Chernobyl Nuclear Explosion Disaster Explained (Hour by Hour)

Summary

The script recounts the Chernobyl disaster on April 25, 1986, detailing the events leading up to the explosion, the immediate aftermath, and the long-term effects. It describes the initial joyous mood of workers, the design flaws and mismanagement that led to the catastrophe, and the harrowing experiences of those exposed to lethal radiation. The narrative follows key figures, the response of the Soviet government, and the global impact, highlighting the human and environmental toll of the tragedy.

Takeaways

• 📅 The Chernobyl disaster occurred on April 25, 1986, and had a profound global impact.
• 🛠️ A design flaw and subsequent mismanagement led to the catastrophic explosion at Reactor 4.
• 🚫 Soviet officials initially denied the severity of the incident and attempted to suppress information about the disaster.
• 🏭 The immediate aftermath involved a frantic response to contain the fires and radiation without full understanding of the risks involved.
• 🔒 The residents of Pripyat were uninformed about the true nature of the disaster during the evacuation, which was ordered to protect them from radiation.
• 🛑 The emergency shutdown (SCRAM) was initiated using the AZ-5 button, which inadvertently exacerbated the situation due to a design flaw in the control rods.
• 🤕 Many first responders and plant workers suffered from acute radiation sickness, with some dying shortly after exposure.
• 🏥 The health effects of the disaster were long-lasting, with increased cancer rates and other radiation-related illnesses affecting survivors.
• 🏢 The Soviet Union's lack of transparency and accountability contributed to the disaster's severity and the public's misperception of nuclear safety.
• 🏰 The abandoned town of Pripyat became a ghost town, with an eventual resurgence of wildlife in the exclusion zone.
• ⏳ The long-term effects of the disaster are still felt today, with the area around Chernobyl remaining largely uninhabited and contaminated.

Q & A

What was the date and location of the Chernobyl disaster?

The Chernobyl disaster occurred on April 25-26, 1986, at the Chernobyl Power Plant located about 2 miles (3km) from Pripyat, a small town in northern Ukraine.

What was the initial mood among the workers at the Chernobyl power plant before the disaster?

The initial mood among the workers was joyful, as it was a beautiful night following a sunny day, and the May Day holiday was approaching.

What were the safety concerns expressed by Natasha, the wife of Alexander Yuvchenko?

Natasha had misgivings about the safety of nuclear power, but her fears were somewhat diminished by a Soviet official on TV claiming that nuclear meltdowns were extremely rare, possibly occurring only once every 10,000 years.

What was the purpose of the test that was being conducted at Chernobyl's reactor number 4?

The purpose of the test was to determine if the slowing turbines after being turned off could create enough electrical power to keep the coolant pumps running during the gap before the backup diesel generators reached full capacity.

What was the AZ-5 button used for at Chernobyl?

The AZ-5 button at Chernobyl was an emergency off-switch designed to make all of the control rods drop down to stop the nuclear reactions.

Why was the AZ-5 button considered a design flaw?

The AZ-5 button was considered a design flaw because the control rods had a graphite tip which actually increased the reaction rate instead of stopping it, causing a surge in reactivity when the rods were inserted all at once.

What was the immediate consequence of the explosion at the Chernobyl reactor?

The immediate consequence of the explosion was the ejection of the reactor's steel lid, the destruction of the roof and floor, and the release of radioactive materials and fuel into the environment, causing fires and exposing the core to the atmosphere.

What was the initial response of the local officials to the disaster?

The initial response of the local officials was to hold meetings to discuss the situation, but they were not informed of the full extent of the disaster, and the town's evacuation was delayed.

What was the role of Valery Legasov in the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster?

Valery Legasov was the deputy director of the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy and led the commission to deal with the accident. He was responsible for testifying during the tribunal and exposing the Soviet Union's shortcomings in nuclear energy production.

What were the long-term effects of the Chernobyl disaster on the surrounding area and its inhabitants?

The long-term effects included the formation of an Exclusion Zone, the abandonment of the town of Pripyat, the suffering and death of many due to radiation poisoning, and the contamination of the environment which led to a resurgence of wildlife in the area.

Outlines

00:00

🌆 Chernobyl's Fateful Night

The script opens with a scene set on April 25, 1986, at the Chernobyl Power Plant, highlighting the serene mood among workers before a catastrophic event unfolds. Alexander Yuvchenko begins his night shift, unaware of the impending disaster. The narrative delves into the flawed Soviet nuclear safety beliefs, the reactor's design issues, and the unpreparedness of the night shift crew. It outlines the reactor's operation, the control mechanisms, and the risky decision-making that leads to a sudden power surge and the explosion of Reactor 4, marking the start of a global crisis.

05:01

🔴 The Cataclysm Unfolds

This section details the chaotic aftermath of the explosion at Chernobyl's Reactor 4. It describes the confusion and misjudgment among the plant operators, the erroneous activation of the SCRAM button, and the resulting design flaw exacerbating the situation. The narrative follows Alexander's experience, the shocking realization of the reactor's destruction, and the immediate, severe consequences for those exposed to the radiation. It also touches on the initial underestimation of the disaster's scale by authorities and the brave but ill-informed response of the firefighters.

