Pope Leo XIV has marked the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster by urging the responsible use of atomic energy, describing the 1986 accident as an enduring warning about the risks of powerful technologies. Speaking after the Regina Caeli on April 26, 2026, the Pope remembered the victims and called for discernment at every level of decision-making so that nuclear power serves “life and peace”.
The explosion at reactor four of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, occurred in the early hours of April 26, 1986, during a failed safety test. It remains the world’s worst civilian nuclear accident, rated level 7 – the highest severity – on the International Atomic Energy Agency’s International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale, alongside the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan.
