The Chernobyl disaster remains the world’s worst nuclear accident, displacing hundreds of thousands and reshaping global safety standards decades later.

On 26 April 1986, a reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine exploded

Forty years after the Chernobyl disaster, the effects of the world’s worst nuclear accident are still being felt.

The example that Chernobyl has provided of how the landscape, water dynamics and human behaviour affect radiation risk will be important when dealing with future disasters. Scientists never stop studying it, because radioactive isotopes can move in surprising new ways.

Four decades after the Chernobyl disaster, experts say growing energy needs and advancing technology are bringing renewed attention to nuclear power and its future.

Forty years ago, in April 1986, there was an explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. It was the worst nuclear accident in history. Then the plant was in the USSR, it is part of northern Ukraine now.

Sunday, April 26, marks the 40th anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear power plant accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in the Soviet Union.

A single person pressing the wrong button set off the nuclear catastrophe which shocked the globe and contaminated thousands of homes with radioactive material. In the early morning of April 26, 1986, a scheduled test at Reactor 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear ...