Man suffered horrific consequences after coming into contact with Earth's most dangerous object

A man suffered from devastating health consequences after he came into contact with the 'most dangerous object in the world'.

Back in 1986, a disaster occurred in the Ukrainian city of Chernobyl, which shook the entire world.

On 28 April, the flawed Number 4 reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine exploded, releasing at least five percent of its radioactive reactor core.

Dozens of people died in the disaster and approximately 350,000 were evacuated from the danger zone.

Even to this day, despite the explosion taking place many decades ago, very few people live in the area surround the plant - in fact, it's pretty much considered a ghost town.

While hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated after the explosion, experts were assembled to keep the remaining three reactors under control, including one man who came into contact with the 'most dangerous object on Earth', also know as the 'Elephant's Foot'.

Back in 1986, a disaster occurred in the Ukrainian city of Chernobyl (Igor Kostin/Laski Diffusion/Getty Images)

Artur Korneyev, 65, a radiation specialist first arrived at Chernobyl after the accident and helped to remove radioactive material for three years.

It was his job to locate the fuel and to determine the radiation levels in order to limit the exposure to other workers.

You may think that all of the radiation was released outwards from the explosion and outside of the plant, but close to 200 tonnes of uranium and its radioactive by-products remained in the destroyed plant.

This stuff can get to such high heats that it causes anything around it - from concrete to buildings - to melt.

But when it cools, it looks something like hardened lava, and is extremely dangerous to even be close to - let alone handle.

According to science magazine Nautilus, just 30 seconds of exposure to the thing will hit you with dizziness and fatigue.

But Korneyev said they actually used their boot or a shovel to shift it out of the way when attempting to clean up.

The substance is known as the 'Elephant's Foot' (Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

The effect? The radiation specialist now has cataracts and other problems due to his heavy radiation exposure and because of safety and health concerns, he is no longer allowed inside the plant.

After witnessing the extent of the damage, Korneyev was one of the first people to alert experts in the West that the sarcophagus could potentially release another large amount of radioactivity.

That’s when seven nations agreed in 1995 to pay for large-scale work to make Unit 4 safe, which led to the remaining two operating Chernobyl reactors being closed, with the last one shut in 2000.