On April 26, 1986, reactor number 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near Pripyat, Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union), exploded. The disaster caused many deaths and health problems, making it one of only two nuclear accidents rated as the worst on the International Nuclear Event Scale. The other was the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident. Over 500,000 people helped respond to the disaster, and it cost about 18 billion rubles (about US$84.5 billion in 2025). It remains the worst nuclear disaster and the most expensive disaster in history, with an estimated cost of US$700 billion.

The disaster happened during a test to see how the reactor would cool if there was a power outage. The operators continued the test even though reactor power dropped unexpectedly. A design problem caused a sudden increase in power, breaking parts of the reactor and causing coolant to leak. This led to steam explosions and a meltdown, destroying the reactor building. A fire then spread radioactive material across the Soviet Union and Europe. A 10 km exclusion zone was created 36 hours after the accident, moving about 49,000 people out. Later, the zone was expanded to 30 km, moving an additional 68,000 people.

After the explosion, which killed two engineers and seriously injured two others, workers tried to stop the fires and control the reactor. Of the 237 workers hospitalized, 134 had symptoms of acute radiation syndrome (ARS), and 28 of them died within three months. Over the next decade, 14 more workers died from other causes not related to radiation. This is the only time in commercial nuclear power history that radiation-related deaths occurred. By 2005, about 6,000 cases of childhood thyroid cancer were reported among affected people, with 15 deaths linked to the disaster. The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation estimates fewer than 100 deaths resulted from the fallout. A 2006 World Health Organization study predicted 9,000 cancer-related deaths in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia.

The city of Pripyat was abandoned and replaced by Slavutych, a new city built for displaced residents. A structure called the Chernobyl sarcophagus, completed in December 1986, helped reduce the spread of radioactive material and protect workers at undamaged reactors. Between 2016 and 2018, a new safe confinement structure was built around the old sarcophagus to allow for the removal of reactor debris. Cleanup is expected to be completed by 2065.

Accident sequence

In nuclear-reactor operation, most heat is created by nuclear fission, but more than 6% comes from radioactive decay, which continues after the reactor stops. Keeping coolant flowing is important to stop the reactor core from getting too hot or melting. RBMK reactors, like those at Chernobyl, use water as a coolant, moved by electric pumps. Reactor number 4 had 1,661 fuel channels, needing over 45 million liters of coolant every hour for the whole reactor.

If all power is lost, each Chernobyl reactor had three backup diesel generators, but they took 60–75 seconds to start and provide 5.5 MW of power to run one main pump. Special weights on each pump helped move coolant using inertia until the generators started. However, if a total power loss happened at the same time as a coolant pipe broke, the emergency core cooling system (ECCS) would be needed to add water to the core.

It was thought that the spinning motion of the reactor’s steam turbine could create electricity to run the ECCS through feedwater pumps. The turbine would slow down as energy was used, but analysis suggested there might be enough energy to power coolant pumps for 45 seconds. This would not fully solve the problem between a power failure and backup generators starting, but it could help.

The turbine’s energy capability needed to be tested, but earlier tests failed. In 1982, the turbine-generator’s voltage was too low. The system was changed and tested again in 1984, but it still failed. In 1985, the test was done a third time, but equipment problems stopped it. The test was planned for 1986 during a controlled power reduction of reactor number 4, which was part of a planned maintenance break.

A test plan was written, but the writers did not know about the RBMK-1000 reactor’s unusual behavior under the planned conditions. The test was seen as an electrical test, not involving critical systems. According to rules, it did not need approval from the reactor’s chief design authority or nuclear safety regulator. The test required turning off the emergency core cooling system, a system meant to add water to the core during accidents. Approval from the site chief engineer was obtained as required.

The test plan was:
1. Reduce reactor power to between 700 MW and 1,000 MW (to allow cooling while the turbine spun at normal speed without being connected to the power grid).
2. Run the steam-turbine generator at normal speed.
3. Power four of eight main circulating pumps with off-site electricity, and the other four with the turbine.
4. Close the steam supply to the turbine generator, which would normally trigger an automatic reactor shutdown.
5. Measure the voltage and speed of the four pumps powered by the turbine.
6. Let the turbine continue spinning freely once backup generators provided full power.

