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04/26/2004: "Chernobyl"

On this day in 1986, at the Chernobyl nuclear power station, technicians attempted a poorly designed experiment resulting in the worst accident in the history of nuclear power generation. Click more.. Below.

Workers shut down the reactor's power-regulating system and its emergency safety systems, and they withdrew most of the control rods from its core, while allowing the reactor to continue running at 7 percent power. These mistakes were compounded by others, and at 1:23 Am on April 26 the chain reaction in the core went out of control.

Several explosions triggered a large fireball and blew off the heavy steel and concrete lid of the reactor. This and the ensuing fire in the graphite reactor core released large amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere, where it was carried great distances by air currents. A partial meltdown of the core also occurred.

On April 27 the 30,000 inhabitants of Pryp'yat began to be evacuated. A cover-up was attempted, but on April 28 Swedish monitoring stations reported abnormally high levels of wind-transported radioactivity and pressed for an explanation. The Soviet government admitted there had been an accident at Chernobyl, thus setting off an international outcry over the dangers posed by the radioactive emissions.

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