Overview
- On the 40th anniversary, National Geographic is airing a four-part series, Chernobyl: Inside the Meltdown, that centers first-hand accounts from those who lived through the disaster.
- The meltdown began during a late-night safety test when an operator hit the AZ-5 emergency shutdown, and flawed control-rod tips drove a surge that destroyed Reactor 4.
- Immediate casualties included two workers who died at the plant and 28 more who died in the following weeks, while thousands later reported illnesses such as thyroid cancer.
- More than 200,000 people were evacuated, the area remains an exclusion zone expected to be uninhabitable for millennia, and the destroyed reactor now sits under the New Safe Confinement.
- Recent conflict has renewed concern over the site’s stability after Russian troops seized the area in 2022, stirring radioactive dust, and a 2025 drone strike hit the containment, which Ukraine called an attempt to trigger a nuclear incident.