The test was planned for 25 April 1986 during a scheduled reactor shutdown. Workers were trained about the conditions, and electrical engineers were present. Power output began to decrease at 01:06 on 25 April, reaching 50% of its normal 3,200 MW thermal level by the start of the day shift.

The test was scheduled for 14:15. Preparations included turning off the emergency core cooling system. Meanwhile, another power station went offline, and the Kiev grid controller asked Chernobyl to delay reducing power to meet evening demand. The day shift was replaced by the evening shift, but the emergency system stayed off. Workers had to manually turn large valves to keep the system disconnected.

At 23:04, the grid controller allowed the reactor shutdown to continue. The day and evening shifts had left, and the night shift would take over at midnight. The test was supposed to finish during the day shift, leaving the night shift to manage decay heat cooling in a shutdown reactor.

The night shift had little time to prepare. Anatoly Dyatlov, deputy chief-engineer, was present to oversee the test. He was the test’s main author and the highest-ranking person there. Aleksandr Akimov, the unit shift supervisor, and Leonid Toptunov, the senior reactor control engineer, were also involved. Toptunov, 25 years old, had worked as a senior engineer for about three months.

The test plan called for reducing reactor power to 700–1,000 MW. By 00:05 on 26 April, output reached 720 MW. However, the reactor produced xenon-135, a neutron-absorbing substance, which slowed power production. Normally, xenon-135 is converted to stable xenon-136, but reduced power caused more iodine-135 to decay into xenon-135 faster than it could be neutralized. This made reactor control harder but was predictable during power reductions.

When power dropped to about 500 MW, control was switched to automatic regulators. AR-1 removed all four of its control rods, but AR-2 failed due to a sensor imbalance. Toptunov reduced power to stabilize the sensors, causing a sudden drop to near-shutdown levels with less than 30 MW thermal output. The exact cause of the drop is unclear, though most reports blame Toptunov’s actions, while Dyatlov said it was due to a fault.

Crisis management

The nearby city of Pripyat was not immediately evacuated, and the townspeople were not warned during the night about the accident. Within a few hours, many people became sick. Later, they reported severe headaches, a metallic taste in their mouths, and uncontrollable coughing and vomiting. Since the plant was managed by officials in Moscow, the Ukrainian government did not receive quick information about the accident.

Valentyna Shevchenko, then Chairwoman of the Presidium of Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian SSR, said that Ukraine's acting Minister of Internal Affairs, Vasyl Durdynets, called her at work at 09:00 to report current affairs. Only at the end of the conversation did he mention that there had been a fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, adding that it was extinguished and everything was fine. When Shevchenko asked, "How are the people?" he replied that there was nothing to be concerned about: "Some are celebrating a wedding, others are gardening, and others are fishing in the Pripyat River."

Shevchenko then spoke by telephone to Volodymyr Shcherbytsky, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine and de facto head of state, who said he expected a delegation from the state commission led by Boris Shcherbina, the deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR.

A commission was formed later that day to investigate the accident. It was led by Valery Legasov, First Deputy Director of the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy, and included leading nuclear specialist Evgeny Velikhov, hydro-meteorologist Yuri Izrael, radiologist Leonid Ilyin, and others. They flew to Boryspil International Airport and arrived at the power plant in the evening of 26 April. By that time, two people had already died and 52 were hospitalized. The delegation soon had clear evidence that the reactor was destroyed and that extremely high radiation levels had caused several cases of radiation exposure. In the early daylight hours of 27 April, they ordered the evacuation of Pripyat.

A translated excerpt of the evacuation announcement follows:

To speed up the evacuation, residents were told to bring only what was necessary and that they would remain evacuated for about three days. As a result, most personal belongings were left behind, and residents were only allowed to recover certain items after months had passed. By 15:00, 53,000 people were evacuated to the Kiev region. The next day, talks began about evacuating people from the 10 km zone. Ten days after the accident, the evacuation area was expanded to 30 km. The Chernobyl exclusion zone has remained ever since, although its shape has changed and its size has expanded.

The surveying and detection of isolated fallout hotspots outside this zone over the following year eventually resulted in 135,000 long-term evacuees in total. The years between 1986 and 2000 saw the near tripling in the total number of permanently resettled persons from the most severely contaminated areas to approximately 350,000. A new city of Slavutych has been built across the Dnieper marshes to house Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant employees instead of Pripyat, with a direct rail connection to the Chernobyl NPP.

