Short History Of... - Chernobyl

Episode Date: May 15, 2022

In 1986, the Chernobyl power plant became the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history. Poisonous radiation caused over 100,000 casualties, and cost billions of dollars to clean up. Even now, the exclusion zone is one of the most polluted and heavily-patrolled regions in the world.   But what caused the catastrophe in the first place? Why did the Soviet Union try to keep it a secret? And what is its lasting impact on the region, and the wider world?  This is A Short History of Chernobyl.  Written by Chris McDonald. With thanks to Professor Serhii Plokhy, author of Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy.   For ad-free listening, exclusive content and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Now available for Apple and Android users. Click the Noiser+ banner on Apple or go to noiser.com/subscriptions to get started with a 7-day free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's April the 28th, 1986. A bus pulls into a deserted street in Forsmark, a rural town approximately two hours' drive to the north of Sweden's capital, Stockholm. Cliff Robinson, a 30-year-old engineer, thanks the driver and hops off. The early morning sunshine is doing little for the temperature, and a bitter blast of wind forces him to pull his hood around his head. It's icy underfoot, so he steps warily away from the bus stop towards his place of work, the Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant, where he's in charge of monitoring radiation levels. It's a sprawling site, comprising many interlocking buildings joined by raised walkways.

The two distinctive towers that normally overlook the plant have been swallowed by the early morning mist. Once inside, Robinson's growling stomach leads him to the staff canteen, where he pours a bowl of cereal and sits down to eat. When he's finished, he walks towards the washroom in order to brush his teeth. The journey takes him down a narrow corridor. His footsteps echo off the drab concrete floor and walls as he approaches the radiation detection machine, similar in appearance to an airport metal detector, and walks through. Its lights paint the dull walls red, and it emits a shrill wail, so incongruous with the almost empty plant that Robinson jumps with surprise.

He steps back, and the alarm falls silent. He tries again, but the results are the same. He thinks carefully. He hasn't been in the control room yet, where he might possibly have absorbed some radiation. There is simply no cause for the alarm to be going off unless something is wrong. He steps towards the machine one last time, holding his breath. This time, nothing happens. He chuckles to himself and makes a mental note to inform his superiors of the faulty machine. Then, he carries on down the corridor to brush his teeth. At just after 7.30am, he begins his work, which today entails monitoring the efficiency of newly modified Reactor 1. A few hours later he happens to be passing that same corridor and that same yowling machine,

and finds a line of disgruntled workers. Puzzled, he asks one of the men for his shoe and takes it to a laboratory to run a few tests. The results are surprising. The shoe is emitting radioactive elements not normally found at Forsmark. Robinson's first thought is nuclear war. He quickly phones his boss, who passes the news to the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority. The plant is evacuated, and Robinson along with the other workers are herded into the

hastily erected tents for monitoring. Once they're cleared, they stand at a distance, stamping their feet and rubbing their hands together to keep warm. They watch as a team of men in bright yellow hazmat suits scurry around the site like a colony of ants. The handheld dosimeters they carry confirm that there is a higher level of radiation than normal, though it's quickly apparent that the contamination is not the fault of the plant or its workers. In the next few hours, other Scandinavian nuclear plants begin reporting the same strange contamination.

It's hypothesized that, thanks to a brisk wind, the dangerous particles may be coming from abroad, namely from the southeast, from the Soviet Union. When inquiries are made, the Soviets deny any knowledge of a nuclear disaster. They are unsure why Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland are experiencing these problems, but are terse in their communication that it is not their problem. It isn't until a few days later that the Soviets finally release details of what happened at Chernobyl.

At first, the facts are scant and the incident is downplayed. Officials don't want to show their hands to the rest of the world. But as deadly radiation is blown towards Europe, pressure builds. What happened at Chernobyl is considered now to be the worst nuclear disaster in history. Although only 31 people lost their lives within the first few days, the long-term impact is still the subject of bitter disagreement. Poisonous radiation is thought to have caused thousands of casualties. And the clean-up cost billions of pounds, in the Soviet Union and beyond.

Even now, the exclusion zone is one of the most polluted and heavily patrolled regions in the world. But what caused the catastrophe in the first place? Why did the Soviet Union try to keep it a secret? And what impact would the events of this remote region have on the Soviet Union and the wider world in the years to come? I'm Paul McGann, and this is a short history of Chernobyl. The idea of a nuclear power plant in Ukraine is first voiced by Oleksandr Sherban,

deputy head of the Ukrainian government, in 1965. The previous year saw the launch of two more nuclear power stations in neighboring Russia, the largest state in the USSR which governs the Ukrainian Republic. Now Sherban lobbies for Ukraine to have its own electricity-generating facilities as a matter of economic efficiency. Thankfully, Moscow agrees, and, though they cannot grant him the three stations he requests, they do allow him one.

