At 1:23 a.m. on April 26, 1986, an accident at Chernobyl Unit 4, a 1000 MWe RBMK(a)nuclear power plant located in Ukraine, Soviet Union, resulted in destruction of the reactor core and part of the building in which the reactor was housed. In the initial steam explosion and subsequent fires, large amounts of radioactive material were released in the form of gases and dust particles. The energy released in the explosion was equivalent to 40 tons of TNT and resulted in discharge of about 4% of the reactor's nuclear fuel to the environment...
Revised: September 29, 2009 |
Published: August 30, 2000