After more than ten thousand of the radiation-exposed turned up in hospital beds their general discharge suddenly began. On April 26, 1986, there was an explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the republic of Ukraine. Research Starter encyclopedia article about the Chernobyl nuclear accident. This protocol of the second session of the Politburo Operational Group Chernobyl focuses on tasking representatives of government agencies with various emergency management duties. According to the report from the Ministry of Energy, the fire was extinguished by 3:30 a.m. and the reactor core was being cooled down. This incident has been referred to as the world's worst nuclear power plant accident.THE ACCIDENTAccording to reports filed with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on April 25, 1986, technicians at the Chernobyl plant launched a poorly executed experiment to test the emergency electricity supply to one of its Soviet RBMK type design reactors. A monument dedicated to the liquidators stands in front of the Chernobyl New Safe Confinement that covers reactor No. . Is the leak continuing? (Schmemann and New York Times Service 1986). This memo reviews early Soviet information and information received through U.S. intelligence and speculates about the number of fatalities on the day of the explosion. And we did not have those who were guilty in the Chernobyl outrages under the party bosses, who called to intensify propaganda efforts aimed at the exposure of false fabrications of the bourgeois information and intelligence agencies about the events at the Chernobyl NPP, nor under democraciessovereign public prosecutors still keep a deathlike silence. Instead, the radioactive materials had come from 900 miles away in Ukraine (Browne 1986). The Wilson Center Digital Archive is a resource where students, researchers and specialists can access once-secret documents from governments and organizations all over the world. He alleged that thousands of casualties and widespread, long-term radioactive contamination occurred as the result of an explosion involving nuclear waste stored in underground shelters.The general consensus today is that a combination of events, rather than a single isolated incident at Kyshtym nuclear energy complex caused the radioactive contamination in the area. Top Secret Chernobyl is the first part of a two-volume documentary publication, taking the Chernobyl story through July 1986. After the accident occurred, the USSR was reluctant to share relevant details even though the international press and many countries demanded information. An Explosion Occurred in Power Unit No. They contain information primarily from Russian and Eastern Block news agency transmissions and broadcasts, newspapers, periodicals, television, radio and books. A flood of reports on the hospitalization of the public comes, starting on May 4th. It turns out that pregnant women and children were re-evacuated nearly to the red forest! This undated report shows levels of radioactivity of air and water in Kiev, Borodyanka, Polyesskoe, and Ivankov. The Chernobyl Newspapers Collection offers scholars the most comprehensive collection available for these titles, and features full page-level digitization, complete original graphics, and searchable text, and is cross-searchable with numerous other East View digital resources. (Original work published 1997). Also at this link is: Untitled Notice on Public Attitudes Toward the Chernobyl Accident, Research Topic List: Inequality and Human Rights, Research Topic List: Political Revolutions, Research Topic List: Climate Change and Environmental Issues. When? 9. The Politburo Operational Group on Chernobyl was staffed by some of the most powerful and experienced leaders in the USSR. The President of Russia Boris Yeltsin had already banned the CPSU, and some members of its politburo were contemplating life in KGB cells. August 15th, 1986 Report Memo from S. Mukha to Comrade A.P. The report contains further reports of violations of technical regulations at the Chernobyl NPP. Articles and. 7. Many news sources pointed to the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in the USA, and both the USA and the USSR aimed to de-emphasize their nuclear technology failings. () Paragraph 10: Consider it expedient to store meat with an elevated level of radioactive contaminant in the government reserve, in storage, as well as subject for purchase in the current year.. Learn more about the Chernobyl Disaster through historical newspapers from our archives. use it Skip to document Ask an Expert Sign inRegister Sign inRegister Home Ask an ExpertNew My Library Discovery Institutions Keiser University Maryville University Miami Dade College These documents contain information regarding acceptable levels of radiation on individuals, in foods, as well as on roads, clothing, and equipment. The document refers to the multifaceted work of ministries and departments of the USSR in