radioactive clothing had been left inside the hospital by the workers when they left the exclusion zone.
The urban explorer also pictured what appeared to be an abandoned operating theatre in Pripyat, inside the 1,600-mile Chernobyl exclusion zone.
Battered dolls left by residents were also pictured on beds. When they left, people were told they would be returning in three days time. Only an estimated 150 to 300 people have since returned.
Two abandoned dolls with some sheets of paper were photographed on a shelf inside the abandoned city of Pripyat.
A tower block that once housed workers at the nuclear power plant was also shown. It is gradually being reclaimed by nature. Previous expeditions inside the 1,600-mile exclusion zone have also shown nature recolonising the area, with wild horses taking up residence in abandoned houses, while packs of wolves roam the surrounding areas.
A £2 billion ($2.6 billion) silver shield was installed over the reactor in 2016 to stop radiation leaking out. Workers were only allowed to be on site for two hours every week due to fears of lethal radiation doses.
