However unlike the 2011 fukushima japan nuclear crisis the chernobyl reactor explosion was. On april 25 1986 the world s worst nuclear disaster befell the chernobyl ukraine power plant. The accident and the fire that followed released massive amounts of radioactive material into the environment.
On april 26 1986 a sudden surge of power during a reactor systems test destroyed unit 4 of the nuclear power station at chernobyl ukraine in the former soviet union. Fires raging for more than a week in ukraine are less than a kilometer from the defunct chernobyl nuclear power plant but emergency services say the situation is under control. It is considered the worst nuclear power plant accident in history and is one of only two classified as a level 7 event.
An explosion and fire released large quantities of radioactive contamination into the atmosphere which spread over much of western ussr and europe. The chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 april 1986 at the chernobyl nuclear power plant in ukraine. Chernobyl was evacuated on 5 may 1986 9 days after a catastrophic nuclear disaster at the plant which was the largest nuclear accident in history.
Chernobyl was chosen as the site of ukraine s first nuclear power plant in 1972 located 15 kilometres 9 mi north of the city which opened in 1977. The chernobyl nuclear power plant officially the vladimir ilyich lenin nuclear power plant is a closed nuclear power plant near the abandoned city of pripyat in northern ukraine 16 5 kilometers 10 mi northwest of the city of chernobyl 16 kilometers 10 mi from the belarus ukraine border and about 100 kilometers 62 mi north of kiev it was cooled by an engineered pond which is fed.