the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident and recommends numerous new to reduce contamination in the environment, food, and water. The accident was a result of a failure to observe various safety procedures during the testing of one of the plant's four nuclear reactors. Slavic Review, 74(1), 104126. The document describes levels of radiation in the immediate area, populations which may have been affected, and steps which have been taken in the days following the incident. I managed to fight my way to the most secret Kremlin documents only in 1991, when I was elected a Peoples Deputy of the USSR from the city of Zhytomyr, which is 86 miles from Chernobyl. Abramowitz, M. (1986, May 2). The paper shows a graph of background radiation levels from April 30th-May 2nd, 1986 within the IAR in Kiev. Volume 2. The four reports are Comparison of DOE's Hanford N-Reactor with the Chernobyl Reactor (1986); Nuclear Power Safety International Measures in Response to Chernobyl Accident (1988); Nuclear Power Safety Chernobyl Accident Prompted Worldwide Actions but Further Efforts Needed (1991); and Construction of the Protective Shelter for the Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor Faces Schedule Delays, Potential Cost Increases, and Technical Uncertainties (2007).UNITED STATES CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS634 pages of transcripts from three Congressional hearings: The Chernobyl Accident Hearing before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Ninety-ninth Congress, 2nd session on the Chernobyl accident and implications for the domestic nuclear industry, June 19, 1986; The Effects of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant hearing before the Subcommittee on Nuclear Regulation, United States Senate, One Hundred Second Congress, second session, July 22, 1992; and The legacy of Chernobyl, 1986 to 1996 and beyond hearing before the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, One Hundred Fourth Congress, second session, April 23, 1996. goo, Chernobyl CIA Document on the Ukraine taking control of the area of Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Page from a Department of Defense report concerning the Chernobyl nuclear disaster fatalities, Chernobyl Disaster timeline, third page of a chronology from a Department of Energy report, Chernobyl Disaster timeline, fourth page of a chronology from a Department of Energy report, Chernobyl Shelter Project GAO report graphic shows proposed new shelter and its relative height to the State of Liberty and the enclosed existing shelter, Chernobyl Shelter Project GAO report information about the cost And funding of a Chernobyl shelter. (HDA SBU, Fond 11, Sprava 992, Tom 29). Two weeks after the accident, an unnamed KGB officer from the Ukrainian SSR reports on the situation in evacuation sites, the sentiment of local people, the situation in transportation hubs and at key industrial facilities in Kyiv, as well as about the measures taken to prevent foreign journalists from gathering information about the case. Protocol No. They never returned. A report on how military personnel involved in the response to the Chernobyl accident are being improperly managed at the site, leading to inefficiencies in the cleanup process. Chernobilsky Dossier KGB. This note describes the levels of radiation around the reactor, decontamination techniques, the number of troops involved in the cleanup process. (HDA SBU, Fond 16, Sprava 1097). It seems the worse the radiation spread, the healthier the Soviet people grew. In areas with radiation levels of less than 5 mR/hr it is critical to introduce strict control for radioactive food, especially milk., It is interesting to compare with the secret Report of the head of the Chemical Corps of the Ministry Defense of the USSR V. Pikalov at a meeting of the CC CPSU on June 15, 1987.: in the red forest, because of the turn-down and the conservation of the forest, the radiation levels are lowered from 5 Roentgen/hr to 7.5 mR/hr, which surpasses admissible values by 15 times. Red was the name of the forest close to the NPP, which had been killed by a nuclear blast. This memoreviews early Soviet informationreceived through U.S. intelligence and speculates about the number of fatalities on the day of the explosion. () Secretary of the CC CPSU M.S. (One of the authors of the idea of returning children and pregnant women to the danger zoneYuri Israelwas subsequently awarded the Order of Lenin for Chernobyl.), Secret recipes from the Politburo on the use of radioactive meat and milk are undoubtedly one of the strongest parts of the Kremlin-Chernobyl bestseller. The reactor was being operated with too many control rods withdrawn. Translated by Sarah Dunn for the National Security Archive. Wilson Center History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive. Protocol No. These materials were introduced by Higginbotham in an essay titled An Explosion Occurred in Power Unit