On 26 April 1986, reactor 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, located near Pripyat in the Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union, exploded.
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The Chernobyl Disaster, 1986
The world's worst nuclear accident
In the early hours of 26 April 1986, a safety test went badly wrong at the Chernobyl power plant in Soviet Ukraine. Reactor 4 exploded, blowing the roof off the building and starting a fire that burned for days. Radioactive material drifted across much of Europe.
The nearby city of Pripyat, home to around 49,000 people, was evacuated the next day and never reoccupied. Soviet officials at first tried to keep the accident quiet. Today a vast steel arch covers the ruined reactor, and a 30-kilometre exclusion zone still surrounds the site.
Did you know?With people gone, wildlife has flourished in the exclusion zone, including wolves, lynx and rare Przewalski's horses.
The 41st anniversary falls on April 26, 2027.
