Active region 9393 unleashed a major solar flare on Monday, April 2, 2001 at 21:51 UT.
This was classified as an X17 flare, probably the strongest flare since 16 August 1989 when an X20 flare occurred. It was slightly more powerful that the famous 6 March 1989 flare which was related to the disruption of the power grids in Canada.
This big explosion, near the Sun's northwest limb, hurled a coronal mass ejection (CME) into space - but apparently not toward Earth. Thus, the impacts from this on Earth will probably be less severe.