No. It included reviews of studies carried out on cancers, noncancer diseases, immune and genetic effects, and reproductive and children's health, as well as evidence-based recommendations for national health authorities and for further research. Secret. These excerpts from the official working copy of Politburo sessions were published by Rudolph Pikhoia. After the Chernobyl accident, both the USA and the USSR had major incidents involving civilian nuclear power. INR information memorandum from Morton Abramowitz to the Secretary of State: Estimate of fatalities at Chernobyl reactor accident. This notice explains how the effects of the accident are being localized, levels of lead deposits in the area, and the evacuation of collective farms and the city of Chernobyl. Read more, The Nuclear Proliferation International History Project is a global network of individuals and institutions engaged in the study of international nuclear history through archival documents, oral history interviews, and other empirical sources. 4, and several hundred staff and firefighters tackled a blaze that burned for 10 days and sent. In fact, the number of people on the night shift was minimal and actual fatalities did total two on the first day of the accident. Andreyev answered my official inquiry 5 years after the accident: in the period of 1986 to 1989, in the specified zones 47,500 tons of meat and 2 million tons of milk over the limit of the level of contamination were produced.These circumstances put around 75 million people in dangerous living conditions (Authors Note- ! Importantly, it also acknowledges that the potential impact zone includes approximately 4.5 million residents of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia, which was, at that time, not widely known. Member of the Politburo Vitaly Vorotnikov writes in his diary about the first information Politburo members received regarding the accident at the Chernobyl NPS (Nuclear Power Station). If you experience a barrier that affects your ability to access content on this page, let us know via ourContact form. ], The Kremlin went to great lengths to hide the scale of the radiation debacle. Wilson Center Digital Archive. We will write a custom Research Paper on Chernobyl Nuclear Plant Disaster: Primary and Secondary Sources specifically for you. This document summarizes the specialists' report on the lack of reliability of the reactors at Chernobyl, citing that the lack of protective layers and other structural flaws in the reactor that could lead to radioactive contamination and accidents. The document explains violations of technological norms, labor laws, and assembly work at Chernobyl within one year of its official opening. Top Secret Chernobyl: The Nuclear Disaster through the Eyes of the Soviet Politburo, KGB, and U.S. Intelligence. Murakhovskys report. The authors further encourage an expansion of International Atomic Energy Agency guidelines on sharing information. I opened the safe again, took out the first protocol from therethe originaland put the copy in its place. Extraordinary session of the CC CPSU Politburo. May 1986 Background Radiation in the Institute of Atomic Research of the Ukr. It shows that updates from the construction site and first few years of plant operation were dire as early as the 1970s. A more popularized and novelistic treatment may be found in Serhii Plokhys account, Chernobyl: A History of a Nuclear Catastrophe (2018). He states that the remote control equipment (which failed practically immediately because of high levels of radioactivity and had to be replaced with biorobotsSoviet soldiers) has arrived and tells the Group that the brigade of chemical troops will be formed and deployed by May 4. This document discusses the violation of technical rules of reinforcement and concrete work in the construction of the Chernobyl plant, concluding that these deficiencies will diminish the quality of the energy output. No immediate evacuation followed. On the rest of the territory of the station it is up to 15-200 microroentgens per second, and at the city limit it is up to . Obtained through FOIA from the Central Intelligence Agency. Almost all of the working copies of Politburo sessions are still secret in the Russian Presidential Archive. This document discusses weaknesses in the technical designs of nuclear power plants in the USSR and their potential consequences, concluding that the Leningrad, Kursk, and Chernobyl plants are extremely dangerous. Allow the re-evacuation (return) of children and pregnant women to all residential areas where the combined calculated dose will not exceed 10 rem for the first year (237 residential areas in total), and there where the calculated doses of radiation exposure (without the restriction of the consumption of contaminated foods) surpasses 10 rem,from October 1, 1986(174 residential areas) Israel, Burenkov, Aleksandrov. This is despite the fact that a month earlier the head of the State Committee