April 26, 1986: CHERNOBYL

On April 26, 1986, turbine No. 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant suffered an explosion and fire that resulted in large amounts of radioactive material to be released into the atmosphere.
The fire and explosion were a result of errors in operating procedure by the workers at the nuclear power plant.
No announcements were made by Soviet officials of the accident, the Swedish government reported radiation alarms going off at their own power plants which resulted in the evacuation of more than 130,000 people from towns close to the Chernobyl power plant.
The Soviet Union did not acknowledge the incident until 2 days later (April 28, 1986) and the fire from the explosion was not extinguished until May 10, 1986.
According to various World Health Organization reports, estimated deaths from cancer and other diseases made more likely by radiation exposure range between 4,000 to 9,000
A 19-mile exclusion zone remains uninhabited today.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) findings concluded that the residents experienced significant anxiety, stress, sleep disturbance, alcohol consumption, hopelessness, depression, feeling too tired to get up, lack of trust and uncertainty. The resident's lack of trust, uncertainty and hopelessness was directly related to their feelings of their government; who were providing the public with little information as to how much of the radiation had affected their homes, farm lands, food and what they could expect as far as aid was concerned.
The general population experienced symptoms of anxiety and depression; while the liquidators (clean-up crew) had more significant side effects such as schizophrenia, accelerated aging (also known as radiation progeroid syndrome), high rates of suicide, depression with suicidal ideation, PTSD, and lastly severe headaches.