At the end of April, 1986, a safety test at the Chernobyl power plant in the Ukraine went very wrong.
While the town slept, a sudden power surge led to a series of explosions at 1:24 am – killing two instantly.
The first people knew of it was likely when a fireball erupted into the sky – described by some onlookers as not unlike fireworks.
“There was a heavy thud,” recalls Sasha Yuvchenko, who was on the night shift at the Chernobyl power plant at the time.
“A couple of seconds later, I felt a wave come through the room.”
“The thick concrete walls were bent like rubber. I thought war had broken out… Steam wrapped around everything; it was dark and there was a horrible hissing noise,” he told The Guardian.
The heat emitted from the power plant was so intense that firefighters called to the scene watched as their boots melted.
Though Yuvchenko didn’t feel anything at the time, within an hour he began vomiting uncontrollably. His throat hurt.
He was transported to Moscow, where the men either side of him died an excruciating death; burning from the inside out.
Over the next several days, a cloud of radioactive dust travelled across northern and western Europe, extending as far as the United States. Nuclear rain fell as far as Ireland.
An evacuation zone was established, 36 hours too late, with more than 68,000 people evacuated from a 30 kilometre radius.
Potentially deadly rain poured for the next eight days, as the power plant continued to burn.
Yuvchenko, along with hundreds of others, suffered acute radiation sickness, which begins with symptoms like nausea, vomiting and headaches.
While some recovered, over the next weeks and months, many died a slow and painful death.
A new premium HBO drama titled Chernobyl explores one of the worst man-made disasters in history, and is set to launch on Tuesday, May 6, on Foxtel On Demand.
You can watch the trailer for Chernobyl, right here. Post continues below.
Top Comments
From the WHO link posted, they estimate 4,000 additional cancer deaths from the fallout, not sure where the 30,000 figure is coming from. The Chernobyl Union of Ukraine appears to have counted all deaths from cancer in the intervening 33 years and attributed them all to the disaster, which is obviously fallacious reasoning.
It’s extremely hard to determine the death toll for many reasons, most notably our inability to determine the cause of cancer. A pack a day smoking coal miner works at the site. 20 years later he gets bladder cancer. What was the cause? Was it both? Was it neither?
The series was generally good, it only overblew the science when they spoke about a steam explosion being 4 MT and wiping out Kiev and Minsk, the later being about the same distance away as Melbourne to Albury. Even a 100 MT blast wouldn’t take out Minsk. 4 MT would take out Pripyat, but that’s about it.
Those responsible didn’t suffer the consequences. Typical Soviet job, a reactor that never would have been built anywhere in the West, that wouldn’t have been licensed to operate if it had and shut down as soon as a safety inspection had been done.
The Vladimir I. Lenin Nuclear Facility (media doesn’t like to use its name, only it’s location, Chernobyl, cause it’s Lenin after all and he was great) was a first gen RBMK design. A similar RBMK reactor was built at Ignalina, Lithuania and 18 months before the Chernobyl explosion they almost lost that one, the same way with the graphite tips of the control rods causing an explosive reaction. The Soviets knew it was a very dangerous design but kept going with complete indifference to the safety of its citizens.
The RBMK design is so dangerous it was a written stipulation that Lithuania had to decommission Ignalina as a condition of EU association, close to Europe’s top ask from them.
The Communists tried to cover it up, didn’t evacuate early, inadequate response plans and didn’t tell a million plus people in Kiev to stay indoors. Indeed they encouraged them to be out in force to celebrate the May Day festivities. Bread, vodka and thyroid cancer for the workers.
Another reminder of the horrors of socialism.
PS - Due to the similarities and it now being shut down, Ignalina happens to be the location where they filmed the miniseries. How ironic.
Three mile island...
Was throughly investigated, changes made and the operator fined. Although potentially dangerous, nobody died or was seriously injured. It was unfortunate that the movie, “The China Syndrome” staring that “loyal” American, Jane Fonda had just come out, promoting hysteria.
I didn't know any of that. Thanks for the details. I was aware that the Soviets didn't tell their neighbouring countries; they only became aware from their own radiation readings.
It was actually first detected in the West by a Swedish reactor facility. Their radiation alarms started tripping, drove them nuts trying to find the leak in their own facility until they worked out only the outer alarms were going, nothing inside.
Soviets were actually the first to produce electricity from nuclear fission, but like the space race, they then rapidly feel behind. RBMK was a rush design, it didn’t have a containment vessel as is required in the West. Once the lid blew off, there was only a basic roof on the building to stop radiation and that was blown in the explosion. The other feature is it ran on a positive heat coefficient, meaning as it heats up, that causes it to heat up even faster. This is so dangerous it’s crazy and utterly illegal in the West.
Anyway, I really enjoyed the series, despite it being such an awful event.