Chernobyl, 32 years later: one man's life lived deep in the exclusion zone

A nuclear disaster saw Chernobyl evacuated but one man has remained there, writes Wayne O'Connor

Ivan Semenyuk remembers being evacuated from the Chernobyl area after the disaster. Photo: Wayne O’Connor

Wayne O'Connor

It is 32 years since Ivan Semenyuk and his family were told to flee their home in Paryshev, just miles from the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. For him, the move away was temporary because the 84-year-old refuses to live anywhere else.

"This is home," he says.