Issued on: 26/04/2026 - 14:04

Ukraine marked the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster on Sunday. FRANCE 24 spoke with Michael Bluck, Director of the Centre for Nuclear Engineering at Imperial College London, to look back at the tragic event that marked history. Pointing to various factors that caused the explosion at Chernobyl, Bluck said that the Soviet Union's culting of top-down rule was also at blame.

Keywords for this article

Italy's biggest-ever wine heist

French student protests: Police impunity ‘below' the standards of a 'well-functioning democracy’

Spain mourns Maricarmen Abascal, whose eviction sparked housing protests

Maricarmen, the 87-year-old woman whose eviction shook Spain, dies

Evicted pensioner who sparked Spain housing protests dies: tenant union

Police make seventh arrest over UK airbase incident

German ex-spy chief arrested for suspected espionage, treason

Sanchez chose 'best moment in a sea of troubles' to call for snap election, analyst says

ISIS suspects face 'outsourced' justice in Iraq as HRW warns of 'collective global detention crisis'

Spain: 'Mini-hurricane' kills at least two people in Catalonia

The content you requested does not exist or is not available anymore.