Striking photos from the villages surrounding Chernobyl, taken by people who still live there

On April 26th, 1986, a catastrophic accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine sent radioactive particles into the air, distributing toxic pollution over a vast area. It has since gone down in history as one of the worst disasters of its kind.

31 people died in the blast, but the long-term effects have been felt ever since. Cancer and other radiation-exposure problems still plague citizens, and contamination in their water and soil remain a burden.

No people know these problems better than those who live near the "Nuclear Exclusion Zone," the area within a 19-mile radius of the plant, where radiation levels are still exceedingly high. 350,000 people were forced to evacuate their homes after the accident, and many still form a community on the edge of a wasteland.

Photographer Thom Davies, who is also a trained geographer and ethnographer, has been working to understand and document this community since 2008. As part of his studies, Davies gave people who lived close to the Exclusion Zone disposable cameras and asked them to document their everyday lives in their extraordinary surroundings.

"The photographs give a rare glimpse into the unseen realities of everyday life in this post-atomic hinterland," Davies says of the project, called "Disposable Citizens." "No one understands the realities of Chernobyl like those who live there."