PRIPYAT — 1986 · Major Tragedy
The Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster
At 1:23 am on 26 April 1986, control was lost during a safety test at reactor No. 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Soviet Ukraine; successive explosions destroyed the reactor and the resulting fire burned for days. A radioactive cloud spread across much of Europe. Officially, 31 plant workers and firefighters died in the short term; long-term casualties remain disputed. The nearby city of Pripyat was not evacuated until 27 April, a 30-kilometre exclusion zone was created, and hundreds of thousands of people were eventually displaced. Soviet authorities tried to conceal the accident in its first days. In a 1987 trial the plant's managers were sentenced to prison. The reactor was sealed first in a concrete sarcophagus and, in 2016, under a new steel confinement.
- Date
- 1986
- Place
- Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine, Pripyat, UA
- Category
- Major Tragedy
- Case Status
- Closed
- Coordinates
- 51.3890, 30.0990 ↗
Timeline of Events
- 26 April 1986, 1:23 amReactor No. 4 exploded.
- 27 April 1986The city of Pripyat was evacuated.
- November 1986The reactor was entombed in a concrete sarcophagus.
- July 1987Plant managers were tried and sentenced to prison.
- November 2016The New Safe Confinement was slid over the reactor.
Sources
- The Guardian — Chernobyl 20 years on theguardian.com ↗
- History.com — Test triggers nuclear disaster at Chernobyl history.com ↗
- Wikipedia — Chernobyl disaster en.wikipedia.org ↗
- The Guardian
- History.com
- BBC News
Source grade A: several independent sources, at least one an official record or reference work. If you spot a mistake or something missing, report it with "Suggest a correction" in the app.
Related Cases
More cases from the 1980s
Categories
Collections
🕯️ This record was prepared with respect, in memory of those who lost their lives.