Chernobyl meltdown

April 26, 1986

During a safety test gone wrong, Reactor Four at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Soviet Ukraine blew its roof. A radioactive plume drifted across Europe. Firefighters who walked into the reactor hall were dead within weeks. The surrounding area was permanently evacuated. For Gorbachev it was a wound that would not heal, a system that could not tell the truth.