There’s a famous episode of The Simpsons in which Bart gets a job as Krusty’s assistant on his TV show and proceeds to destroy the entire set. His immediate response is “I didn’t do it.” Everyone laughs, and it becomes a bit. It’s also a solid example of how not just people often react to major disasters. Deny it happened, and if possible, make sure no one ever knows it happened. These are ten of the biggest disasters that people tried to sweep under the rug.
10. Chernobyl
Arguably, no disaster in the last century has been as notable as the one at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. It became something of a poster child for all of our nuclear fears and a terrifying example of what can go wrong with this incredible power. And it’s possible we might have never heard about it if things had gone differently.
Chernobyl was located in the USSR and in what is today part of Ukraine. But it was not the Soviet government that let the cat out of the bag when the disaster occurred. It was Sweden. Radiation was detected 1000 km away at a Swedish nuclear plant and that was how word of the disaster got out. This was two days after the disaster occurred.
The Soviet government wasn’t just flying by the seat of their pants with Chernobyl, either. In 2021, on the 35th anniversary of the disaster, the Ukrainian government released documents showing that disasters on a smaller scale had already happened at the plant that had previously been covered up.
So how bad was the coverup? When Mikhail Gorbachev, leader of the Soviet Union, was informed they were already lying. He was told there was a fire, but the reactor was fine. He didn’t even bother calling anyone else when he was informed because of the late hour, assuming there was no big deal. It would take 18 hours after the event occurred for anyone to even declare that the reactor had suffered a meltdown.
The people of the nearby town of Prypiat were not evacuated for far too long. Workers were not allowed to discuss what they were seeing or doing. The entire situation was bungled from the top down.
9. The Kyshtym Disaster
Staying in the Soviet Union, the Kyshtym Disaster was another event that the government tried to keep under wraps, only this one was much more successfully hidden than Chernobyl. The outside world wouldn’t learn of this one for decades.
In 1957, some Soviet citizens had the option of living in a secured, closed, nuclear town. People needed to qualify for these towns but, like any gated community, they had perks. Better wages, better healthcare, and better food and education for families. They were also built over nuclear sites. Cheliabinsk-40 was built on top of a dump for plutonium waste.
When the subterranean storage facility exploded, it launched a 160-ton cement lid into the air. Then it vented a massive cloud of radioactive gas that would go on to contaminate 9,000 square miles.
Nearby villages and farms had to be liquidated. Crops were buried and people were relocated. People within the secure community tried to leave but many returned when they realized life outside, with less money and less food, was much harder.
Upwards of 10,000 people were evacuated and hundreds died. Residents have tried for years to sue the Russian government for damages and health problems that were caused, but with no success. The entire event didn’t become public knowledge until 1979, when a book was published. It was called the Kyshtym Disaster because the nearby village of Kyshtym was the only place that existed on Soviet maps. The entire town of Cheliabinsk-40 was covered up until 1989.
8. The Xichang Rocket Disaster
In 1996, an American company called Space Systems/Loral was working in Xichang,China. They were planning to launch a communications satellite, but on February 15, things went disastrously wrong. The rocket, meant to get the satellite to space, the largest launch vehicle ever constructed in China, failed shortly after launch, crashing into the nearby village.
On the day of the launch, the state news agency only reported that the launch had failed, not that the rocket had crashed and exploded. Two weeks later, a more thorough report identified a cause and said 49 of 57 wounded were already out of the hospital and that six people had died. Six remained the official number of casualties.
Because the endeavor involved an international crew of workers, the news was not entirely restricted to what Chinese sources provided. An Israeli engineer is said to have smuggled out footage of the nearby town in which numerous houses and even a hotel have been utterly destroyed.
Americans who had been on site for the launch investigated the destruction the next day. Much of the town was destroyed, and there were numerous trucks and ambulances. No bodies were seen, but what looked like covered bodies were being trucked away.
It’s purely speculation that more people died, of course. But the Americans were in the village the day of the launch and it was full of people. The government said they evacuated the town ahead of time and that was why only six people died.
7. The 1927 Mississippi Flood
In what was one of the worst natural disasters of the century, over 23,000 square miles of land ended up under water when the Mississippi flooded in 1927. Upwards of 637,000 people were displaced from their homes and many died. But the Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover, and the Red Cross worked together to raise funds for the victims while simultaneously covering up egregious abuse of the Black victims of the disaster.
Relief efforts were mostly left in the hands of Black laborers. They shored up the levees to prevent further damage. They did so with a lack of food and medical care and when the situation grew worse, only the white people were evacuated. The Black laborers were left behind with nothing to eat and no clean water.
Those who lost their homes went to relief camps, supposedly shelters where food and water could be obtained. But Black citizens who found themselves there were forced into work shoring up levees. It was reported that one man who refused to do the work was shot.
