Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant

The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant was once the largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine, located on the bank of the Pripyat River, 16 km from the border with Belarus and about 100 km north of Kyiv. The plant's address is the city of Pripyat, Kyiv Oblast, within the Exclusion Zone. Its coordinates are 51.389224, 30.098773. It was here that, on 26 April 1986, the largest nuclear disaster in human history occurred.

Construction and Capacity

Construction of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant began in 1970. By 1983 the plant had four operating units with RBMK-1000 reactors. Each unit had a capacity of 1,000 MW, bringing the plant's total capacity to 4,000 MW — at the time one of the most powerful nuclear plants in the USSR, alongside the Leningrad and Kursk plants. Two more units were planned, but construction was halted after the accident.

The Accident: Causes and Responsibility

On the night of 26 April 1986, a turbogenerator test was being carried out at Unit 4. Gross violations of operating procedures together with design flaws in the RBMK-1000 reactor caused an uncontrolled power surge that led to an explosion. The main causes of the accident included staff errors during the experiment, shortcomings in the design of the reactor's safety systems, and breaches of nuclear safety rules. Responsibility for the disaster was placed both on the plant's management and the operators who carried out the test, and on the reactor's designers, who had concealed its design vulnerabilities.

Consequences and Casualties

The Chernobyl accident was rated the maximum level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale. In the first hours and months after the explosion, 31 people died — firefighters and plant staff who received lethal doses of radiation. More than 100,000 residents were evacuated from the 30-kilometre zone, including the entire city of Pripyat. According to various estimates, hundreds of thousands of people were affected by the long-term effects of radiation. The radioactive cloud covered a significant part of Europe, and the roughly 2,600 km² Exclusion Zone remains closed to this day.

The Sarcophagus and the New Safe Confinement

By November 1986, a concrete "Shelter" (sarcophagus) had been built over the destroyed reactor — in 206 days, by 90,000 workers. Its construction used 400,000 m³ of concrete and 7,000 tonnes of steel structures. Over time the sarcophagus began to deteriorate, and in 2016 the New Safe Confinement was slid into place over it — a giant steel arch 110 metres high and weighing 36,000 tonnes, designed to remain in service until 2120.

Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Today

The plant's last operating unit was shut down on 15 December 2000. Decommissioning work is now underway, with full decommissioning planned for completion by 2065. In 2022 the plant's territory was affected by military action, and in February 2025 the confinement was damaged by a drone strike, though the inner shell remained intact and radiation levels did not rise. The Exclusion Zone remains closed to unauthorised visitors.