Ukraine ousted Khrushchev and became the Soviet leader from 1964 to 1982. Many prominent Soviet sports players, scientists, and artists came from Ukraine. On 26 April 1986, a reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded, resulting in the Chernobyl disaster, the worst nuclear reactor accident in history. This was the only accident to receive the highest possible rating of 7 by the International Nuclear Event Scale, indicating a "major accident", until the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in March 2011. At the time of the accident, 7 million people lived in the contaminated territories, including 2.2 million in Ukraine. After the
South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant The South Ukraine Nuclear Power Station (, ), is a nuclear power station in Ukraine. It is part of the South Ukrainian Energy Complex. It is located near the city of Yuzhnoukrainsk in Mykolaiv province, approximately south of Kiev. The nuclear power station has three VVER-1000 pressurized water reactors and a net generation capacity of 2,850 megawatts (MW). It is at present the second largest of five nuclear power stations in Ukraine. From South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant a 750 kV powerline runs to Isaccea, Romania, but it is mostly dismantled or ruined. In 2013,