page_title: Kyshtym disaster
hierarchical_section_title: Kyshtym disaster
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of the East Urals Radioactive Trace
context_page_description: The Kyshtym disaster was a radioactive contamination accident that occurred on 29 September 1957 at Mayak, a plutonium production site in Russia for nuclear weapons and nuclear fuel reprocessing plant of the Soviet Union.
  The event occurred in Ozyorsk, Chelyabinsk Oblast, a closed city built around the Mayak plant. It measured as a Level 6 disaster on the International Nuclear Event Scale, making it the third-most serious nuclear accident ever recorded, behind the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster and the Chernobyl disaster. At least 22 villages were exposed to radiation from the disaster, with a total population of around 10,000 people evacuated. Some were evacuated after a week, but it took almost 2 years for evacuations to occur at other sites.
  The disaster spread hot particles over more than 52,000 square kilometres, where at least 270,000 people lived. Since Ozyorsk/Mayak was not marked on maps, the disaster was named after Kyshtym, the nearest known town.
context_section_description: The Kyshtym disaster was a radioactive contamination accident that occurred on 29 September 1957 at Mayak, a plutonium production site in Russia for nuclear weapons and nuclear fuel reprocessing plant of the Soviet Union.
  The event occurred in Ozyorsk, Chelyabinsk Oblast, a closed city built around the Mayak plant. It measured as a Level 6 disaster on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES), making it the third-most serious nuclear accident ever recorded, behind the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster and the Chernobyl disaster (both Level 7 on the INES). At least 22 villages were exposed to radiation from the disaster, with a total population of around 10,000 people evacuated. Some were evacuated after a week, but it took almost 2 years for evacuations to occur at other sites.
  The disaster spread hot particles over more than 52,000 square kilometres (20,000 sq mi), where at least 270,000 people lived. Since Ozyorsk/Mayak (named Chelyabinsk-40, then Chelyabinsk-65, until 1994) was not marked on maps, the disaster was named after Kyshtym, the nearest known town.
caption: Map of the East Urals Radioactive Trace (EURT): area contaminated by the Kyshtym disaster.
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