Moscow Government Commission Dispatched

Soviet Deputy Prime Minister Boris Shcherbina is assigned to lead a government commission to the accident site. Nuclear physicists including Valery Legasov (IAEA Scientific Council Member and Deputy Director of the Kurchatov Institute) join the delegation. The commission arrives at Chernobyl late on April 26. Legasov will later write that the scale of the disaster was apparent immediately — the graphite blocks on the ground, the blue glow of the ionized air.