I've been doing a bit of reading on this topic of late and have the following tidbits for consideration:
GreenBanana's link to Elena Filatova: she's a partial fake. She doesn't have access to the dead zone and she didn't ride her bike in and around the reactor. Instead she took the basic tour that you and I could go on from Kiev. The story is compelling, and the photos are real, but she's taken a rather long literally license in her account.
Paul Fusco: a professional photographer, he recently spent two months in and around Chernobyl capturing
the effects of the disaster on the children of the region. The photos are dramatic, moving, and not for the faint of heart. The require sound as the accompanying commentary only emphasizes the pain these kids are going through.
Not recommended for work settings.
Working Chernobyl: you would think that after the disaster the plant would have been shut down? No. It continued to operate through to 2001. The remaining two reactors (5 & 6) were never completed because much of the equipment required to do so was too radioactive, and unsettling the ground too dangerous. But reators 1,2 and 3 were fully operational until recently.
Chernobyl's twin: Now the good news. Chernobyl wasn't the first graphite based nuclear reaction design in the USSR. The original plant, or prototype if you will, is located
500kms south of Moscow near the town of Kursk. The plant continues to work to this day, it has not implemented any of the IAEA imrovements recommended following the Chernobyl disaster, and enjoys a number of 'accidents' each year. It is, in short, a bigger disaster waiting to happen.