Thirty years before the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl exploded, in what became one of the most devastating nuclear accidents in history, there was another major mishap at yet another Soviet nuclear power plant. It was hushed up by officials for more than three decades.

We grew up calling it Chelyabinsk, probably because the lab that ran the place was Chelyabinsk-70. The name likely changed once there was something with more video. Not mentioned in the article (which is mostly a rip from three different Wikipedia articles) is the fact that the facility wasn't shut down for any of this and has, in fact, been in continuous operation since 1948. It's still making the news.

You may think that nuclear power is dangerous. You may not. Either way, a Stalinist crash-course breeder reactor designed to take advantage of the Rosenberg data before the Imperialists destroy the Motherland is pretty much peak Safety Hazard.

posted 1780 days ago