10:02

🌃 The Dawn of a Disaster

The script shifts to the early hours following the disaster, painting a picture of the confusion and misinformation among local officials and the plant's management. It discusses the denial and disbelief about the reactor's explosion, the growing awareness of the severity among a few, and the initial containment efforts. The section also highlights the obliviousness of the nearby town's residents to the unfolding tragedy and the gradual recognition of the disaster's gravity by key figures like Valery Legasov and Boris Shcherbina.

15:02

🚨 Evacuation and Escalation

This part of the script describes the critical decision-making hours that lead to the evacuation of Pripyat. It outlines the飙升ing radiation levels, the frantic efforts to extinguish fires, and the realization that the disaster could have far-reaching consequences. The narrative captures the tension as officials grapple with the decision to evacuate, the implementation of the evacuation process, and the heartbreaking departure of residents from their homes, unaware they would never return.

20:03

🏚️ Abandonment and Aftermath

The script paints a stark picture of the abandoned town of Pripyat and the surreal experience of the evacuation. It discusses the immediate aftermath, the international detection of radiation, and the Soviet Union's attempts to control information about the disaster. The section also touches on the resilience of some residents, the 'liquidators' risking their lives for the cleanup, and the global panic sparked by the news of the disaster.

25:06

🛠️ Containment and Cleanup

This section delves into the massive undertaking of containing the disaster and the cleanup efforts. It describes the construction of the sarcophagus, the formation of the Exclusion Zone, and the long-term health effects on the liquidators. The narrative also addresses the misinformation about the disaster, the eventual recognition of the scale of the tragedy, and the legacy of Chernobyl on the perception of nuclear energy.

📚 Reflections and Lessons

The final part of the script reflects on the Chernobyl disaster's impact, the investigations into its causes, and the broader implications for nuclear safety. It recounts Valery Legasov's recordings, his warning about the systemic failures leading to the disaster, and his tragic death. The section concludes with a look at the long-term effects on the environment, the wildlife thriving in the Exclusion Zone, and a sobering reminder of the disaster's lasting legacy.

Keywords

💡Chernobyl power plant

The Chernobyl power plant was the site of one of the most significant nuclear disasters in history, which occurred on April 25-26, 1986. The disaster is central to the video's theme, illustrating the catastrophic consequences of a nuclear meltdown. The script describes the plant's location and the events that unfolded during the fateful night shift, leading to the explosion and subsequent radiation leaks.

💡Nuclear meltdown

A nuclear meltdown refers to a severe nuclear reactor accident that results in the reactor core overheating and potentially melting down. In the video, the concept is integral as it discusses the disaster at Chernobyl, where a meltdown led to widespread panic and long-term environmental and health effects. The script mentions the Soviet official's assurance that such events were extremely rare, contrasting with the imminent disaster.

💡Radiation

Radiation is the emission of energy as electromagnetic waves or as moving subatomic particles, and in the context of the video, it is the deadly byproduct of a nuclear meltdown. The script describes the exposure of workers to radiation, the resulting health effects, and the long-term environmental contamination caused by the Chernobyl disaster.

💡Control rods

Control rods are devices used in nuclear reactors to control the rate of fission in the nuclear chain reaction. They are made from materials that can absorb neutrons, thus slowing down the reaction. The video script explains the critical role of control rods in the Chernobyl disaster, where their incorrect use contributed to the accident's severity.

💡Graphite

Graphite is a form of carbon used as a moderator in some types of nuclear reactors due to its ability to slow down neutrons. In the video, graphite is mentioned in the context of the Chernobyl reactor's design flaw, where the graphite tips of the control rods paradoxically increased the reaction rate instead of controlling it, leading to the explosion.

💡Reactor core

The reactor core is the central part of a nuclear reactor where nuclear reactions take place. The script discusses the meltdown of the reactor core at Chernobyl, which resulted in a massive release of radioactive materials and the subsequent environmental and health crisis.

💡Liquidators

Liquidators were the personnel involved in the cleanup and containment efforts following the Chernobyl disaster. The term is used in the script to describe those who risked their lives to mitigate the disaster's effects, often suffering from long-term health issues as a result of their exposure to high levels of radiation.

💡Exclusion Zone

An Exclusion Zone is an area established around a hazardous location, such as the Chernobyl disaster site, where access is restricted due to high levels of radiation. The script mentions the creation of such a zone around Chernobyl, highlighting the long-term impact of the disaster on the surrounding environment.

💡Sarcophagus

A sarcophagus, in the context of the Chernobyl disaster, refers to the concrete and steel structure built to encase the destroyed reactor, thereby isolating the radioactive materials. The script describes the construction of the sarcophagus as a containment measure to prevent further spread of radiation.

💡Radiation poisoning

Radiation poisoning, also known as radiological illness, occurs when an individual is exposed to a high dose of radiation over a short period. The script details the devastating effects of radiation poisoning on the workers and emergency responders at Chernobyl, including symptoms like nausea, skin burns, and long-term health complications.

💡Misinformation

Misinformation refers to the spread of false or inaccurate information. The script discusses the Soviet Union's attempts to control the narrative around the Chernobyl disaster and the subsequent spread of misinformation in the media, which contributed to public panic and misconceptions about the risks of radiation and nuclear energy.

Highlights

Chernobyl disaster is considered one of the most controversial and panic-inducing events in history.

