Emergency services in northern Ukraine are battling to prevent the country's largest forest fire since 1992 from spreading towards the abandoned Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
A plane drops water on a forest fire near Ukraine's old Chernobyl nuclear plant. Photo: ANDREW KRAVCHENKO / UKRAINIAN PRIME MINISTER PRESS / AFP
The prime minister, Arseny Yatseniuk, said the fire was about 20 kilometres from the plant but the situation was being controlled.
Earlier, the interior ministry had warned that high winds were blowing the fire towards Chernobyl, where a 1986 reactor fire led to the world's worst nuclear disaster.
There is a 30 kilometre exclusion zone around the plant, which remains contaminated by radioactive particles.
Photo: ANDREW KRAVCHENKO / UKRAINIAN PRIME MINISTER PRESS / AFP
Photo: ANDREW KRAVCHENKO / UKRAINIAN PRIME MINISTER PRESS / AFP