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This disaster happened at a nuclear power plant and is the only accident in the history of commercial nuclear power to cause fatalit

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This disaster happened at a nuclear power plant and is the only accident in the history of commercial nuclear power to cause fatalities from radiation.

Multiple explosions at the plant caused a fire that burned for 10 days, releasing a large amount of radiation into the atmosphere.

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Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, then part of the former Soviet Union

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April 26th, 1986

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Around 350,000 people were forced to evacuate their homes in the "Nuclear Exclusion Zone," the area in a 19-mile radius around the plant. The town hardest hit was Pripyat, Ukraine — it was quickly abandoned and remains empty to this day.

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Because large amounts of radioactive iodine were released as a result of the Chernobyl accident, the thyroid glands of local residents received considerable doses through breathing and through consuming contaminated foods, especially milk. Children are particularly vulnerable and there has been a substantial increase in thyroid cancer among people who were exposed as children.

More than 4000 cases of thyroid cancer were diagnosed in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine between 1992 and 2002 among those who were children and adolescents at the time of the accident. Most of these cancers can be attributed to radiation.

Radiation exposure from this incident has also been linked to hundreds of cases of leukaemia.

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Chernobyl drone video: Rare haunting footage of Pripyat exclusion zone

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A rarely-seen view of the haunting ruins left by the Chernobyl disaster, have been captured by a camera drone. Almost 30 years after one of the world's worst nuclear disasters, American filmmaker Philip Grossman travelled to the abandoned city of Pripyat, to document the decaying area.

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There was a power surge in the reactors and the hot fuel particles reacted with water.  This caused a steam explosion, which lifted the 1,000-metric-ton cover off the top of one reactor, rupturing the rest of the 1,660 pressure tubes, causing a second explosion and exposing the reactor core to the environment.

The accident happened because of a combination of faulty equipment and human error.

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31 people died in the accident itself.

34 emergency workers who received high doses of radiation and 28 of them died from it during the first months after the accident.

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17 Sieverts Per Hour - The Battle of Chernobyl - Bio-Robots Lead Suit Workers on top of Reactor Extreme Radiation Levels 1700 Rads 1134x642 www.RadioactiveChat.Blogspot.com

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Many animals - even today - are deformed in this area because of the extreme exposure to radiation.

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Gleb Garanich/Reuters

On April 26, 1986, a radioactive release 10 times bigger than the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power station inside the Soviet Union. It would go down in history as one of the worst disasters of its kind.

The explosion blasted radioactive gas and dust into the air, and winds carried it across central and southern Europe. Thirty-one people died in the accident, and countless lives have been affected long-term by the exposure to radiation.

Around 350,000 people were forced to evacuate their homes in the "Nuclear Exclusion Zone," the area in a 19-mile radius around the plant. The town hardest hit was Pripyat, Ukraine - it was quickly abandoned and remains empty to this day.

Ahead, 17 photos that show what the zone looked like in 2016.

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17 stunning photos that show what the radioactive area around Chernobyl looks like more than 30 years after the explosion

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On April 26, 1986, a radioactive release 10 times bigger than the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power station inside the Soviet Union. It would go down in history as one of the worst disasters of its kind.