Natasha's fears about nuclear power safety were alleviated by Soviet officials claiming nuclear meltdowns are extremely rare.

Alexander Yuvchenko's nightshift at Chernobyl leads to a catastrophic event, affecting him and his family.

A design flaw in the reactor's backup diesel generators and their delayed power-up time is revealed.

The reactor's emergency core cooling system was deliberately disabled for the test, increasing risk.

Miscommunication and lack of proper briefing among nightshift workers contributed to the disaster.

Xenon poisoning due to a slowdown in the reactor caused an unexpected power decrease.

The reactor's power surged dangerously high during the test, leading to a serious situation.

The AZ-5 button was mistakenly hit, exposing a critical design flaw in Chernobyl's control rods.

The explosion at Chernobyl released a massive amount of radioactive materials into the atmosphere.

Firefighters and plant workers were unaware of the radiation levels and potential dangers.

The Soviet government initially downplayed the severity of the disaster and attempted to control information.

Evacuation of Pripyat began with residents unaware of the long-term consequences of the disaster.

The 'Chernobyl Suicide Squad' risked their lives to drain water and prevent a potential larger explosion.

Misinformation about radiation dangers led to widespread fear and the killing of pets in the Exclusion Zone.

Valery Legasov's recordings revealed the truth about the disaster and the Soviet Union's unsafe nuclear power plants.

The long-term effects of the disaster on human health and the environment are still debated.

Pripyat has become a ghost town, with nature reclaiming the area over time.

Transcripts

Hour 0 April 25, 1986.  

Chernobyl power plant, located about 2 miles (3km)  from Pripyat, a small town in northern Ukraine.

At just before midnight the engineer-mechanic  Alexander Yuvchenko clocks on for his nightshift,  

a shift that will go down on record as one of  the most controversial few hours in history,  

creating a panic that will take over the planet.

The mood among the workers is joyful.  It’s a beautiful night after a sunny day  

and the May Day holiday is just around the corner. At home sleeping in his small apartment is his  

wife Natasha, and his two-year-old son, Kirill.  The family is well taken of, and although Natasha  

has some misgivings about the safety of nuclear  power, only recently those fears were diminished  

when she heard a Soviet official on TV saying  nuclear meltdowns just don’t happen, or, if they  

do, he said there might be one every 10,000 years. In just over 24 hours from now, people who Natasha  

knows will be out in the street looking into the  sky at a dazzling laser beam shooting up to the  

stars. At exactly the same time, her husband  will be in a party of four men who are exposed  

to deadly amounts of radiation after being sent  to assess damage at Chernobyl’s reactor number 4. 

Three of them will die in excruciating pain,  their bodies destroyed from within. Alexander  

will survive because he doesn’t enter the reactor  hall but only holds a door for his friends.  

The arm and leg and shoulder that he uses  will later turn black. He’ll tell Natasha  

with what he thinks could be his dying  words that he’s been turned into a mutant. 

Alexander will see things the communist government  will want to keep secret. Death by radiation is  

a monstrous thing to behold and the Chernobyl  power plant disaster will be one of the most  

monstrous events in world history. At the heart  of the matter is a design flaw that the Soviets  

will not want to admit. What the capitalists can  do, they can do just as well, or so they think.

One thing you don’t want at a nuclear  power station is a total shutdown.  

If that happens, things can heat up,  and if an explosion follows, what you  

have is a massive leakage of deadly radiation. So, every reactor at Chernobyl has three backup  

diesel generators that will kick in if power is  suddenly lost. The problem is that it takes 60 to  

75 seconds for them to fully power the coolant  pumps. The theory, and it is only a theory,  

is that the slowing turbines after being  turned off will create enough electrical power  

to keep the pumps running during that gap before  the generators are running at full capacity. 

To know if this works, they need to do some  tests. The first came in 1982 and it wasn’t  

successful. They tried again in 1984 and again  the results weren’t good. Then they tried in 1985,  

and yet again, a message was sent back to Moscow  saying things hadn’t gone as planned. This was not  

what the bigwigs wanted to hear, and they made  that known. The pressure was on…excuse the pun. 

The realtor has already been slowed down to run at  about 25 percent of its normal power. Importantly,  

the reactor’s emergency core cooling system  has been disabled so it doesn’t get in the way  

of seeing if the turbines can power the  generators. More importantly, some of the  

nightshift workers that have arrived haven’t been  properly briefed about the test. The reason is the  

test should have happened on the day shift, but  there was a power outage earlier in the day at  

a coal plant, so Chernobyl had to keep running  at full power to give people their electricity. 

To fully appreciate this story, you need to know  how we get electricity from a nuclear power plant,  

so here we’ll give you the very basics in laymans  terms. Inside the reactor, neutrons split uranium  

atoms, and that makes more neutrons. They  split more atoms, and we have more neutrons,  

and on and on and on. This is called a chain  reaction, and it produces a crapload of heat. 

You harness that heat and make it turn water  into steam, and the steam runs those turbines  

we’ve already talked about. As they move  all this energy becomes electricity that  

ensures people like Natasha can cook, clean,  eat, see, watch TV, and stay warm in winter. 

All that heat and energy, of course, can be  a bit unstable so you have to have control  

mechanisms to make sure there isn’t an overload.  If not, the chain reactions would just keep going,  

becoming highly dangerous. Control rods are the  things used to slow down the chain reactions.