A year later a committee is formed, with the express purpose of locating a suitable site for the plant. Sixteen locations are proposed, but they quickly settle on an area near Kopachi in the northwest of Ukraine. It's far enough away from populated towns and cities, and close enough to the Pripyat River, which would be essential for the plant's day-to-day running. The committee appoint Viktor Brukhanov, a 35-year-old Uzbek engineer, to oversee the construction of the plant. Serhii Plohi is author of Chernobyl, History of a Tragedy.

Bryukhanov is a young engineer and young manager who has experience working at one of such plants in Ukraine. And what is especially attractive about him is that he not only had at that point experience working at the power stations, coal power stations, but also he had experience of building new facilities. And that's what they want. They want a young person open who can learn on the job and who has experience both working in the energy sector and in the construction industry. And he takes the job. Brykhanov is also in charge of the infrastructure needed for the plant's workers. A town called Pripyat is built approximately three kilometers to the northwest of the plant. The budget for the town is almost unlimited, and so the workers at Chernobyl

live in relative luxury compared to other towns in the Soviet Union. Local shops give access to sought-after foods like cheese and bread on wide boulevards lined with brightly colored flowers. As the town grows, it even boasts an Olympic-standard swimming pool. As the town grows, it even boasts an Olympic-standard swimming pool. After seven years of construction, the completion of the first reactor is a day of celebration. Famous faces from the Soviet regime descend on Chernobyl, keen to join in the merriment. Agents from the KGB, Russia's secret police, patrol the site, keen to make sure that the day runs smoothly. As the cameras flash, Brukhanov smiles, happy and relieved. He knows that the price of failure would have been dismissal from his role, or worse, incarceration in one of the Soviet Union's

infamous Gulag prisons. Despite missing the deadline for completion by almost two years, Despite missing the deadline for completion by almost two years, today he receives praise and gratitude from his superiors. But already, they are keen to make sure that he knows Reactor One is just the start of the project. Later in the day, finally alone, Vukanov roams the concrete corridors of the plant that he has created. He marvels at the sheer scale of it, running a hand along the recently painted pale green walls. He is rightly proud, but there are aspects that he is not so pleased with.

He notices that some of the doorways have been installed at an odd angle. Bent nails protrude from walls, snagging his jacket and tearing the material. He's able to shrug these off as simple eyesores, problems that won't affect the day-to-day running of the plant. But as he gazes up at the reactor, he's filled with worry. Soviet authorities charged KGB with the task of monitoring the quality of work that was done on the reactors in particular. And they were reporting about all sorts of violations of the technological rules,

using the wrong type of the, let's say, concrete to build the reactor and so on and so forth. But the main problem was not even that. The main problem was that Russian to launch the reactors before a particular deadline. A number of things were not done, were not completed. Despite Bukhanov's misgivings about the readiness of the plant, it signed off as satisfactory and he becomes its director of operations. about the readiness of the plant, it signed off as satisfactory, and he becomes its director of operations. Under his stewardship, it takes just four years to connect three more reactors to the grid.

Officially named the Vladimir Lenin Nuclear Power Plant, after the founder of the USSR, the facility performs well. Moscow's propaganda machine wastes no time in exploiting its success, proclaiming it to be one of the best in the industry. It generates approximately 10% of all Ukraine's electricity. But despite its high standing in Moscow, accidents and malfunctions are common. Moscow, accidents and malfunctions are common. In 1982, a faulty cooling valve causes a partial meltdown in reactor one. No one is killed, but a dangerous amount of radiation is released into

the atmosphere. The Soviets, though, have no intention of publicizing their shortcomings, and details of the accident do not come to light until many years later. It takes eight months to make the reactor operational again. In 1985, the plant overfulfills its production quota by nearly 10%. It's an amazing accomplishment, achieved in part by reducing the time allotted for repairs. With planned maintenance of Reactor 4 on the horizon, Vukanov decides that essential small fixes can wait until then. It's a risky strategy,

