An exchange of cultural assets between the GDR and the West Berlin Senate.
17-21 April
1986
The 10th SED Party Conference is dominated by SED hardliners who continue to refuse to support Gorbachev’s reforms.more
26 April
1986
Chernobyl 1986: the damaged atomic reactor (Photo: AKG_9RD-1986-9-27-A1)
A catastrophic core meltdown and explosion occur in Block 4 of the Ukrainian Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The explosions release large quantities of radiation, which is carried hundreds of kilometres in a radioactive cloud.
Later, it is announced that the amount of radioactivity is 40 to 50 times as high as that released during the atom bomb explosion in Hiroshima in 1945. Higher levels of radioactivity are detected in large parts of Europe.
RIAS report on the reactor accident in Chernobyl, 29 April 1986 (in German) (Source: Archiv Deutschlandradio, Broadcast: Die Spätausgabe, Reporter: Konstantin Klein, Johannes Grotzki)
