On This Day - What happened 26 April 1986 AD

In April 1986 the Chernobyl disaster occurred.

Accidents in nuclear power plants include the Chernobyl disaster in the Soviet Union in 1986. It is considered the worst nuclear disaster in history and was caused by one of only two nuclear energy accidents rated at seven the maximum severity on the International Nuclear Event Scale.

A commission was established later in the day to investigate the accident. It was headed by Valery Legasov, First Deputy Director of the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy, and included leading nuclear specialist Evgeny Velikhov, hydro-meteorologist Yuri Izrael, radiologist Leonid Ilyin, and others. They flew to Boryspil International Airport and arrived at the power plant on the evening of 26 April.

The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the No. 4 nuclear reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR. It is considered the worst nuclear disaster in history and is one of only two nuclear energy disasters rated at seven—the maximum severity—on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the other being the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan.