9. Chernobyl
The worst nuclear power plant disaster took place on April 26, 1986, in Chornobyl, Ukraine. 31 people were killed when a reactor exploded and caused a cloud of radioactivity that spread across Europe and the Soviet Union. The accident happened during a test at reactor number 4 when there was a sudden power surge which led to a series of explosions. As a consequence of the accident, radioactive fallout spread across a vast area. Long-term effects of the worst accident in the nuclear power plant industry are still unknown, but about 4,000 children born in 1986 had thyroid cancer. According to an estimation done by United Nations, the total number of casualties had risen to 56 in 2005, and UNSCEAR found that as of 2005, about 6,000 people were diagnosed with thyroid cancer and 15 of them died from the same cause, as a direct consequence of the accident. And now, let’s see what’s next on our list of worst industrial disasters/accidents in the world.