but no one feels the pressure from Moscow more than he does. Though he can't know it yet, only six months later, the decision will prove to be a costly one. It's 11pm on April 25th, 1986. Anatoly Dyatlov, the 55-year-old deputy chief engineer of the Chernobyl plant, hurries into the bustling control room of unit four he tucks his gray hair into the regulation white cap and fastens the buttons

on his matching gown expecting the turbine test to have finished earlier in the day he demands a progress report from a subordinate he's told that while various minor shutdowns have been performed as requested, the test had been postponed earlier in the day due to a power outage at another plant. He's unsurprised, yet still annoyed. He'd expected to spend an easy night shift, monitoring the after-effects of the checks, and clearing some paperwork. Instead, the preparations for the test are only just getting underway again,

and the room is a flurry of activity. Superiors hurry around barking orders to their teams, which are dutifully carried out. While Dyatlov casts his eyes over to the vast grey control console with its 4,000 dials and displays, his second-in-command, Akimov, is ready to begin the procedure. He carefully lowers the power output of the reactor so that the turbine test can finally begin. Suddenly, a red light flashes on one of the control panels. Inexplicably, the water supply to the reactor has fallen, causing power to drop rapidly. Engineers scramble to stabilize the dying reactor. They quickly stem the loss, but the power output continues to fluctuate every few minutes. They're unable to keep it at the required level to commence the test.

Dyatlov though, is in no mood to postpone yet again. The operation is already behind schedule, and he will never hear the end of it from his superiors if it's delayed further. He orders the emergency signals to be overwritten, and for more water to be pumped into the reactor. Despite the flashing warning signs and silenced emergency alarms, Akimov also believes that the test can still go ahead. He orders the operators to begin.

At 1.23 a.m. on April 26, 1986, the turbine test of Chernobyl's reactor No. 4 commences. Immediately, the power output skyrockets. Countless alarms are triggered, and the room erupts with workers shouting out the unprecedented readings on their consoles. After only 36 seconds, Akimov orders an emergency shutdown. His assistant rushes across the room and slams his hand on the circular red button. One hundred and seventy-eight control rods move automatically into the heart of the reactor. They're made of boron and should help to stabilize the spiraling reactor.

But the tips of the control rods are graphite, a volatile material normally used to provoke a nuclear reaction. Akimov watches the dial that displays the reactor's power. The quivering needle jumps to ten times the normal output. Inside the reactor, thousands of litres of water reach boiling point in a matter of seconds, producing an enormous amount of steam. Steam with nowhere to go. go. In nearby Pripyat, 23-year-old Lieutenant Vladimir Pravik is sitting at his desk in

the fire service headquarters. The night shift has been quiet, so he's taking advantage of the time to write a letter to his wife, who's living elsewhere while she studies. Pravik is just asking after his two-week-old daughter when two loud blasts shatter his concentration. The first explosion, really what it did, it completely destroyed the fuel channels. Then the second explosion followed, which apparently was much more powerful. And we know that for sure because we know that from the memoirs of the operators. Pravik gets to his feet, the letter forgotten, and rushes to the window.

He watches as a fireball explodes to the southeast, the exact direction of the Chernobyl power plant. explodes to the southeast, the exact direction of the Chernobyl power plant. A dark mushroom cloud blossoms into the star-filled sky as he and his crew rush to their fire trucks. It takes five minutes for the fire crew to arrive at Chernobyl. As they drive up the wide road towards the plant, it's not immediately obvious where the problem lies. There is no sign of the fire. Unit 1 and 2 loom above them, rounding these monoliths. They are met with a fearsome sight.

What they saw was that there was no part of the building that housed the reactor. But other than that, they didn't know much. Their first task was to figure out what happened, where the fire was. And that was Pravik's task. And he then, once he realized that the main danger at that point was the machine hall, the roof of the machine hall, was half of that was destroyed, half of that was on fire. And there was a lot of oil and other inflammable substances in the machine hall. So through the machine hall, the fire could go to reactor number three, reactor number two, reactor number one.

So potentially there could be accidents at other reactors as well. So that was the absolute priority, and that's what Pravik was dealing with. This is bad news, of course, but nothing worse than what Pravik has had to deal with elsewhere in the past. At this point it appears to be simply another fire, albeit a big one. Teams are assigned to the machine hall roof. Once that's looked after, attention turns elsewhere. Once Pravik was able to put his people in the key positions on the roof and around the machine hall, he got closer to reactor number four. He went there to help his fellow firefighters.

