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Chernobyl: 40 years after the explosion.

CNN Original Series Disaster: The Chernobyl Meltdown

Chernobyl didn’t end in 1986. Forty years after the world’s worst nuclear disaster, the damaged reactor still requires constant monitoring, and the war in Ukraine has underscored how vulnerable nuclear sites can be in a conflict zone. CNN’s new Original Series Disaster: The Chernobyl Meltdown uncovers the full story, from the explosion and the KGB cover-up to the long-term health, environmental and political fallout that still reverberates today. In the Q&A below, CNN Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Matthew Chance explains why Chernobyl remains an unfinished story, what’s still disputed about its human toll, and why one lesson now feels especially urgent.

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CNN Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Matthew Chance

Chernobyl is often framed as a closed chapter in history. Based on what you’ve seen and reported, why is it still an unfinished story?

If only it were a closed chapter! But the constant need to manage and monitor Chernobyl means the aftermath of the disaster that took place there 40 years ago is still very much with us. The nuclear material inside the damaged reactor will continue to pose a risk, as will the radioactive sediment scattered through what is now the Exclusion Zone around Chernobyl. Not only will this be an engineering challenge for generations to come, but also a political one to make sure the mistakes of the old Soviet Union, which mishandled the disaster back in 1986, are never repeated.

When Russian forces moved through the exclusion zone, fears of another catastrophe resurfaced. From your reporting, how close did that moment feel, and what did it expose about how fragile nuclear “containment” really is during wartime?

I remember that moment very well, how the shock of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine suddenly felt even more alarming with the added risk of radioactive material being disturbed. I had visited Chernobyl several times in previous years and was well aware of how careful you had to be in the exclusion zone to make sure you didn’t kick up any radioactive dust. The idea that Russian tanks were ploughing through the Red Forest while troops dug trenches, was terrifying. As for the vast concrete sarcophagus that was built around Reactor No. 4: it is a formidable structure but not designed to survive a war.

40 years later, what long-term global ripple effects of the disaster do you think are least understood or most overlooked?

A few things always struck me as odd and underreported about Chernobyl, which has become a byword for nuclear disaster. One of them is that the number of people who died, and who will die, as a result of contamination is still hotly disputed. Thyroid cancer in children spiked, for example, but the vast majority of those affected thankfully survived. Meanwhile, significant rises in other cancers like leukemia have been harder to prove.

Another often overlooked aspect of Chernobyl has been the way in which indigenous wildlife has flourished in the exclusion zone since it was evacuated by humans, essentially creating Europe’s biggest wilderness.

What lessons from tragedies like Chernobyl feel most urgent today?

Don’t fight wars near nuclear reactors.

CNN Original Series Disaster: The Chernobyl Meltdown is now streaming on the CNN app.

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