"Nearly four decades later, his widow, Natalia Khodemchuk, died last Saturday at the age of 73 in a Kyiv hospital: the night before, a Russian drone strike had hit her apartment while she slept. The resulting fire has left a black stain on the seventh floor of the building, around what used to be Khodemchuk's apartment. It's a 20-storey block, a massive structure on the outskirts of Kyiv."
"Khodemchuk was displaced from Pripyat to Kyiv, a little over 60 miles south of the nuclear power plant, with almost nothing but the clothes on her back, with the few belongings the Soviet army allowed her to pack before leaving her home forever. She made the journey alongside other families of plant employees, like Marina Voloshina's father-in-law. Natalia was an icon, we all knew her,"
Valery Khodemchuk vanished on April 26, 1986, when reactor 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded while he worked in the reactor's water circulation pump room; his body was never found and he was recorded as the first fatality. His widow, Natalia, was displaced from Pripyat to Kyiv with almost nothing and lived in a 20-storey building that housed many evacuees and liquidators. Natalia died at 73 after a Russian drone struck her apartment, causing a fire. Several Chernobyl liquidators who prevented further explosions later lived in the same building and are remembered by neighbors.
Read at english.elpais.com
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