And that was the roof of reactor number three, right at the place where the roof of reactor number four used to be. So they were able to look really into the exploded reactor number four and got enormous, enormous levels of radiation. When further backup crews arrive from Kiev three hours later, they find the first responders in bad shape. Some are complaining about a metallic taste in their mouths. Others are vomiting where they stand. Soon, the wailing of sirens can be heard in the distance.

Before long, ambulances start to arrive. Firefighters are reluctantly dragged away from the scene. They're loaded onto metal gurneys and driven at speed to the hospital in Pripyat. Among the stricken men is Vladimir Pravik. He feels dizzy and nauseous, drenched in sweat. But worse than that is the dawning recognition of what the symptoms mean. He spends the night in a hospital bed. Pins and needles torment his skin, and his eyes are almost swollen shut. But apart from this, his condition is stable, and doctors are happy. He even manages to doze off for a few hours. At 7am, he's awoken by a raucous cheer.

Several of his fellow firefighters are standing at the windows. Gingerly getting out of bed, he hobbles over to see that in the distance, the flames have died away. Brimming with relief, he adds his hoarse voice to the battle cry. They've won. But, back at the Chernobyl site,

spirits among the operators are not so high. Vukanov receives a phone call in the middle of the night and is asked to make his way to the plant. This is not standard practice. It tells him that something has gone monumentally wrong. According to his own recollections, the moment when he approached the plant and he saw the amount of damage that was done, his first thought was that he would end up in prison for that. And probably that thought also very much dominated his behavior

because he was, under normal circumstances, not very talkative. Now, during that night, it was difficult really to get much out of him. Evacuation of Pripyat, a town of 45,000 people, is discussed early on. But initial data shows that the amount of radiation leaking from the damaged reactor isn't overly concerning. Not wishing to appear alarmist, the hastily assembled disaster committee decides not to evacuate. It's not until much later that those first readings,

recorded by poor quality dosimeters, are revealed to be wildly inaccurate. At 9pm on the evening of April 26th, the committee is forced to reconsider. Three violent explosions, caused by further nuclear reactions in the core of the reactor, send ruined fuel rods and glowing chunks of graphite high into the air. It may look like a rather spectacular firework show to the people of Pripyat, but to the scientists, it's a warning shot they can no longer ignore. 36 hours after the initial explosion, on the afternoon of April 27th, a song on the radio is interrupted.

Those walking the streets of Pripyat or enjoying coffee with friends in the town square can hear the same announcement, booming from one of the many speakers that have been hastily erected during the night. A calm female voice tells the residents of Pripyat that, due to the events at Chernobyl, the city is being temporarily evacuated. Once the evacuation was announced, the majority of the people certainly followed the instructions. And the instructions were that they were living just for two or three days. And they were asked to take only absolute necessity, money, documents, and food for the first occasion, maybe for one snack or two snacks or something like that. And the biggest concern at that point was that the animals were not allowed on the buses that were evacuating people. So people were either trying to smuggle cats under their coats

or were trying to figure out how a dog would survive for three days without people being around. Some are even looking forward to it. Others were thinking that, OK, this is a wonderful opportunity to have a three-day break. The weather was very warm and very nice, and they were moving people into the nearby villages. So some people were looking at that as a wonderful opportunity

to spend additional three days outdoors. Despite the urgency, families enter buses in an orderly fashion. An hour after the announcement, 1,125 buses set off from street corners around the city. By 4.30pm, the evacuation is complete. While Pripyat empties, the quest to tame the damaged reactor at Chernobyl begins. The quest to tame the damaged reactor at Chernobyl begins As night falls, a black military helicopter hovers over Unit 4

Its door slides open and one of the crew leans out The dense smoke billowing from the reactor stings his eyes and the stench of burning fuel reaches his nostrils He heaves a heavy Hessian sack filled with sand and boron from the floor and drops it blindly in the direction of the reactor. The intention is to neutralize the reactions inside Unit 4 by preventing cool air from reaching the burning fuel. Over the next few days, the helicopters keep coming,

dropping bag after bag. But it's not until the operation is called off eight days later that scientists realize that instead of fixing the problem, they've created a new one. Though only an estimated one in five of the bags actually hit their target, those that do have insulated the reactor, raising the temperature even higher. This, coupled with the water pumped into the destroyed reactor by the firefighters, means that an explosion is highly likely. An explosion so powerful that it would most likely wipe out the whole of Europe. Plans on how to avoid a 3 to 5 megaton blast are drawn up in Moscow.

