The nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl in 1986 was one of the worst technological disasters in history. Reactor number four at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine exploded and caught fire during a safety test, releasing massive amounts of radiation into the atmosphere. The accident exposed hundreds of thousands of people to high doses of radiation and forced the evacuation and long-term resettlement of over 300,000 people from an area known as the Exclusion Zone which remains largely uninhabited today.