Effects of the Chernobyl disaster

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The 1986 Chernobyl disaster triggered the release of radioactive contamination into the atmosphere in the form of both particulate and gaseous radioisotopes. As of 2024^[update], it was the world's largest known release of radioactivity into the environment.^[1]

The work of the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE), suggests that the Chernobyl incident cannot be directly compared to atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons by simply saying that it's better or worse. This is partly because the isotopes released at Chernobyl tended to be longer-lived than those released by the detonation of atomic bombs.^[2]

The economic damage caused by the disaster is estimated at $235 billion.^[3]