Individual involvement in the Chernobyl disaster Individual involvement in the Chernobyl disaster The Chernobyl disaster, () "Chornobylʹsʹka katastrofa," was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (then part of the Soviet Union), now in Ukraine. The following is the individual involvement in the accident. Most of the information here is based on Grigoriy Medvedev's work. In the night from 25 to 26 April, in the two power plant complexes, there were 160 people on duty, including technicians and maintenance personnel of the various departments. Three hundred more workers were present at the
Ryanggang explosion popular speculation that the explosion was nuclear in origin. United States Secretary of State Colin Powell said there was "no indication" that it was nuclear, and South Korea similarly said that it did not appear to be nuclear. It would be some days before the effects of a nuclear explosion would be unequivocally visible to apolitical authorities. It would not be possible to hide the nuclear nature of such an explosion for long, as the radioactive isotopes created by a nuclear explosion would be detectable to outside observers around the world. North Korea initially denied that the explosion was nuclear.