The accident occurred during a safety test on the steam turbine of an RBMK-type nuclear reactor. The initial emergency response, together with later decontamination of the environment, ultimately involved more than 500,000 personnel and cost an estimated 18 billion Soviet rubles-roughly US$68 billion in 2019, adjusted for inflation. It is considered the worst nuclear disaster in history both in terms of cost and casualties, and 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 Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan.
The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on Saturday 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.
Varying estimates of increased mortality over subsequent decades (see Deaths due to the disaster) INES Level 7 (major accident) see Chernobyl disaster effectsįewer than 100 deaths directly attributed to the accident. Reactor design flaws and serious breach of protocol during simulated power outage safety test Reactor 3 can be seen behind the ventilation stackĬhernobyl nuclear power plant, Pripyat, Chernobyl Raion, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
Reactor 4 several months after the disaster.