In order to secure donations and continue to provide relief, Herbert Hoover had these abuses covered up. He would go on to be called “The Great Humanitarian” and become President, arguably off the back of how he was perceived to have handled the flooding.
6. Exercise Tiger
On April 28, 1944, hundreds of US soldiers died in advance of a training exercise meant to prepare them for the D-Day landing. Dubbed Exercise Tiger, they were supposed to land near Devon and play out how the Utah Beach landing would go. Instead, four German E-boats were waiting and attacked.
Two landing ships were sunk right away, and a third was damaged. Those that didn’t die in the attacks faced burning oil or freezing waters. Many would die of hypothermia before rescuers arrived.
Military brass had not expected any kind of attack and kept the story under wraps, convinced that word getting out would be bad for morale. Fewer soldiers ended up dying on Utah Beach than died during Exercise Tiger.
5. The Nedelin Disaster
Russia’s R-16 ballistic missile was scheduled to launch in July, 1961. Mitrofan Nedelin, the commander of the Soviet Strategic Missile Forces, didn’t like that. He pushed the launch date forward to November 7, 1960. It was the anniversary of the Soviet Revolution.
Shaving nearly a year off of prep time proved disastrous. Corners were cut and work was being done on the rocket up to launch day, even after it was fully fueled. An error saw the second stage rocket fire before the first stage, meaning it fired directly onto the first stage booster, which was full of fuel.People were still working and burned up immediately.
Over 100 people died, and no one was officially blamed after it was deemed anyone who had been there was punished enough. Families were made to keep quiet for years and word didn’t come out until the 1980s.
4. The Burnden Park Disaster
We’ve all heard tales of soccer hooligans, and the reputation is sometimes well deserved. One of the worst incidents in soccer history was the Burnden Park Disaster of 1946. Thirty-three fans died in the stadium that day before the game started. But the game did start, and they played on, while bodies allegedly were covered on the sidelines.
The game was the first competitive match since WWII. People were excited. The stadium capacity was 70,000. It’s estimated 85,000 showed up. The crowds pushed through and hundreds were injured while 33 were crushed to death. Most of the crowd had no idea and the players were told to simply go ahead. So while dozens of their countrymen lay dead or badly injured, thousands of others were left in the dark, cheering on a game with no idea of what happened.
3. The Benton Fireworks Disaster
The Benton Fireworks Disaster holds a unique place in the world of coverups since the whole thing was a cover up before it happened. Back in 1983, a factory explosion in Benton, Tennessee, killed 11 people. The factory was making illegal fireworks and the entire operation was running under the guise of being a worm farm. People were paid in cash and everything was very hush-hush for reasons that became obvious when the place blew sky high.
None of the workers were properly trained in handling explosives, and it’s almost cartoonish to hear how things operated. One of the survivors later testified that people filled the fireworks with “chemical stuff” and her job was to add some liquid glass and a fuse.
The explosive ingredients were mixed by hand “like a salad” and another employer stated that, on the day of the explosion, they were trying something new. They may have tried mixing it with an electrical appliance. Of course, investigators found packs of cigarettes and a lighter in the debris, so someone may have actually been smoking in the building. The explosion was felt twenty miles away and emergency crews had to sift through bodies as well as body parts.
2. The Sverdlovsk Air Disaster
This story has a couple of layers to it that both offer a glimpse into Soviet cover-ups, but one seems to have more evidence that it actually happened than the other. In 1950, a flight carrying most of the Soviet Air Force hockey team crashed near the town of Sverdlovsk. Eleven players, as well as the team doctor and masseuse, died.
It’s been alleged that Vasiliy Stalin, the son of Josef Stalin, was in charge of the team and didn’t want to upset his father. So he never even told him. Rumor has it that the younger Stalin simply recruited a new hockey team and his father, who was never a big fan of the game anyway, was none the wiser.
It’s hard to confirm if that part of the tale, though widely reported, is true. But the state media never made mention of the crash and the team was replaced. Whether or not this was done without Stalin’s knowledge is debatable.
1. The Banqiao Dam Disaster
Hiding the deaths of 230,000 people is no small task, but the Chinese government did just that. When Typhoon Nina hit in 1975, the dam was one of several that couldn’t withstand the onslaught and suffered a massive failure. A year’s worth of rain flooded the region in a single day.
Within three days, 65 different dams had collapsed. Like dominoes in a chain, everything was heading towards Banqiao. Despite all the other failures, and the fact the sluice gates were clogged, it was believed the dam would hold.
Hydrologist Chen Xing tried to warn the government that the dam was not being built properly and was primed for failure. They fired him for being an agitator.
When the dam burst, 600 billion liters washed through the nearest village. That’s about 240,000 Olympic swimming pools.Over a week later, 1.1 million people were still trapped and dead bodies floated along the flood waters.
It wasn’t until 1989 when the government released a report on the incident suggesting that 85,000 people likely died instantly. After famine and disease, a total of 230,000 died.