for Hydrometeorology Yuri Israel reported: Areas with radiation levels higher than 5 mR/hr () are recognized as dangerous for people to live in. This translation of a French brochure about the nuclear accident at Chernobyl was provided by an undercover KGB agent. July 20th, 1984 Captain A. E. Nikifiorov, Operative Plenipotentiary of Division I, Department 2 of the Sixth Service USSR KGB Administration for Moscow and Moscow Oblast, 'Information about an Interview with Trusted Individual "Zh. (HDA SBU, Fond 11, Sprava 991, Tom 2). In April 2019, Higginbotham published an extremely useful selection of these documents on the Sources and Methods blog of the History and Public Policy Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The test was meant to measure a turbogenerator's ability to provide in-house emergency power after shutting off its steam supply. This report explains ecological and security problems which arose several years later as a result of the Chernobyl accident, as well as areas for improvement in control of the reactor site and medical testing of the local population. Todays publication also contains declassified reactions from the U.S. State Departments intelligence bureau, the CIA, and the National Security Councils Jack Matlock, as well as reporting from the Ukrainian KGB. (Please note, encyclopedias/tertiary sources should NOT be cited in your assignment. All but the main fire in the graphite moderator material still inside unit 4 were extinguished in a few hours. The Chernobyl reactors, called RBMKs, were high-powered reactors that used graphite to help maintain the chain reaction and cooled the reactor cores with water. SSR Academy of Sciences (HDA SBU, Fond 11, Sprava 992, Tom 29). Amongst other qualities, the show has been widely praised for its historical accuracy. Top secret", 1992, The book by Politburo member Vitaly Vorotnikov, "This Is How It Went",1995. It affected large areas of the former Soviet Union and even parts of western Europe. (HDA SBU, Fond 65, Sprava 1, Tom 37). These human errors, coupled with a design flaw that allowed reactor power to surge when uncontrolled steam generation began in the core, set up the conditions for the accident.A chain of events lasting 40 seconds occurred at 1:23 AM on April 26.The technicians operating the reactor put the reactor in an unstable condition, so reactor power increased rapidly when the experiment began. May 6, 1986. "Deputy head of the 6th department of the KGB administration Liet. Secret. He notes that the situation with radiation in the city [of Pripyat] was clear within an hour. And yet, no planned emergency evacuation measures existed: people did not know what to do. He criticizes military officers who wanted to show off their bravery and appeared near the reactor wearing regular uniforms. According to Soviet data, the energy released was, for a fraction of a second, 350 times the rated capacity of the reactor. The General Secretary calls for individual responsibility of every agency in eliminating the consequences of the accident and emphasizes the social sphere, meaning taking care of the people who are working on decontamination and those who were evacuated from the area. SSR KGB Klockko, 'Information about Violations in the Construction of the Chernobyl Atomic Energy Station'. M.A. Soviet authorities made the decision not to cancel May 1, May Day, outdoor parades in the region four days later.The graphite fire continued to burn for nearly two weeks carrying radioactivity high into the atmosphere, until it was smothered by sand, lead, dolomite, and boron dropped from helicopters. The Nuclear Proliferation International History Project and the Cold War International History Project, both part of the Wilson Centers History and Public Policy Program, have published new translations of 28 documents about the Chernobyl nuclear accident from the archives of the Ukrainian Security Service, or the Ukrainian KGB. Col. Aksenov, 'Notice of Emergency Incident' (HDA SBU, Fond 11, Sprava 992, Tom 34). This document relays data received from chemical protection troops on radioactivity levels in Pripyat. On April 26, 1986, there was an explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the republic of Ukraine. Chernobyl, Ukraine Marina Shkvyria watches for animal tracks as she walks toward an abandoned village in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, the area sealed to the public after a nuclear power plant. (1986, April 27). Up to 30 percent of Chernobyl's 190 metric tons of uranium was now in the atmosphere, and the Soviet Union eventually evacuated 335,000 people, establishing a 19-mile-wide "exclusion zone" around the reactor.. At least 28 people initially died as a result of the accident, while more than 100 were injured. It uses information collected undercover to monitor the level of panic among students. April 27th, 1986 Notice from the Operative Plenipotentiary of the 2nd Division of the 6th Administration of the