Everyone involved believes that solving this problem equates to a suicide mission. Even so, workers from the plant are asked to volunteer. They're offered monetary incentives and the promise that their families will be cared for. Despite the overwhelming odds against their own survival, three men step forward. It's the 4th of May, 1986. Alexei Aninenko, a 26-year-old mechanical engineer at the plant, fights his way into a snug-fitting wetsuit. He checks his torch is working before leaving the makeshift tent and crossing a patch of rough concrete littered with weeds. At a corrugated iron door he stands alongside his colleagues, Valery Baspalov and Boris Baranov. He turns his face to

the sky, wondering if this will be the last time he will feel the sun on it. The enormity of the task has certainly been made clear. The men must locate a specific pipe and release a valve in order to drain the water below the reactor. If they fail, and the radioactive material reacts with the water, it would trigger an explosion of unprecedented scale. They pass around a bottle of vodka, each taking a hearty swig. Then, pulling their gas masks over their faces. They disappear into the darkness. Aninenko leads the way.

He climbs carefully down a set of rusting steps until he reaches the basement. The water is knee-deep, and as he sloshes through the radioactive liquid, his decimeter crackles constantly. He checks the reading to find that after less than a minute, it has already reached the maximum level. He slips it back onto his belt and decides to ignore it. The beam of his torch illuminates a cavernous space and sweeps over innumerable pipes. Methodically, the team check each one. As they travel deeper into the room, Bespalov's torch begins to flicker.

He knocks it gently against his thigh twice, but the beam fades and then dies away completely. Now the task is even more difficult. The heat is stifling. Sweat pools on their foreheads and fogs their gas masks. The three men pick up the pace. They rule out pipe after pipe and, against all odds, eventually find what they need. Breathless they begin twisting the valves.

Their muscles ache, but they carry on. Eventually, they're rewarded by the hiss of escaping water. Ananenko sags in relief. They've done it. He signals that it's time to go, and leads them back towards the steps. They use the rickety banister to pull themselves up to ground level, and Annenenkel hammers on the door three times. The door is pulled open,

and the men spill out onto the concrete plaza, to a cacophony of applause. But no one is under any illusions about what the trio's act of heroism might have done to their bodies. After a moment of quiet, about what the trio's act of heroism might have done to their bodies. After a moment of quiet, they pulled to their feet and hurried to a waiting ambulance. Incredibly, the men, dubbed the Chernobyl Divers by a rapt media, would go on to live long, healthy lives.

But jubilation at avoiding a world-threatening explosion is short-lived. Soon enough, another problem, known as China Syndrome, comes to the fore. China Syndrome, it comes from an inside joke within the nuclear industry. The scenario envisioned by China Syndrome is that the active zone of the reactor can burn its way through the earth and then emerge on the other side of the globe, going through the center of the earth. And the other side of the globe has been imagined as China. So the accident that happens, let's say in the US or something like that, ends up also affecting what is happening in China. Outside of this use for

this term as a joke, the term acquired also a different meaning. And what that meant was that the radiation and the active zone of the reactor, it burns its way to the level of the underground waters and poisons, irradiates the water. And the water then gets into the rivers and through rivers gets into the seas and gets into the oceans. A plan is put in place. They will construct a thick concrete platform under the reactor in order to keep the contaminated

water from seeping through into the river. On May 14th, close to 400 miners, summoned from all over Ukraine, gather at Chernobyl. They begin digging a tunnel underneath reactor 4. But after three weeks of uncontrolled reaction, the site is critically unstable. The use of machinery is too dangerous. Every ounce of earth must be excavated by hand. The arduous work rips fingernails and blisters weathered skin. But the men understand the stakes and work through the pain.

Temperatures in the tunnels reach 50 degrees centigrade. A foreman, drenched in sweat and worried about his team, asks a boss from Moscow for a mechanical fan. But the shaft is too precarious, and his request is denied. When that same superior comes to check progress an hour later, he is confronted by the sight of 200 burly miners, completely naked. He walks away, delegating to one of his comrades, effective immediately. When the tunnel is complete, pipes are installed on its walls.

They bulge and threaten to break free from their supports as ton after ton of concrete passes through them. Before long, a concrete platform is erected underground to help support Reactor 4. To bolster this defense, 25 tons of liquid nitrogen are injected underneath the reactor every day to freeze the soil. Once scientists are happy that China Syndrome is no longer an imminent threat, they begin to think about the clear-up of the heavily contaminated area around the plant.