Evacuation began one and a half days before the accident was publicly acknowledged by the Soviet Union. On the morning of 28 April, radiation levels set off alarms at the Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant in Sweden, over 1,000 km from the Chernobyl Plant. Workers at Forsmark reported the case to the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority, which determined that the radiation had originated elsewhere. That day, the Swedish government contacted the Soviet government to inquire about whether there had been a nuclear accident in the Soviet Union. The Soviet authorities initially denied it. It was only after the Swedish government suggested they were about to file an official alert with the International Atomic Energy Agency that the Soviet government admitted that an accident had taken place at Chernobyl.

At first, the authorities conceded only that a minor accident had occurred, but once they began evacuating more than 100,000 people, the scale of the situation became widely known. At 21:02 the evening of 28 April, a 20-second announcement was read in the TV news programme Vremya: "There has been an accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. One of the nuclear reactors was damaged. The effects of the accident are being remedied. Assistance has been provided for any affected people. An investigative commission has been set up."

This was the first time the Soviet Union had officially announced a nuclear accident. The Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) then discussed the Three Mile Island accident and other American nuclear accidents, which Serge Schmemann of The New York Times wrote was an example of the common Soviet tactic of whataboutism. The mention of a commission also indicated to observers the seriousness of the incident, and subsequent state radio broadcasts were replaced with classical music, a common method of preparing the public for an announcement of a tragedy in the USSR.

Around the same time, ABC News released its report about the disaster. Shevchenko was the first of the Ukrainian state top officials to arrive at the disaster site early on 28 April. She returned home near midnight, stopping at a radiological checkpoint in Vilcha, one of the first that were set up soon after the accident.

There was a notification from Moscow that there was no reason to postpone the 1 May International Workers' Day celebrations in Kiev. On 30 April, a meeting of the Political bureau of the Central Committee of the CPSU took place to discuss the plan for the celebration. Scientists were reporting that the radiological background level in Kiev was normal. It was decided to shorten celebrations from the regular three and a half to four hours to under two hours.

Several buildings in Pripyat were kept open to be used by workers still involved with the plant. These included the Jupiter factory and the Azure Swimming Pool, used by the Chernobyl liquidators for recreation during the clean-up.

Two floors of bubbler pools beneath the reactor served as a large water reservoir for the emergency cooling pumps and as a pressure suppression system capable of condensing steam in case of a small broken steam pipe; the third floor above them, below the reactor, served as a steam tunnel. The steam released by a broken pipe was supposed to enter the steam tunnel and be led into the pools to bubble through a layer of water.

The smoldering steel, fuel, serpentinite, and other material, at more than 1,200°C (2,190°F

Site remediation

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First, I should simplify complex sentences. For example, "Questions arose about the future of the plant and its fate." can be "People asked questions about what would happen to the plant and its future." I need to avoid words like "halted" and use "stopped" instead.

Next, check for technical terms. Words like "sarcophagus" might be okay, but I should ensure the context is clear. Also, terms like "interim spent fuel storage facility pond" can be simplified to "a temporary storage pond for used fuel."

I need to maintain a formal and educational tone without adding opinions. Make sure all factual content is present. For instance, the dates and numbers must remain accurate. Also, ensure that the structure of the information flows logically, keeping paragraphs focused on one topic each.

Check for any jargon or complex vocabulary. Replace "decommissioned" with "shut down permanently" if necessary. Ensure that terms like "corium" are explained as "lava-like materials" if needed, but the original text doesn't explain it, so I shouldn't add that.

Verify that all events are in chronological order and that the cause and effect are clear. For example, when explaining the collapse of the turbine building, mention the cause as "sloppy repair work and aging" as stated.

Ensure that the sections about ISF-1 and ISF-2 are clear, using simpler terms like "storage facility" instead of "interim spent fuel storage facility." Also, clarify the purpose of each facility without adding extra information.

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People asked questions about what would happen to the plant and its future. All work on the unfinished reactors 5 and 6 stopped three years later. The damaged reactor was sealed, and 200 cubic meters of concrete was placed between the disaster site and the working buildings. The Ukrainian government allowed the three remaining reactors to keep operating because the country needed more energy.

