The Chernobyl nuclear disaster occurred on April 26, 1986 in modern-day Ukraine, then a part of the Soviet Union. The core meltdown in RBMK Reactor No. 4 released an enormous amount of radiation and toxic fumes in the atmosphere.

A massive explosion caused the instant deaths of two engineers in RBMK and 20 more in the matter of a few weeks due to high exposure to radiation. Under the leadership of Valery Legasov, firefighters were able to stop the fire by pouring sand and boron from helicopters.

115,000 Chernobyl civilians were ordered to flee from the region, leaving their history and houses behind. Regions of Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia were contaminated, impacting the next generation of children with radiation-based anomalies.