The Day That Changed Everything
It was on April 26, 1986 when during a routine test, a control room operator named Leonid Toptunov made a horrible mistake. He switched from manual to automatic control of the control rods, which then caused a shutdown. Then as the plant became unstable, Toptunov told senior engineer Alexander Akimov to press the emergency shutdown button, causing the reactor to explode just 18 seconds after.
