At first , the Soviets only conceded that a minor accident had occurred , but once they began evacuating over 100,000 people , the full scale of the situation was realized by the global community . At 21:02 the evening of 28 April , a 20-second announcement was read in the TV news programme '' Vremya '' : " There has been an accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant . One of the nuclear reactors was damaged . The effects of the accident are being remedied . Assistance has been provided for any affected people . An investigative commission has been set up . " This was the entirety of the announcement of the accident . The Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union ( TASS ) then discussed the Three Mile Island accident and other American nuclear accidents , an example of the common Soviet tactic of whataboutism when one occurred in the Soviet Union . The mention of a commission , however , indicated to observers the seriousness of the incident , and subsequent state radio broadcasts were replaced with classical music , which was a common method of preparing the public for an announcement of a tragedy
Three Mile Island accident
Three Mile Island accident
Chernobyl disaster