In October 1991, a fire happened in the turbine building of reactor 2. Officials said the reactor was too damaged to fix and shut it down. Reactor 1 was shut down permanently in November 1996 as part of an agreement between the Ukrainian government and groups like the IAEA to stop using the plant. On 15 December 2000, President Leonid Kuchma officially turned off reactor 3, closing the entire site.

The concrete structure built after the accident, called the sarcophagus, was not meant to last long. It was expected to stay strong for only 30 years. In February 2013, part of the roof of the turbine building collapsed near the sarcophagus, causing more radiation to escape. At first, people thought the collapse was caused by heavy snow, but a report said the real reason was poor repairs and the structure getting old. Experts warned the sarcophagus itself was close to falling apart.

In 1997, the international Chernobyl Shelter Fund was created to build a stronger cover for the unstable sarcophagus. In 2011, it received €864 million from countries around the world and was managed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The new cover, called the New Safe Confinement (NSC), was built starting in 2010. It was a large metal arch 105 meters high and 257 meters long, placed on rails next to reactor 4 so it could slide over the sarcophagus. The shelter was finished in 2016 and moved into place on 29 November.

In February 2025, a Russian drone hit the shelter, causing a fire and damaging the outer and inner layers of the NSC. In December 2025, the IAEA said the drone strike made the structure unable to do its main job of keeping radiation safe. The IAEA director said the structure’s main safety functions were lost, but its strong parts and monitoring systems were not permanently damaged.

Used fuel from reactors 1–3 was stored in cooling ponds at the reactors and in a temporary storage pond called ISF-1. This allowed the reactors to be shut down permanently under less strict rules. About 50 fuel pieces from reactors 1 and 2 were broken and needed special handling. Moving fuel to ISF-1 happened in three steps: first, fuel from reactor 3, then undamaged fuel from reactors 1 and 2, and finally the broken fuel. All fuel transfers to ISF-1 were finished in June 2016.

A need was recognized for better long-term storage of radioactive waste, so a new facility called ISF-2 was built. It stores used fuel from reactors 1–3, waste from operations, and materials from shutting down the reactors. In 1999, a contract was signed with Areva NP (now Framatome) to build ISF-2. In 2003, problems with the design were found, and Areva left the project. Holtec International was hired to build a new version of ISF-2. The new design was approved in 2010, construction started in 2011, and the project was completed in August 2017.

ISF-2 is the largest nuclear fuel storage facility in the world. It is expected to hold over 21,000 fuel pieces for at least 100 years. The project includes a processing area that cuts fuel pieces and places them in canisters filled with inert gas and sealed. These canisters are then stored in dry vaults for up to 100 years. The facility can process 2,500 fuel pieces each year.

Radioactive material includes pieces of the reactor core, dust, and lava-like materials called "fuel-containing materials" (FCM), also called "corium." Three types of lava are found in the basement of the reactor building: black, brown, and a porous ceramic. The lava is made of silicate glass with other materials inside. The porous lava is brown and formed when lava fell into water, cooling quickly. It is unclear how long the ceramic form will stop radiation from escaping. Between 1997 and 2002, studies suggested the lava might turn into a fine powder within weeks due to self-irradiation.

A later study said the lava is likely to break down slowly. It also noted that uranium from the wrecked reactor is only lost at a rate of 10 kg per year, showing the lava is resisting its environment. The study said improving the shelter would reduce the rate of radiation release. By 2021, some fuel had already broken down a lot. A piece of fuel called the "elephant’s foot," once so hard it required a special bullet to break, had softened to a texture like sand.

Before the New Safe Confinement was built, rainwater acted as a neutron moderator, increasing fission in the remaining materials and risking a dangerous reaction. Gadolinium nitrate was used to stop neutrons and reduce fission. Even after the shelter was built, fission reactions may have increased. From 2017 to late 2020, neutron activity doubled in the area below the reactor, then leveled off in early 2021. This showed more fission was happening as water levels dropped, which was unexpected. Scientists worry this could create a self-sustaining reaction, spreading more radiation and making cleanup harder. Possible solutions include using a robot to drill into the fuel and insert boron carbide control rods. A press release in early 2021 said neutron activity had stopped increasing since the start of that year.

The Exclusion Zone was first a 30 km radius around the plant but was later expanded to cover about 2,600 square kilometers, called the "zone of alienation." The area has become a forest with many animals because humans are not living there.

