Chernobyl. The people near the disaster were exposed to radioactivity 100 times greater than the Hiroshima bomb. The people of the world and Northern Europe were greeted with clouds of radioactive material being blown northward through the sky from Chernobyl.

The Definition
The city is named after the Ukrainian word for mugwort which is chornobyl. The word is a combination of chornyi (black) and byllia (grass blades or stalks) hence it literally means black grass or black stalks.

Sometimes chornobyl is erroneously translated as simply Wormwood, with consequent apocalyptic associations, probably originating from a New York Times article by Serge Schmemann, Chernobyl Fallout: Apocalyptic Tale, July 25, 1986. The article quoted an unnamed "prominent Russian writer" as claiming the Ukrainian word for wormwood was chernobyl.

The Bible
The word scares the holy people in the area, maybe part of the reason for that among religious people is because the Bible mentions Wormwood in the book of the Revelations, which fortells the end of the world.

REV 8:10 And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters.

REV 8:11 And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood, and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.

The Disaster
On Saturday April 26, 1986 a nuclear disaster happened, at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union). Its known as the worst accident in the history of nuclear power, radioactive debris drifted over parts of the western Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, UK and as far as eastern USA.

The worst areas contaminated where the Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. About 60% of the radioactive fallout landed in Belarus.