Consequences of the accident at the Mayak chemical plant in the Kurgan region

Russia. Kurgan Region. Children picking berries and mushrooms near the Techa River in the contaminated zone. On September 29, 1957, at the Mayak chemical plant in the closed city of Chelyabinsk-40, a failure of the cooling system caused an explosion of a container with dried highly radioactive waste, releasing radioactive substances into the atmosphere. Valery Bushukhin/TASS