These are a bunch of rods that can be inserted  into the reactor in different numbers or different  

lengths allowing the nuclear technicians to  control the rate of the nuclear chain reaction.  

They’re made out of special materials that can  absorb neutrons, so if all does suddenly go to  

hell, you will hope those rods can come and save  the day. No one at Chernobyl doubts their safety,  

or at least the less experienced operators don’t. Hour 1 

Now you know the night shift isn’t properly  prepared for the test and it might be their  

fault that the power out of the plant falls too  much at 28 minutes past midnight on April 26.  

They try to increase power, but something  is wrong. They’ve never seen this before. 

This is partly because there’s been  a build-up of Xenon during the test.  

You don’t need to know what Xenon is, and to be  frank, it’s too complicated to fully explain,  

but when there is a build-up of the stuff it can  cause Xenon poisoning. Xenon would usually burn  

away when the reactor is at full power, but the  slow down has caused the build-up and the build-up  

has caused a further slowdown. This is not good. It’s because of this overabundance of Xenon  

that even when the guys take most of  the control rods out, 200 from 206,  

they still can’t get enough power. As you know,  by taking out the rods, they should get more power  

since the nuclear reaction isn’t hampered. Doing  this, though, can be pretty dangerous. In fact,  

they shouldn’t be doing this in the first place. A young operator gets on the phone and asks,  

“‘What shall I do? In the program, there are  instructions of what to do, and then a lot  

of things are crossed out.” The guy on the other  end pauses and then says, “Follow the crossed-out  

instructions.” Hour 2 

At around 1.05 am, they have the power  stabilized, although the reactor is running  

well below what the shift supervisor, Anatoly  Dyatlov, thinks is ideal. One day he’ll lie  

and say he wasn’t in the room when mistakes  were made, but he was. Don’t forget his name.

The reactor is certainly running at  less power than is safe for a test,  

but they carry on anyway on the orders of  Dyatlov. He doesn’t want a black mark against  

his name in the form of another failed test. At 1.24 and four seconds, the test really starts,  

meaning they are going to simulate a  power outage and as we have explained,  

see if the slowing turbines can power the  coolant pumps before the generators can turn on. 

This is when all hell breaks loose. What happens  is a sudden and massive increase in power.  

It’s dangerously high, and this  is now very serious. So serious,  

that someone hits the SCRAM button. At  Chernobyl, this was the AZ-5 button.

It’s an emergency off-switch, which makes all of  the control rods drop down to stop the nuclear  

reactions. This is a big mistake, and one which  exposes one of a few design flaws at Chernobyl.  

The rods have a graphite tip, which in  short actually increases the reaction rate,  

not the opposite, as is wanted. The boron in the rods reduces reactivity, but  

not those tips. As so many rods hit the reactor at  the same time there is a huge surge in reactivity.  

The operators don’t know what they have done. The  graphite tips are fixed in position and the heat  

creates a massive amount of hot steam,  in effect, a bomb. The operators are not  

aware of this or they wouldn’t have dropped the  rods into a reactor already surging with power. 

The man in the reactor hall watches this  as it happens and is shocked to see those  

200 rods and their caps, each weighing  772 pounds (350 kg), jumping up and down  

within the reactor lid. It’s as if they  are being pushed by the power of a God. 

The output of the reactor is now at  ten times the power it should be. And  

that’s it. BANG. The bomb goes off. The world  will never be the same again after this moment.

The explosion causes the reactor’s  steel lid, weighing about 10,000  

tons (2,000 medium-sized male African elephants)  to fly off and go straight through the roof.

Shortly after, there’s another big explosion,  likely down to a build-up of hydrogen from  

zirconium-steam reactions. Bits of radioactive  materials and fuel are sent everywhere.  

Fires rage and the core is exposed to the  world. Right now, it’s not obvious to most  

of the men in the plant what is happening.  They all think the reactor is still intact,  

only because reactors normally don’t just blow up. The roof is destroyed. The floor is in pieces.  

Radioactive materials are lying about everywhere.  The air is filled with clouds of dust,  

pieces of radioactive graphite  are flung great distances,  

and radiation is now spilling into the atmosphere. To say this is bad would be putting it lightly.  

Soon a few men will know this, but the one that  knows it best will be too dead to tell the story.

Right now, Alexander is in a state of shock.  Just a moment ago, he was in his office with  

some colleagues reading some documents but  now everything around them now is shuddering,  

on the brink of what feels like imminent  collapse. His first thought is this is  

war. The USA has attacked us! He’s not alone in  thinking this. What else could have happened? 

The phone rings. It’s the guys from building  number three. “Bring some stretchers,” they  

shout over the noise. Alexander takes off  down some dark corridors in search of the men  

he knows are the closest to the explosion site. As he gets closer to a deafening hissing sound,  

he finds his buddy. His face is horribly  disfigured, so much so that he only knows who  

it is when he hears the sound of his voice. More  people are injured, the guy tells Alexander. 

He then meets with Yuri Tregub, who’s come  from control room number 4. He tells Alexander  

that Deatlov has asked for the emergency  high-pressure coolant water to flood the area.  

Deatlov still doesn’t know that the reactor has  blown and he won’t even believe it when he’s told. 

