History of the Soviet Union

Chernobyl disaster
Reactor 4 several months after the disaster. Reactor 3 can be seen behind the ventilation stack ©Image Attribution forthcoming. Image belongs to the respective owner(s).
1986 Apr 26

Chernobyl disaster

Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant,

The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR in the Soviet Union. It is one of only two nuclear energy accidents rated at seven—the maximum severity—on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the other being the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. The initial emergency response, together with later decontamination of the environment, involved more than 500,000 personnel and cost an estimated 18 billion roubles—roughly US$68 billion in 2019, adjusted for inflation.

Last Updated: Sat Dec 31 2022

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