Media reports have given rough guesses about when the area might be safe to live in again. These estimates range from 300 years to many thousands of years, based on the time it takes for radioactive materials like Plutonium-239 to lose half their strength.

After the disaster, some residents, called samosely, returned to their old homes illegally. Most are retired and live by farming.

Long-term effects

It is hard to compare the Chernobyl accident with a nuclear bomb dropped from the air, but it is estimated that Chernobyl released about 400 times more radioactive material than the combined atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. However, the Chernobyl disaster released only about one-hundredth to one-thousandth of the total radioactivity from nuclear weapons testing during the Cold War, because the types of radioactive materials were different.

About 100,000 square kilometers of land were heavily contaminated, with the worst damage in Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia. Lower levels of contamination were found across Europe, except in the Iberian Peninsula. On April 28, workers at the Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant, 1,100 kilometers from Chernobyl, were found with radioactive particles on their clothing. Sweden’s high radioactivity levels, detected on April 28, were traced to the western Soviet Union. In Finland, the Finnish Meteorological Institute’s instruments in Nurmijärvi found rising radiation levels on April 27, but a civil service strike delayed the response and publication.

Radioactive contamination spread unevenly, depending on weather conditions. Much of it settled in mountainous areas like the Alps, the Welsh mountains, and the Scottish Highlands, where cooling air caused radioactive rain. Contaminated areas were often small and spread out, with water flow causing large differences in radiation levels over short distances. Sweden and Norway received heavy fallout when contaminated air met a cold front and brought rain. Groundwater was also contaminated.

To reduce radioactive particles in the air, the Soviet Air Force seeded rain over 10,000 square kilometers of Belarus, directing it away from populated areas. Heavy black rain fell on the city of Gomel. Scientists from the Soviet Union and Western countries reported that Belarus received about 60% of the contamination in the former Soviet Union. However, a 2006 report stated that up to half of the radioactive particles fell outside the current areas of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. A large area in southern Russia near Bryansk and parts of northwestern Ukraine were also contaminated. Studies showed more than one million people may have been affected by radiation. By 2016, long-term monitoring found a decrease in radiation exposure for people near Gomel in Belarus.

In Western Europe, precautions included banning certain foods. A 2006 study found contamination was "relatively limited," decreasing from west to east. A person eating 40 kilograms of contaminated wild boar in 1997 would receive about one millisievert of radiation.

The Chernobyl disaster involved radioactive materials from the reactor core. Dangerous materials included fission products like iodine, caesium, and strontium, which can build up in the food chain. Iodine-131 and caesium-137 were the main sources of radiation for the general public.

Different radioactive materials caused most of the radiation exposure at different times after the accident. After 7 half-lives, the amount of any radioactive material is less than 1% of its original amount, and it continues to decrease. Some radioactive materials produce other radioactive substances, but this is not included here. The release of radioactive materials from the reactor was influenced by their boiling points, and most of the radioactivity stayed inside the reactor.

• All noble gases, like krypton and xenon, were released into the air after the first steam explosion. Xenon-133, with a half-life of 5 days, was released in an amount estimated at 5,200 petabecquerels.
• About 50 to 60% of the reactor’s radioiodine, or about 1,760 petabecquerels (400 grams), was released as vapor, solid particles, and organic compounds. Iodine-131 has a half-life of 8 days.
• About 20 to 40% of the reactor’s caesium-137, or 85 petabecquerels, was released in aerosol form. Caesium-137 and strontium are the main reasons the Chernobyl exclusion zone remains uninhabited. Caesium-137 has a half-life of 30 years.
• Tellurium-132, with a half-life of 78 hours, was released in an estimated 1,150 petabecquerels.
• Early estimates said 3% of nuclear fuel was released, later revised to 3.5%. This equals 6 tonnes of fragmented fuel released into the air.

The Chernobyl nuclear power plant is near the Pripyat River, which flows into the Dnieper reservoir system, a major water source for Kiev’s 2.4 million residents. The river was still in spring flood when the accident happened, making radioactive contamination of water a major issue.