Ukr. Yakovlev () as of 09:00 hours on May 6th, the total number of the hospitalized amounted to 3,454 peoplethe number stricken with radiation sickness amounted to 367 people. According to the protocols, the number of the sick is growing every day. Materials from non-English language sources are translated into English.The reporting includes firsthand accounts of experiences during all points of the Chernobyl disaster. () At present, there are around 10 thousand tons of meat with contamination levels of radioactive materials from 1.1*10-7 Ci/kg to 1.0*10-g Ci/kg in storage in fridges of the meat industry in a number of regions, in August to December of this year it is expected that another 30 thousand tons of such meat will enter into production. And then comes the recommendation: disperse the meat contaminated with radioactive material around the country as much as possible, and use it for the production of sausage products, canned goods, and manufactured meat products at a ratio of one to 10 with normal meat.. It goes on to discuss the increased global use of nuclear energy and requests information from the USSR on the cause of the explosion so that the other nuclear countries can avoid such an accident. Geist, E. (2015). A study of the claims by Medvedev can be found in the Department of Energy section, in the 1982 report "An Analysis of the Alleged Kyshtym Disaster"U.S. GOVERNMENT FOREIGN PRESS MONITORING900 pages of foreign media monitoring reports from 1986 to 1992, produced by the U.S. government's National Technical Information Service's U.S. Joint Publication Research Service. YOUNG ACTIVISTS OF UKRAINE'S . And here is the solution of sudden, miraculous healing., Secret. 35+ YEARS OF FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACTION, USSR Ministry of Energy, "Regarding the Accident at Reactor No. (HDA SBU, Fond 31, Sprava 1). [Authors Note- ! For help citing interviews such as Voices from Chernobyl (below), click here. Wilson Center History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive. The first protocol reviews necessary measures to combat the damage done by the explosion in energy block 4. The National Security Archive is committed to digital accessibility. Picador. Large amounts of radioactive material were released into the atmosphere, where it was carried great distances by air currents. Russian State Archive of Contemporary History, Fond 89, opis 53, delo 6. Secret. This burst of energy resulted in an instantaneous and violent surge of heat and pressure, rupturing fuel channels and releasing steam that disrupted large portions of the core. These excerpts provide a practically verbatim account of the first discussion of the Chernobyl accident by the full Politburo. One study found no evidence that radiation exposure to parents resulted in new genetic . "Thirty-seven years ago, the Chernobyl NPP accident left a huge scar on the whole world," Zelenskyy said in . The disastrous meltdown in the 4th reactor of the Chernobyl (Chornobyl) Atomic Electrical Station occurred on April 26th, 1986. (HDA SBU, Fond 16, Sprava 1028). December 19th, 1978 Director of the Chernobyl District Department of the Ukr. It affectedlarge areas of the former Soviet Union and even parts ofwestern Europe. Fax: 202/994-7005Contact by email. The Nuclear Proliferation International History Project and the Cold War International History Project, both part of the Wilson Center's History and Public Policy Program, have published new translations of 28 documents about the Chernobyl nuclear accident from the archives of the Ukrainian Security Service, or the Ukrainian KGB. 4: The Story of Chernobyl in Documents. And suddenly it dawned on me: now the secret Chernobyl protocols will be carried off, even though we, the deputies, have not even had the time to read them yet! Top Secret Chernobyl: The Nuclear Disaster through the Eyes of the Soviet Politburo, KGB, and U.S. Intelligence. V.A."' Some European countries attempted to take neutral stances on the Chernobyl accident, but these neutral stances sparked even more anxiety in light of a major nuclear accident and the Cold War. Dozens more people contracted serious radiation sickness; some of them later died. Archive of the Gorbachev Foundation, Fond 2, opis 6, In these notes from a Politburo session, Chernyaev mainly records Gorbachevs interventions. Subsequent analysis revealed that the radioactive dust on the Forsmark reactor workers shoes was not due to a malfunction at Forsmarkor any other nuclear reactor in Scandinavia. Chernyaevs notes reveal the central leaderships obsession with presenting a proper image of the Soviet system to the West, especially in how it is dealing with the Chernobyl accident. The initial explosion at the Ukrainian nuclear power plant Chernobyl killed two people. It was not until alarms from radiation detectors in other countries, many hundreds of miles away, forced the Soviets to admit to the Chernobyl accident.Radioactive material was