Close to 600,000 men are drafted in to help. Most of them are from the Soviet army and barely have time to say goodbye to their families. Forests around the plant are torn down in order to eliminate flora and fauna from the food chain. Thousands of men with shovels scrape off the top layer of soil and bury the contamination several feet below ground. Animals, both wild and domesticated, are also destroyed. The work is hard, not just physically, but emotionally. The most challenging part of the cleanup takes place on the roof of Reactor 3.

There, men are tasked with shoveling pieces of radioactive graphite and tossing them to the ground below. Each person can only collect one piece of debris to avoid being subjected to a catastrophic dose of radiation. Knowing the risks, they wear lead aprons and an additional piece of lead inserted between two layers of underwear to protect their genitals. In many cases, though, the precautions are inadequate. Those who die are wrapped in plastic sheets and laid to rest in zinc coffins. They're lowered into mass graves and covered with layers of cement. Their grieving families get no chance to say goodbye.

By the end of May, radiation at the site is still perilously high. A structure is planned around the reactor to help contain it. First, a layer of concrete is laid over the contaminated ground. Then a thick concrete wall is built around the reactor. It won't be until the end of November 1986, six months after the initial explosion, that the sarcophagus is complete. Close to 200,000 men are believed to have played some part in the construction process. As the construction teams pack up and leave, radiation levels in the area will be monitored.

Officials in Moscow will be pleased that the structure seems to be doing its job. This, however, is the only thing they'll be happy about. In February 1986, a few months before the Chernobyl disaster, Mikhail Gorbachev spoke at his first party conference as the new leader of the Soviet Union. He introduced the idea of glasnost, or openness. He conceded that in the past, the Soviet Union had been too secretive with information. As its new leader, he was willing to be more transparent

with not only his own citizens, but also the rest of the world. In the aftermath of the explosion, this sentiment comes back to haunt him. Even if the USSR refuses to admit the problem on the international stage, the truth can stay hidden only for so long. The fact that there were very high levels of radiation was first announced to the world, not by the Soviet Union, but by the authorities in Sweden. And then information started to come that the levels of radiation were high not only at the nuclear power plant, but in other parts of Sweden and in Finland as well. So

they looked at the direction of the wind, it became clear that something terrible happened on the territory of the Soviet Union. They turned to the Soviet counterparts and there was denial. So only on the third day, the Soviet media announced and made a very short-term announcement that an accident took place at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. And even after that, the information was really minimal. And that made a lot of people in Europe in particular quite upset. The response from the rest of Europe and further afield

is understandably one of frustration. West Germany immediately demands the closure of all nuclear power plants in the Soviet Union. Italy refuses to trade with Ukraine, forbidding them from docking at any Italian ports. US President Ronald Reagan offers his condolences to the people of Ukraine, but attacks Soviet decision-makers for their lack of communication. A radioactive catastrophe of this scale should not be considered an internal matter, he says, especially in the spirit of glasnost. Gorbachev started to reform the political system of the Soviet Union and allowed elements of glasnost or openness in the Soviet Union.

So among the first questions that people were asking were about Chernobyl, okay? Please show us the map. Tell us what really happened, who was responsible, but also, most importantly, how big is the danger to us, to our children, to our society, to our towns, to our cities, and that information was not forthcoming. Gorbachev does not take the criticism lightly. In a hastily arranged press conference, he hits back at Reagan. He declares that the radioactive

material thrown into the air by Chernobyl is minuscule compared to that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. In fact, the Chernobyl disaster deposits 400 times more radioactive material into the atmosphere than America's atomic bomb. Keen to show that he's doing something about Chernobyl, Gorbachev forms a working group with the express intention of appointing blame at the parties responsible for the disaster. A group of senior Soviet officials begin with a wide array of scenarios, though they quickly narrow it down to one. It's June the 29th, 1987. Viktor Bryukhanov,

former director of the plant, walks towards a squat building in the middle of the town square. Gone is the welcoming culture centre he helped design. Now, metal bars run the length of the windows and doors. He ascends the steps and takes his shoes off before handing them to a guard. The shoes are washed and returned to the former boss of the plant.

He reties his laces and enters the building, flanked by a pair of muscular armed guards. A dosimeter secured to the wall next to the courtroom door is crackling, and Prikhanov notices the high reading on its digital display. His complaints about the trial taking place so close to Chernobyl had fallen on deaf ears. Court cases must take place in the town of the alleged crime. He's led into a room he recognizes, but it's been changed from a friendly meeting space to a courtroom, smelling strongly of bleach. He maneuvers himself behind a long oak table and nods a quick greeting at his fellow defendants, engineers Nikolai Fomin and Anatoly Dyatlov.

