The Chernobyl disaster was a major accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on April 26, 1986 at 01:23 a.m. The power plant is located near Pripyat, Ukraine. An explosion at the plant was followed by radioactive contamination of the surrounding geographic area.
It remains the worst accident in the history of nuclear power. A plume of radioactive fallout drifted over parts of the Western Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Northern Europe, and Eastern North America. Large areas of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia were badly contaminated, resulting in the evacuation and resettlement of over 336,000 people. About 60% of the radioactive fallout landed in Belarus, according to official post-Soviet data.
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