Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"Eventually a large zone around Chernobyl was quarantined in a sarcophagus erected over the reactor, which would temporarily contain the contamination. Not surprisingly, the tardy response, the inadequate decontamination, and the long-term health problems did much to discredit the Soviet leadership, especially in Ukraine and Belarus." [Furtado: 1001 Days] "An explosion and fire released large quantities of radioactive particles into the atmosphere, which spread over much of the western USSR and Europe. The Chernobyl disaster was the worst nuclear power plant accident in history in terms of cost and casualties. It is one of only two classified as a level 7 event (the maximum classification) on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the other being the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan in 2011. The struggle to contain the contamination and avert a greater catastrophe ultimately involved over 500,000 workers and cost an estimated 18 billion rubles. During the accident itself, 31 people died, and long-term effects such as cancers are still being investigated." [Wikipedia]