26. April 1986
40 years ago
A failed midnight test blew apart a reactor and sent radioactive fallout across Europe — turning an entire town into a ghost town.
On the night of 26 April 1986, the crew at the Chernobyl power plant in Soviet Ukraine ran a safety test on reactor number four. The test went wrong: the power surged out of control while warnings were ignored.
Scroll through the night↓
At 1:23 a.m. a violent steam explosion tore the roof off the reactor. The graphite in the core caught fire, and a column of radioactive material rose straight into the night sky — invisible, odourless and deadly.
Firefighters rushed out to put out what they thought was an ordinary blaze. They had no idea they were standing in some of the most intense radiation humans have ever faced. Many of them died in the weeks that followed.
Only 36 hours later was the neighbouring town of Pripyat evacuated. Nearly 50,000 people boarded buses and left their homes for good — past a Ferris wheel that never got to open, and apartments that still stand empty.
Radioactive fallout drifted across much of Europe. A vast concrete sarcophagus was raised over the reactor, and a 30-kilometre zone was sealed off from people. It remains abandoned — nature has reclaimed a town that time forgot.