Could shelling of nuclear site mean another Chernobyl-style disaster for Europe?

A worker checks the radiation level on barrels in a storage of nuclear waste taken from the fourth unit destroyed by explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Chernobyl, Ukraine (Efrem Lukatsky/AP)

Europe’s largest nuclear power plant was hit by Russian shelling, sparking a fire and raising fears of a disaster that could affect all of central Europe for decades, like the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown.

Concerns faded after Ukrainian authorities announced that the fire had been extinguished, and while there was damage to the reactor compartment, the safety of the unit was not affected.