Brukhanov is not feeling optimistic. He's spent almost a year in jail already, awaiting trial. For the last three weeks, he's listened to his supposed infractions and how he is to blame. He thinks of those control rods with their graphite tips that caused the explosion. Not for the first time, he wonders why it's him sitting here and not the reactor's designer.

In the heat of the makeshift courtroom, the Russian prosecution lawyer makes his final plea and the judge withdraws. It takes only a moment and the judge withdraws. It takes only a moment for the judge to make his decision, except it's not really his to make. Officials in Moscow have already made it for him. When he returns, he calls for attention and delivers his damning verdict. The three scientists are each given ten years in prison for their part in the disaster.

The journalists, huddled together at the back of the room, let out a collective gasp. Everyone had been expecting Brukhanov, Fomin and Dyatlov to serve time, but ten years? Many believe that this is Gorbachev's way of showing how seriously further infractions within the Soviet Union will be punished. Brukhanov is led away by prison guards and bundled into the back of a battered old van. As the engine rumbles to life and they trundle over uneven ground, he thinks of his family. His mother, who dropped dead of a heart attack on hearing on Soviet state media that her son was being blamed for the disaster His loving wife, who stood loyally by his side And his granddaughter, whom he is yet to meet He weeps as he's driven away to his new life at a penal colony in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine

penal colony in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine. In February 1989, almost three years after the accident, Gorbachev visits Chernobyl for the first time. During his tour he learns of another near-miss in a different reactor. The KGB staff responsible for the ongoing cleanup operation lay out the worrying state of play. The machinery is not sophisticated enough to deal with the levels of contamination. The bulldozers tasked with clearing the polluted soil are mixing it with the clean soil, contaminating it further. And the sarcophagus, built around the destroyed reactor 4, is sinking into the marshy ground. It's not a positive visit. And it's not information that the leader of the USSR wants to

share. This policy of secrecy, of complete secrecy about what happened. Because the Soviet Union was hiding the scope of the accident, the level of irradiation of the territory. Not only, and not so much from the outside world, as from its own people. News from Chernobyl leaks in the press. Dismayed by the continuing lack of openness from Moscow, organized rallies begin to take place all over the Soviet Union. Ecological groups in Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine gather in town squares and near nuclear power plants to protest against the

continued use of nuclear energy, and against Gorbachev himself. The rallies attract huge crowds, too big for even the KGB to disperse or control. The speakers communicate with such passion and verve that those gathered believe change is inevitable. And in March 1990, something truly momentous happens. The mobilization around those issues and anti-nuclear movement that came out of Chernobyl were a major contributing factor to the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Out of this anti-nuclear mobilization came the movement for independence of tiny Baltic Republic of Lithuania.

Why it is important? Because Lithuania was the first country, the first republic to declare its independence from the Soviet Union. Though the push for independence from the USSR has been gathering momentum, it's now that it reaches critical mass. Angered by both the risks they've been exposed to at the hands of Russia and the hypocritical reality of the promised glasnost, Lithuanians have had enough, and it's only the start. The anti-nuclear mobilization was also responsible, or was the first stage, of the movement of Ukraine toward independence.

Why Ukraine is important, not only because Chernobyl, of course, power plant, was and is on the territory of Ukraine. And Ukraine was one of the most affected republics of the Soviet Union. But also because that was the second largest Soviet republic in the USSR. Once Ukraine declared its independence, first in August of 1991, and then confirmed it through referendum in December of 1991, the Soviet Union was gone. So the impact that Lithuania and the importance of Lithuania and Ukraine toward the fall of the Soviet Union is almost impossible to overestimate. And in both cases, the first stage of this pro-independence movement was the anti-nuclear

stage, which was directly related to Chernobyl. Upon gaining its independence, change is almost immediate. In one of the first ballots as a country, Ukraine votes to ban the use of nuclear energy. It's a huge decision. Though another fire at Chernobyl in October 1991 suggests that it's the correct one. A number of the nuclear power plants that were under construction were stopped, of those nuclear power plants.

At least two or three. One of them was in Crimea at that time. And after Chernobyl, they stopped work there. But the rest of the reactors continued to work, but the idea was that they would be phased out within the next five years or maybe a little bit longer. The economic pressures of starting a country from scratch begin to take their toll. In 1993, the ban on nuclear power is reversed.

