A Swedish alarm exposes the secret

1986 · Event

A worker at Sweden's Forsmark plant sets off a contamination alarm — with the radiation coming from his shoes, and from outside. Within hours the fallout is traced back across the Baltic, and a state that has said nothing for two days is forced into a 14-second evening-news admission. The wind has broken the Soviet information monopoly.

On these timelines: Chernobyl, Eastern Europe & the Balkans, Russia & the USSR, Scandinavia, the Nordic World & the Viking Age, Cold War

More from Chernobyl

Around 1986

Wikipedia ↗

Explore the full Ever-When timeline →