Now waste deep in water, Alexander and a few other  men try to get to the coolant taps, but through  

a door, they see that the giant water containers  have been blown apart. All the men are terrified.  

This is worse than they thought. Alexander  looks around at what’s left of the room and  

sees his colleague Khodemchuk on the floor, dead. He then looks up at the roof, or where the roof  

was, and he sees something magical. A great  beam of light is reaching to the heavens.  

It’s magnificent and beautiful, and as things now  stand, Alexander is not aware of how deadly it is.  

For a few seconds, he just stares at what  he doesn’t know are gamma rays and neutrons.  

A more experienced colleague who knows what  it is grabs him by the shoulder and pulls  

him away. He likely saves his life doing so. Alexander sets off to control room number four  

and there he meets three other guys who’ve  been ordered by Deatlov to go to the reactor  

hall and lower the control rods by hand. This  is madness, sheer madness. Alexander screams,  

“There is no reactor hall. The reactor has  blown up. There are no control rods. They’ve  

blown up, too. There’s nothing left but space.” The guys think he’s crazy. Reactors don’t explode.  

Alexander has to admit that what he’s  seen, he’s seen only from the bottom floor.  

The men tell him they need to assess the damage  from above to really know what’s happened. 

The four of them head to the reactor hall upper  floor. Little do they know that this is a journey  

to the end of the night, for three of them  anyway. As you know, Alexander only survives  

because he’s the one that holds the door, being  the strongest of the four. When the guys come out,  

they say nothing can be done. They look at  Alexander and tell him he’s right. They say  

the reactor hall now looks like a volcano crater. They understand that radiation levels are high,  

of course, they do, it’s their job, but they don’t  know just how high. They look at the radiation  

level reader device they have, the dosimeter,  and the needle is off the scales, but they  

still don’t know how bad things are because  what is happening is just so unprecedented. 

It’s still only just after 1.55 but the  firefighters are already outside on the  

scene. They too don’t have much of an idea of the  gravity of the situation, and when they start to  

try and put out the fires that have started  in various places, they are not even wearing  

protective clothing. Some of them will die in  agony very soon. Others will pass away in a month,  

their immune systems destroyed by the radiation. Back in Piryrat, most people are in bed asleep,  

although a few people are now standing  outside, mesmerized by the ethereal beam  

in the sky that they don't know is caused by  irradiated air. They just think it looks cool.

In years to come, stories told in the West will  say there was a large group of them on a bridge,  

watching radioactive blue dust fall like  snowflakes. This will be called “The Bridge  

of Death.” The stories will say they all died,  but none of that is true. There was no Bridge  

of Death. Most people were asleep at the time. In the end, most people who actually were close  

to the accident, recovered, with just 20 percent  of those who suffered acute radiation poisoning  

biting the dust. As you’ll see again in this  show, it sometimes pays not to believe everything  

you see on TV or in the newspapers. If you don’t know, the way radiation  

poisoning works on the body is it takes out  electrons from atoms in a person’s molecules,  

destroying the chemical bonds and thus  damaging tissue. We don’t need to tell  

you that this isn’t good for a person. In short, after an hour or two,  

diarrhea and vomiting can occur as tissue in the  GI tract breaks down and bacteria is let loose  

on the body. Bone marrow stops producing white  blood cells, and infections can’t be fought,  

since the person’s immune system is  incredibly weak. Without an immune system,  

your countless bacteria eat you from within. This might take some time, so even though the  

person is covered in blisters and ulcers, they  could start to feel ok after a couple of days,  

but then a blood infection  might lead to deadly sepsis.

For some at Chernobyl, even a blood transfusion  and bone marrow transplant won’t help them. 

One of the town’s people is Lyudmila Ignatenko.  She’s already awake and has seen the glow. Her  

husband, Vasily, is currently fighting the fires.  The two are due to have a child in two months.

Fast-forward a week, and his skin is covered  in boils, and when he turns on his pillow  

he leaves skin and hair behind. The lesions spread  and some of his skin now looks like white film.  

At one point he asks Lyudmila for a mirror but  when he sees his own disfigured face he cries  

out in horror. Vasily will be buried in a zinc  casket under cement, his body still radioactive. 

Lyudmila is lucky she even got to see him.  A nurse told her it was too dangerous.  

She looked at Lyudmila and warned, “If you  start crying, I'll kick you out right away.  

No hugging or kissing. Don't even  get near him. You have half an hour.” 

Lyudmila will have much to say about this in  time to come, and she’ll also lose the child.  

It will be born with congenital heart defects  and liver cirrhosis and die after a few hours. 

Many people will criticize her for this,  asking why did she visit her dying husband.  

The radiation from him contaminated her and  the fetus, they’ll say, but you can’t just  

catch radiation from a cleaned person and  there’s no proof this is how the baby died.  

A falsity that will be talked about for years  is that the baby somehow took the radiation  

and that saved her. This is not scientific at all,  but it makes good newspaper copy and great TV. 

The consequences of this misinformation will mean  the lives and lights of hundreds of thousands  

of babies are put out before they get going. We should say, though, that while seeing her dying  

husband wasn’t the reason for the baby dying, it  was very likely radiation exposure from somewhere  

else that led to the death. Back in 1986, the  nurse that told Lyudmila not to touch her husband  

couldn’t have known radiation doesn’t spread to  people after they’ve been cleaned and are out of  

their contaminated clothes. It’s not contagious.  We should also tell you that a person’s hand  

can’t suddenly burn when they touch the hand of  a contaminated person. That’s TV, not reality. 