dispersed over 60,000 square miles of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. Archive of the President of the Russian Federation (APRF), Record of Session of the CC CPSU Politburo, 28 April 1986, working copy, published in Rudolph Pikhoia, Sovetskii Soyuz: Istoriya Vlasti, 1945-1991 (Novosibirsk: Sibirskii Khronograph, 2000), pp. May 12th, 1986 Untitled notice on public attitudes toward the Chernobyl accident (HDA SBU, Fond 11, Sprava 992, Tom 29). Britannica Academic encyclopedia article about the Chernobyl disaster. Col. Aksenov, 'Notice of Emergency Incident', Notice: Information from Places of Evacuation, Memo Report from the Head of the KGB Administration under the Ukr. The first photograph of Unit Four after the accident, shot from a helicopter by Chernobyl plant photographer Anatoly Rasskazov, at approximately 3.00pm on April 26, 1986. 32. May 7th, 1986 Minutes of Meeting of the Operative Group of the Kiev Party City Committee Office, 7 May 1986. Soon, the world realised that it was witnessing a historic event. Click image for link to full article (on Bowdoin network). Florida Gov. Therefore, the Wests understanding of Chernobyl was largely framed by the Cold War and technological failings on both sides. Page 4, Chernobyl disaster worker Russian newspaper interview translation part 1, Chernobyl disaster worker Russian newspaper interview translation part 2, Key links related to the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster, Wikipedia article about the 1986 nuclear plant accident in Ukraine.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disasterWorld Nuclear Association Information Library on the Chernobyl Accident 1986http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/chernobyl-accident.aspxInternational Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) - The Chernobyl Projecthttp://www-ns.iaea.org/projects/chernobyl.Nuclear Energy Institute Chernobyl Accident and Its Consequences Fact Sheetshttps://www.nei.org/Master-Document-Folder/Backgrounders/Fact-Sheets/Chernobyl-Accident-And-Its-ConsequencesHuffington Post: 30 Years After the Chernobyl Disaster, a Nuclear Menace Still Hides in Plain Sighthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/ioana-moldovan-/chernobyl-nuclear-menace_b_9774040.htmlCIA Breiefing video on the Chernobyl Nuclesr DisasterThe CIA created video briefing created to give information to President Reagan and the Reagan Administration about the Chernobyl nuclear accident, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster. for only $11.00 $9.35/page. These protocols, and all the granular details of how the Soviet leadership dealt with the accident day-by-day, are available to scholars and citizens due to the courage and decisiveness of a brave Russian journalist and subsequently member of the first democratically elected Supreme Soviet, Alla Yaroshinskaya, who published these protocols after the August 1991 coup in Moscow. Ultimately, news stories published in April-May 1986 illustrate global uncertainty and fear surrounding the Chernobyl accident. A full list of the new translations available on DigitalArchive.WilsonCenter.org is provided below. The tens of thousands of deaths of liquidators and victims of the catastrophe and the loss of health and quality of life for the nine million people who still survive in the affected areas paid for them. Former Adviser to the President of the Russian Federation Boris Yeltsin. The Higginbotham documents particularly detail the reaction of the Kiev authorities, ranging from the Council of Ministers to the Ukrainian Communist Party Central Committee to the Ministry of Health to the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. Key sources include protocols of the Politburo Operational Group on Chernobyl that were published in Russian by the journalist and former Supreme Soviet deputy Alla Yaroshinskaya in 1992. Protocol No. The hot core material of reactor 4 started about 30 separate fires in the unit 4 reactor hall and turbine building, as well as on the roof of the adjoining unit 3. Image: The first photograph of Unit Four after the accident, shot from a helicopter by Chernobyl plant photographer Anatoly Rasskazov, at approximately 3.00pm on April 26 1986 (Anatoly Rasskazov/Ukrainian National Chernobyl Museum). May 3rd, 1986 Deputy Head of the 6th Department of the KGB Administration Lieut. Gubarev compares standards and regulations in the Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Energy and finds the latter ones much weaker. A brief note from Vitaly Vorotnikovs diary shows a reassessment of the situation by Moscow. The Soviet Union knew the Chernobyl nuclear plant was dangerous and covered up emergencies there before the 1986 disaster, the Ukrainian authorities said as they released documents to mark the . Chernobyl is a nuclear power plant in Ukraine that was the site of a disastrous nuclear accident on April 26, 1986. May 15, 2020, An Explosion Occurred in Power Unit No.