The Worst Nuclear Disasters

The Chernobyl disaster is considered to be the worst nuclear power plant disaster in history.
Igor Kostin / Sygma / Corbis

Chernobyl, April 26, 1986
The Chernobyl disaster is considered to be the worst nuclear power plant disaster in history. On the morning of April 26, 1986, reactor number four at the Chernobyl plant exploded. More explosions ensued, and the fires that resulted sent radioactive fallout into the atmosphere. Four hundred times more fallout was released than had been by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

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