KYIV – April 26 is a black day on Ukraine’s calendar. On that day in 1986, the worst nuclear disaster in history occurred at the Chornobyl power plant near the city of Prypiat in Kyiv Oblast. It has been approximated that 400 times more radioactive substances were released into the atmosphere after the Chornobyl accident than after the nuclear bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
This year, there were no official public commemorations due to the coronavirus quarantine restrictions. However, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his delegation visited the site of the nuclear accident and surrounding areas.
During the weeks leading up to the 34th anniversary of the tragedy, wildfires ravaged areas of the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone, posing a potential risk to the defunct power plant.