Once classified files from East Germany reveal the extent of Soviet actions to hide the true extent of catastrophe.

On April 26, 1986, Soviet engineers at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant were conducting a safety test. Doomed by a fatal design flaw and pushed to the limit by human negligence, reactor 4 exploded ...

Efrem Lukatsky, a Kyiv-based photographer for The Associated Press, was living in the city on April 26, 1986, when the explosion and fire struck the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, about a two-hour ...

(April 26), a safety test at the Chernobyl Power Plant in Ukraine set off two explosions, triggering the world’s biggest nuclear disaster. However, it could have been worse had it not been for the ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. A German security guard checks for radiation after the Chernobyl accident in April 1986. Patrick Piel/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images ...

THE CONVERSATION via AP — On April 26, 1986, Soviet engineers at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant were conducting a safety test. Doomed by a fatal design flaw and pushed to the limit by human ...

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) Although the accident occurred north of Kyiv, Ukraine, near the border with Belarus, ...