The Techa (Russian: Те́ча, [ˈtʲet͡ɕə]) is an eastward river on the eastern flank of the southern Ural Mountains noted for its nuclear contamination.

[1] It begins by the once-secret nuclear processing town of Ozyorsk about 80 kilometres (50 mi) northwest of Chelyabinsk and flows east then northeast to the small town of Dalmatovo to flow into the mid-part of the Iset, a tributary of the Tobol.

[4] As many as forty villages, with a combined population of about 28,000 residents, lined the river at the time.

[6] In the past 45 years, about half a million people in the region have been irradiated in one or more of the incidents,[5][7] exposing them to as much as 20 times the radiation suffered by the Chernobyl disaster victims.

[3] The Tobol is a sub-tributary of the Ob, being linked by the final part of the Irtysh; all three flow generally north.