Kiev, Apr 27 (IANS): Ukraine marked the 37th anniversary of the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, with a commemorative ceremony at the site of the disaster.

During the ceremony on Wednesday, Ukrainian Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources Ruslan Strilets, together with the Exclusion Zone employees, paid tribute to people involved in clean-up works at the plant after the disaster.

The participants of the ceremony also laid flowers at the monument of firefighters, who died while extinguishing the radioactive fire at the power plant shortly after the accident, Xinhua news agency reported.

After the ceremony, media representatives visited the New Safe Confinement (NSC) over the destroyed reactor, which was put into operation in July 2019.

The reporters observed the control room of the NSC and the monitoring systems behind the old defensive structure "Shelter".

The radiation levels in the area were within the safe range, according to monitoring systems.

On April 26, 1986, a series of explosions ripped through the No. 4 reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, nearly 110 km north of Kiev, spreading radiation across Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and other European countries.

The 30-km-radius area around the plant was declared the Exclusion Zone.

The arch-shaped NSC, which was erected over the destroyed reactor to replace "Shelter," will protect the environment from radiation spewing from the unit for nearly a century.

In February 2022, Russian forces captured the Chernobyl plant and had been in control of it for five weeks.