One of the firefighters turns to his friend and  jokes, saying, “There must be an incredible amount  

of radiation here. We’ll be lucky if we’re all  still alive in the morning.” As the survivors will  

later testify, they were never told the reactor  was on fire, only that there were regular fires  

to put out. Some of them kicked the radioactive  blocks, even picking them with their hands after  

they’d doused them. They would never have done  any of these things had they known the truth. 

One of the firefighters who survived  explained how little they knew,  

saying some of his colleagues went up to the roof  to work from there. Soberingly, he said, “Then  

those boys who died went up to the roof—Vashchik,  Kolya and others, and Volodya Pravik. They went up  

the ladder ... and I never saw them again.” Hour 3 

Local officials have already arrived on the scene  to discuss what’s happening. When they’re told,  

they’re not told the entire truth. That’s  because only a handful of people right now  

truly understand that the reactor has blown  up, and some of them are now burned, vomiting,  

so not in a meeting explaining what they’ve seen. Dyatlov still thinks what he always has, that a  

water tank has blown up and the radiation  currently making some people very sick  

is from the contaminated water. He just can’t  believe the core would blow, even though some  

people are starting to realise that a water tank  blowing up wouldn’t lead to so much destruction. 

Hour 4 More firemen arrive to help with the fires.  

The last thing anyone wants is reactor three to  set on fire, which is looking like a possibility.  

It’s soon safely shut down, but reactors  1 and 2 keep going until the next day. 

Inside reactor 4 is now a molten reactor core; a  large graphite and concrete slag that is burning  

at around 1200 degrees Celsius. Hour 5 

Another meeting is held, now with experts.  Some ask about the high levels of radiation,  

proffering a theory that the core might  have blown. Nonsense, says Dyatlov,  

even though he’s not far from keeling over  himself. A second later, he throws up. 

A decision is made that no one will leave the  town, not yet. Perhaps they can be evacuated in  

three days. All the phone lines are blocked  in case anyone starts spreading rumors,  

which one official calls “misinformation”  that can negatively affect the Soviet Union.  

Police soon start blocking the roads, just as  soldiers pass them on their way in to help with  

the clean-up job. Hour 7 

At 6.35 am, most of the fires are out, but  by no means does this mean the problems  

are over. They’re only just beginning. Real  horror is taking place inside that reactor. 

A man who understands this horror is Valery  Legasov, the deputy director of the Kurchatov  

Institute of Atomic Energy and the man that will  lead the commission to deal with the accident.

He’ll also be the one that testifies during  the tribunal, and as you’ll see, he’s the guy  

that exposes the Soviet Union’s shortcomings  when it comes to producing nuclear energy.

Hour 8 He’s called  

on the phone soon he’s at the airport with the  man who’ll manage the crisis, Boris Shcherbina.

In time, both these men will suffer from radiation  poisoning, but for now, they still don’t know  

exactly what’s happened. Hour 13 

It’s around midday when they attend a meeting  to discuss matters. Legasov already knows about  

the people in the hospital, suffering from  severe radiation burns, so he and others agree  

the town needs to be evacuated. Hour 30 

Legasov is driven in an armored personnel carrier  to assess the damage for himself. It’s bad,  

very bad, and he says they have to  get that main fire under control or  

radiation will be taken by the wind for  many, many miles. Many parts of Europe,  

not just Ukraine, are at risk. This is  a disaster of unbelievable proportions. 

It’s agreed that dropping sand and boron on  the reactor fire from helicopters might be the  

best way to go, even though Legasov knows it  might not work. They have no choice, he says,  

something needs to be done right now. The military will need to help with the cleanup,  

and many men will be expected to risk their  lives. These people will become known as the  

liquidators and many of them will suffer  long-term health effects from their work.

Hour 33 Shcherbina  

gets on the phone with Moscow and reports,  “We’ve measured the radiation. Prypiat has  

to be evacuated. Immediately. The station  is close by, and it’s emitting radioactive  

contagion. And people in the city are living  it up full blast; weddings are going on.”

Levels of radioactivity in the town are rising at  an alarming rate. Earlier in the day, the level  

was between 14-140 milliroentgens per hour, but  that has gone up to 180 and 300 milliroentgens,  

and in areas closer to the plant,  600. 50 milliroentgens or more  

per year can be dangerous with 400  milliroentgens per year can kill you. 

The people in that town now have a  much higher risk of developing cancer,  

and they have no idea about this. Still,  in parts of the plant, the level reached  

an astounding 20,000 milliroentgens per hour, and  that’s why some men died so soon after exposure. 

How 36 Sometime in the morning,  

the first helicopters start dropping the sand and  boron on the fire. It’s a perilous job. Getting  

too close to the hole where the reactor  was can lead to acute radiation sickness.

It’s dangerous enough anyway, as can  be seen when one helicopter collides  

with a chain and crashes, killing the men onboard. 

Hour 38 The evacuation begins

From speakers all over the town comes a woman’s  voice, saying the same thing over and over again. 