Builders and engineers are ordered to complete partially built reactors, despite the appeals of Western countries. They believe the world would be safer without the old Soviet-era reactors, and without Chernobyl. Although the President of Ukraine agrees, finances dictate that the country cannot be powered in any other way. So Chernobyl continues to generate electricity. To combat the lingering radioactivity, operators work shorter stints at the plant and drive

to homes beyond the exclusion zone when their shifts finish. They know that they are exposing themselves to huge amounts of radiation daily, but the pay is too good to refuse. For seven years, Western countries tried to chip away at Ukrainian leaders, imploring them to turn away from nuclear energy for the sake of the planet. Finally, at the turn of the millennium, a deal is struck. The last reactor was not shut down until the year 2000. That happened under enormous pressure coming from the West and Western governments.

European countries offer loans to Ukraine in order for them to shut down their nuclear program, starting with Chernobyl. So Ukrainians were saying that, OK, we're shutting down that reactor, we are losing one of the sources of energy and we need it. We are in a difficult economic situation. But for the West and for the nuclear industry as a whole, shutting down Chernobyl was symbolically a very important development. That was symbolically turning the page on that very terrible part of world history, but also history of the nuclear industry. Nuclear industry wanted to move forward

into the new century, into new millennium, without the shadow of Chernobyl over its future. Though the plant's operators argue that the upgrades have made it safe, by the end of 2000, the decommissioning of Chernobyl is announced. The world's leaders celebrate an important step in preventing another disaster of the magnitude of the 1986 meltdown. The plant duly closes, and aside from regular safety checks of the spent fuel

and cooling radioactive matter, is left unstaffed. The workers who patrolled its corridors and operated its unpredictable, poorly constructed reactors reluctantly move on to other industries and jobs. During the following decade, the concrete sarcophagus housing Reactor 4 falls into further disrepair. In 2010, construction begins on a more permanent, trustworthy structure. Officially dubbed the New Safe Confinement, the monumental arch takes eight years to build at an estimated cost of almost 3 billion euros.

Its thick steel walls should safely house the stricken reactor for at least the next century. Officially, only 31 deaths are directly attributed to Chernobyl. Many of those were technicians who were working in the plant on the night of the

catastrophe, or firefighters who bravely strode into the vicinity of the burning wreckage to do their duty. A law passed by the Soviet Union in 1988 decreed that Chernobyl could not be held responsible for any deaths from that date forward, despite the unknown effects of long-term radiation poisoning. The actual number of deaths attributable to the disaster may never be agreed upon. The number of people who died and will die from Chernobyl is very difficult to estimate. The numbers are anywhere from 4 to 5 thousand 5,000, all the way to 100,000, because we are dealing with low dosages of radiation, which affect our health in a different way.

So people don't die from the acute radiation sickness. People die from this cancer and that cancer and from other damage that radiation does to your health. The only numbers that we know for sure are the numbers of there was a spike in the number of the thyroid cancer among children and there the numbers are four thousand or more than four thousand again they're growing but again that's what everyone agrees on and that's something that we can count. But the history of Chernobyl is still being written. In 2014, the Russian invasion of Ukraine

brings soldiers within approximately 200 miles of the site. There is international outcry, and demands are made for their withdrawal. Eight years later, in 2022, the Russian army go a step further. takeover of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the Russians dug in trenches in the so-called Red Forest, one of the most contaminated areas there, being contaminated themselves. There's still more than 100 sources of irradiation, elements of irradiation, which are unaccounted for now.

The war cut the supply of electricity to the Chernobyl site, which endangered the cooling ponds with the spent fuel that comes from that reactor that was shut down in the year 2000. It still needs maintenance. It still needs electricity to be cooled down. This is 22 years after that reactor was shut down, and this is part of the normal procedure. So we will be living with that legacy for a long, long, long period of time, for generations. Despite the safety implementations, Chernobyl is still an unstable, volatile place. It's estimated that despite the cleanups and the containment efforts the site will remain uninhabitable for another 20,000 years Next time on Short History Of

we'll bring you a short history of the Terracotta Army None of this appear in history books. If you were to tell people that such existed, if some obscure literature mentioned such a thing, that they would be laughed off as some kind of piece of fantasy and no one would take it seriously. So that's why when they stumbled upon this terracotta army formation, it was a total, total surprise. Shock, in fact.

And no one saw it coming, and no one had any faintest idea of the magnitude of the formation. That's next time on Short History Of. of.