The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) posted a video April 26 remarking on the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant disaster, known to many as the “worst nuclear accident ever.”
“We are marking a somber anniversary,” Rafael Grossi, the director general of the international nuclear watchdog, said in the video on the agency’s website. “Today we remember the firefighters, the liquidators, the engineers and the workers who responded, and the hundreds of thousands of people who lost their homes and had to flee their communities.”
Chernobyl’s Reactor 4 exploded during a late-night safety test on April 26, 1986, at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, then part of the Soviet Union. The blast and subsequent graphite fire released massive amounts of radioactive material across Ukraine, Belarus and throughout the world, prompting the evacuation of more than 100,000 people and leaving long-term health and environmental consequences.
The disaster exposed critical flaws in Soviet reactor design and safety culture, reshaping global nuclear safety standards in the decades that followed.
“That 40 years later, Chernobyl remains the worst nuclear accident ever has much to do with the work of regulators, operators, scientists, engineers and lawmakers,” Grossi said. “We built a global safety culture and a collaborative approach that defines nuclear fuel today.”