On April 26th 1986 - A routine test resulted in the worst radiological accident the world had ever seen.

Caused by a terrible combination of user error, Soviet secrets, inflated egos and cut corners, 1:23am was the moment the world would never be the same again. Lets take a dive into the incident and uncover what went wrong at Chernobyl - Reactor 4, see who and what was used to clean up the mess and reflect on what is now left of the irradiated wasteland.

• The amount of radiation released was 200 times higher than the atomic bombs that hit Nagasaki and Hiroshima during World War 2.
• Radioactive rain fell as far away as Ireland, but was detected in Wales, Sweden and all over Europe. Sweden was the first country to detect the radiation coming from Chernobyl.
• The open reactor was releasing such high levels of radiation that if you were able to stand next to it, you would be dead within 40 seconds.

Explore our website for exclusive information about the Chernobyl disaster, rare images from the exclusion zone and an opportunity to book onto our famous tour of the ghost town, Prypiat, and the remains of the destroyed power-plant.