“Attention! Attention! In connection with the  accident at the Chernobyl atomic power station,  

unfavorable radiation conditions are  developing in the city of Prypiat.  

In order to ensure complete safety for  residents, children first and foremost,  

it has become necessary to carry  out a temporary evacuation.” 

They are told to take everything with them that is  important, including all their personal documents.  

They don’t know it, but they are never going  back to their homes. Just one hour before  

this announcement, families were enjoying the  weekend. In the cafeteria in the shopping mall,  

kids and their mothers were hanging out and  eating ice cream. For them, it was just a normal  

day. There were kids playing on the bumper cars,  then suddenly they were told the ride is over.

Now they are taken aback when  they hear the speakers say,  

“Comrades, on leaving your dwellings, please  do not forget to close windows, switch off  

electrical and gas appliances and turn off water  taps. Please remain calm, organized, and orderly.” 

What’s startling is these people have not  been told the full story and certainly  

aren’t given any protective clothing, in  spite of the fact that Soviet officials  

know about the dangerous levels of radiation.  So far, they don’t want to cause too much panic,  

or for the word to get out about the disaster. Hour 42 

Shcherbina calls Premier  Nikolai Ryzhkovand and explains,  

“There are no people left in Pripyat.  There are only dogs running around.”  

What happens to the mutts, in the end,  is awful, but that’s a few days away yet. 

Shcherbina’s not exactly correct  about all the people leaving.  

Some young folks have hidden so they can stay  together in their parents’ apartments and get  

it on for once with some privacy. They don’t care  about some little radiation leak. Old folks, too,  

have stayed behind, or some of them have. They’re  well past the age of moving away and they’re too  

tough to worry about radiation. Some have lived  through wars, famine and Stalin’s reign of terror. 

Hour 46 116,000 people have  

left, but about 1,200 have stayed behind, mostly  the aged, and many of them women – babushkas as  

they say in Russian. They have refused to budge,  and it’s hard to argue with a stubborn babushka.

One woman, Hanna Zavorotnya is given a stern order  to leave after she’s been found by a soldier.  

She looks him square in the face and  says, “Shoot us and dig the grave,  

otherwise we’re staying.” After listening to  the soldier explain the danger, she replies,  

“Radiation doesn’t scare me. Starvation does.” The world still doesn’t know the extent of what’s  

happened, and you can be sure the Soviet leaders  are determined to try and keep matters within a  

fairly small circle. The KGB is told to stop  the “spread of panicky rumors and unreliable  

information” getting out, although nothing  they can do can prevent what happens next. 

Hour 52 

The Soviets get word that Sweden has detected  radiation and it has been identified as coming  

from Chernobyl. On top of this, soon the USA  will have satellite photos of the disaster.

The news carries as fast as the radiation,  with presenters all over the world telling  

people that this major accident, something  that’s never happened before on this scale,  

could mean dangerous radiation being carried  from Ukraine to other European countries. 

As the children of Chernobyl settle into their new  surroundings, school kids in Germany are kept home  

in fear of radiation poisoning. Panic reverberates  from North America back to Europe and into Asia. 

Hour 55 It’s not until the evening  

that the official news is shown on Russian TV.  A report states, “There has been an accident at  

the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. One of the  nuclear reactors was damaged. The effects of  

the accident are being remedied. Assistance  has been provided for any affected people.  

An investigative commission has been set up.” More Russian news follows, and this time with  

in-depth discussions. Not surprisingly, experts  talk about the Three Mile Island nuclear accident  

of the USA and some other American nuclear  mishaps. What the news doesn’t talk about is  

what could happen at Chernobyl right now, a  new kind of disaster could be in the works. 

Hour 58 It was thought that the water tanks were empty,  

which isn’t actually the case. To make things  worse, fire hoses have been filling the place  

with more water. Soviet scientists are now saying  that if that smoldering graphite, remember heated  

to about 1,200 °C (2,190 °F), hits the water,  there could be another massive explosion,  

even bigger than the last one, and that could  mean Europe being hit with even more radiation. 

They don’t know it yet, but it’s highly unlikely  this explosion will happen. They think it could,  

and so tell three men who know the area  inside out that they will have to drain  

the 20,000 tons of water through a sluice gate. These men know that there’s a good chance they  

might not make it out, and even if they do, they  may not live very long after. Hence the name,  

the Chernobyl Suicide Squad: Alexei  Ananenko, Valeri Bezpalov and Boris Baranov.

Hour 60 Finding the valves in the dark is  

like finding a needle in a haystack, but they do  it in the end. For them, it is just another day at  

work. They knew they’d be fired if they didn’t do  as asked, and unlike what will be said in years to  

come, they didn’t get any reward for their work. As we’ve explained, there will be a lot of western  

misinformation flying about in regard  to the Chernobyl disaster. One falsity  

told time and again is that these men all died  shortly after they succeeded in their mission,  

but they didn’t. They lived long, healthy lives  after their time in the darkness of Chernobyl.

Hour 66 The Soviet government  

is now worried that the molten core will burn  through the cement and get to the groundwater,  

thereby contaminating it and spreading radiation  into the rest of Ukraine and into Europe,  

possibly making some places uninhabitable. A mining team is brought in to dig a huge  

tunnel below the reactor to act as a cooling  system. They are given respirators for the work,  

but it’s hard to breathe with  them on. It’s also very hot,  

but they don’t work naked, as  will be told on TV in the future.

