Chernobyl
A safety test destroys a reactor and contaminates much of Europe.
- When
- Era
- Contemporary, Holocene
Reactor 4 explodes during a botched test in April 1986, driven by an unstable design and violated procedure. Firefighters and plant workers received fatal doses; over 100,000 people were permanently evacuated. Long-term death estimates range from a few thousand to tens of thousands and remain disputed. The Soviet attempt to conceal it, detected first by Swedish monitors, damaged the state's credibility and is cited by Gorbachev as a factor in its collapse.