When the Fukushima nuclear plant began melting down, after the Japanese tsunami, many in the news media brought up the specter of an earlier nuclear disaster in Ukraine, Soviet Union. The same was done when the accident at Three Mile Island more that three decades earlier. Both there is no comparison: on nearly every scale magnitude, from damage to the facility to radiation released to lives affected (or ended) the nuclear catastrophe that took place in Chernobyl was unprecedented, and, thankfully, unmatched.

On this day, April 26, in 1986, the hastily-constructed new nuclear plant at Chernobyl, Ukraine, not far from the Ukrainian capital of Kiev and international borders, exploded during a planned test. The causes were multiple: inadequate training, a change of shifts for the plant, but not least of all shoddy construction. The plant was ordered build on short notice, without the requisite safety measures.

The magnitude of the disaster was magnified still when the Russians decided to cover it up, rather than do nothing. For days, there was no action on the part of the government, while radioactive elements leeched into the air unchecked. Only when Ukraine’s neighbors traced radioactive fallout back to Chernobyl and threatened to go to the international community if the USSR did not, did Russia finally admit the accident.