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**Key Details:**
- The explosion occurred on **April 26, 1986**, but the Soviet government didn't acknowledge it until **April 28** - only after Swedish monitors detected radiation
- Officials gave residents of nearby Pripyat just **50 minutes notice** before evacuation, claiming it was "temporary"
- Soviet media initially reported the accident as "minor" with "no immediate danger"
- **Mikhail Gorbachev later said** that Chernobyl was more important in the fall of the Soviet Union than his own reforms