Adi Roche: UN Chernobyl Remembrance Day is a time to think of our brothers and sisters

As further tragedy hits Ukraine, today we should rage against the dying light of hope, and resolve to stand up and speak out

Maxim Shevchuk, the deputy head of the agency managing the Chernobyl exclusion zone, pictured on April 16 at a building that had been occupied by Russian troops near the ruined nuclear power plant in Ukraine. Picture: Efrem Lukatsky/AP
 

On this UN Chernobyl Remembrance Day, I am reflecting on the devastating tragedy that is unfolding in Ukraine these past two months and how Chernobyl has re-entered centre stage.

Thirty-six years ago, on April 26, 1986, a suffering unleashed at 1.23am, in a little-known nuclear reactor in northern Ukraine. A new word, “Chernobyl”, entered the history of language, the history of world disasters, and into history of the world itself, with a terrible and frightening force.