What happened at Chernobyl?
On April 26, 1986, a reactor exploded at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Soviet Ukraine during a safety test. It was the worst nuclear accident in history, spreading radiation across Europe.
The disaster happened at Reactor No. 4 during a late-night test to see if the turbines could power safety systems during a blackout. A combination of design flaws in the RBMK reactor and operator errors caused a sudden power surge. Steam explosions blew the roof off the reactor and started a fire that burned for days.
Two workers died in the explosions, and 28 emergency workers and plant staff died within months from acute radiation sickness. The nearby city of Pripyat, home to about 50,000 people, was evacuated the next day. Radioactive clouds drifted over Belarus, Russia and much of Europe, and Soviet authorities were slow to reveal what had happened.
Aftermath
A 30-kilometer exclusion zone was created around the plant. Thousands of later thyroid cancer cases, mainly in people exposed as children, have been linked to the accident. In 2016, a huge steel structure called the New Safe Confinement was slid over the damaged reactor to contain it.
Did You Know?
With few people around, wildlife such as wolves, elk, boars and rare Przewalski's horses has thrived in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.