In Ukraine’s most affected areas, drinking water had high radiation levels for weeks and months after the accident. Guidelines for radioiodine in drinking water were temporarily raised to 3,700 becquerels per liter, allowing most water to be declared safe. Officials said contaminants settled in an insoluble form and would not dissolve for 800–1,000 years. A year later, the Chernobyl plant’s cooling pond water was within safe limits. However, two months after the disaster, Kiev switched its water supply from the Dnieper to the Desna River. Large silt traps and a 30-meter-deep underground barrier were built to stop groundwater from the destroyed reactor from entering the Pripyat River.

Groundwater was not heavily affected because short-lived radioactive materials decayed quickly, and longer-lived materials like caesium and strontium stuck to soil before reaching groundwater. However, some radionuclides from waste sites in the 30-kilometer exclusion zone did transfer to groundwater. The IAEA Chernobyl Report says this is not as significant as surface contamination.

Radioactive materials in fish reached levels far above safety limits. In the European Union, fish should have no more than 1,000 becquerels of radiocaesium per kilogram. In Ukraine’s Kiev Reservoir, fish had up to 3,000 becquerels per kilogram early after the accident. In small lakes in Belarus and Russia’s Bryansk region, fish had levels from 100 to 60,000 becquerels per kilogram between 1990 and 1992. This caused short-term concern in the UK and Germany and long-term issues in Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and Scandinavia.

After the disaster, 4 square kilometers of pine forest were destroyed.

Significance

Because many people did not trust the Soviet government, which hid information about the disaster, there was much discussion about the event in the First World during the early days. Journalists did not trust experts, and this led them to encourage the public to doubt them as well.

The accident increased worries about nuclear reactors worldwide. Most attention focused on reactors with the same unusual design, but many other nuclear reactor plans, including those being built at Chernobyl (reactors 5 and 6), were eventually stopped. High costs from new safety rules and the difficulty of dealing with public fear and anger caused a sharp drop in the number of new reactors built after 1986.

The disaster also showed that the Soviet nuclear industry had a poor safety record, which slowed its growth. It also forced the Soviet government to share more information about its operations. The government’s secret handling of the Chernobyl disaster helped start a movement called glasnost, which supported reforms that eventually led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Problems with the reactor’s structure and design had been known to the KGB since at least 1973, but the information was given to the Central Committee, which did nothing and kept it secret.

In Italy, the disaster influenced the outcome of the 1987 nuclear power referendum. As a result, Italy began closing its nuclear power plants in 1988. This decision was changed in 2008, but a 2011 referendum again opposed nuclear power, canceling the 2008 change.

In Germany, the disaster led to the creation of a federal environment ministry. The environment minister was also given responsibility for reactor safety, a role still held today. The disaster strengthened the anti-nuclear movement in Germany, which led the Schröder government (1998–2005) to decide to stop using nuclear power. A temporary change to this policy ended with the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

In response to the disaster, the International Atomic Energy Agency organized a conference in 1986 to create the Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident. This agreement requires member countries to inform others about nuclear accidents that might affect other nations. A second agreement, the Convention on Assistance in the Case of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency, was also created.

Chernobyl has been studied to understand why such disasters happen, including issues like lack of sleep and poor management.

The State Archives of Ukraine hold about 1,000 declassified documents related to the power station, the disaster, and its effects up to the early 2000s. These documents were added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World International Register in 2017, recognizing them as important global historical records.

The Chernobyl disaster has inspired many artists to create works about the event, including the HBO series Chernobyl and the book Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich. The Ukrainian artist Roman Gumanyuk made a series of 30 oil paintings called Pripyat Lights, or Chernobyl Shadows, displayed from 2012 to 2013.

The video game S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadows of Chernobyl, released in 2007, is set in the Exclusion Zone. A prequel, Clear Sky (2008), and a sequel, Call of Pripyat (2010), followed. The horror film Chernobyl Diaries (2012) tells the story of tourists who visit the abandoned city of Pripyat and find they are not alone.

Filmmakers have made documentaries about the disaster’s effects. The Oscar-winning film Chernobyl Heart (2003) shows how radiation affected people in the area and the long-term health effects. Babushkas of Chernobyl (2015) follows three elderly women who returned to the Exclusion Zone after the disaster. The Battle of Chernobyl (2006) includes rare footage from before the disaster and explains how it happened. The 2019 series Chernobyl focuses on the disaster and the cleanup efforts that followed.