Again, it’s a big job and risky job for  the 400 or so miners. The Soviets don’t  

have to be too concerned because the  core won’t melt through the concrete.  

Obviously, they don’t know that yet  and have to take all precautions. 

Hour 100 The debris removal starts. At first,  

the 100 tons of radioactive material is said to  be so dangerous that men shouldn’t go near it.  

They opt to use robots, but most of the robots  break as soon as deployed due to the radiation. 

The liquidators are chosen to do the job,  men who are now camping close to the plant.  

Thousands of them are there, and in time, 600,000  or so of them will help with this clean-up.

They’re given protective clothing, but still told  they shouldn’t stay on the roof for longer than  

40–90 seconds since the graphite and other  materials up there are about as radiative  

as you can get. Of the 5,000 men who do the  job, some will go up as many as six times,  

but it’s hard to say how many will  have health problems because of it. 

Alexander, as you know, survives.

He’s flown to Moscow. His hair falls  out and he finds it hard to breathe.  

His eyes, nose, and most of his face  hurts, but then after a couple of days,  

he and the other men all start to  feel pretty good. As you already know,  

this doesn’t mean they are good. One day he’s in pain again and he  

pulls back his bedsheets to see massive ulcers  and necrotic skin on his shoulder, hip, and calf,  

all the bits exposed when he held that door open.  He is turning black and feels like he’s a monster,  

telling himself he looks like  some kind of radioactive mutant. 

Luckily for him, his body accepts the skin grafts,  and blood transfusions and bone marrow transplants  

do the rest. His arm is in really bad shape and  will stay in bandages for years. In the hospital,  

ever so often someone walks in the room and  tells him another of his colleagues is dead.  

One of them first goes blind, and then the  infection in his blood finishes him off. For  

two months, Alexander lies in bed close to death  thinking about when it will be his turn to die. 

He will later be awarded medals for  his bravery, but once he’s better,  

he’ll keep his Chernobyl experience mostly to  himself. For many years to come, people in this  

part of the world will cross the street if they  see a Chernobyl survivor walking toward them. 

These people, not educated about  radiation, wrongly assume the  

survivors are still contaminated. This  fear has devesting consequences.  

Chernobyl, in fact, will make much of the world  wrongly over-estimate the dangers of producing  

nuclear power. This will go on for decades and  is still a factor in some people’s minds today  

when they think about nuclear energy. What or who is to blame for the disaster  

is the question that the Soviets and  many other countries will be asking  

for some time to come. The investigations at the  start will mostly blame human error rather than  

technical error and pick out a few names to  shame and send to prison, such as Mr. Dyatlo.

Sure, he messed up a bit, as did others at  the plant, but the fault lies in many people,  

going right up to the top brass  in the Communist government. 

1 year later It's now 1987 and Legasov is very  

ill from radiation poisoning and is in and out of  hospital all the time. He knows he’s going to die,  

so he records himself on tape telling the whole  truth about how and why this disaster happened. 

Part of the tape goes: “The Chernobyl disaster is an apotheosis,  

the pinnacle of all the mismanagement that has  been carried out for decades in our country…  

When one looks at the chain of events, why  someone acted in this way and another in that way,  

and so on, it is impossible to point to  a single culprit, an initiator of all  

the unpleasant events that led to the crime.  Because it is a chain that links to itself.” 

He finishes off by warning that as he speaks,  the Soviet Union does not have safe nuclear power  

plants, not because the production of energy is  dangerous in itself, but because too many mistakes  

have been made and too many corners have been cut.  He says when you can’t hold the state accountable  

then the state is broken. 2 years later 

In 1988, the day after the second anniversary of  the accident, he is found dead in his apartment.  

Shcherbina, who had become a close friend,  said, “Valery was too great, I loved him  

more than all the people I knew, he gave all of  himself to work, to Chernobyl. He burnt out.” 

Of the 237 people that suffered acute radiation  sickness, 31 died within a couple of months. The  

amount of people that died from cancer due  to radiation poisoning reached around 4,000,  

and many more survived cancer. Still,  the health effects of the disaster  

have been argued about for many years. As for reactor 4, it was covered with a  

giant steel and concrete building called  the sarcophagus containment structure.

An Exclusion Zone was formed, covering an  area of around 1,000 sq. miles (2,600 km2) of  

Ukraine. Over the years, the town of  Pripyat became home to life again,  

but of the wild animal kind, not the human kind.

20 years later As for all those pet  

dogs and cats, they were killed by special  teams not long after the disaster became  

worldwide knowledge. Some may have survived,  though, because in the years to come, dogs in  

the town will be seen alongside wolves, brown  bears, dear, badgers, lynx, bison, and moose.

In 20,000 years, the town of Pripyat might be  safe again for humans to go and live there.  

You can visit now, but experts recommend you  don’t eat the wild mushrooms or other plants  

you can find there, and wear something you’re  prepared to throw away later. Radiation sucks,  

but we can’t live without it. Now you need to watch,  

“What If There Was A Nuclear War Between  the US and Russia?” Or, have a look at,  

“Man Receives Highest Dose of Nuclear  Radiation - This Is What Happened To Him.”