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A Soviet dream
that became a nightmare.

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A disaster
officials tried to cover up

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as a brave few battled to stop

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radiation spreading
across the globe.

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Using top secret Soviet documents...

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...and hearing from those
who risked everything...

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...this is the story of

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one of the world's worst
nuclear accidents.

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Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant —

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Reactor Number 4 is on fire.

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That was a picture worthy
of Dante Inferno.

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There had never been
a fire like this before.

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A long-overdue safety test
on Reactor Number 4

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has gone disastrously wrong.

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What had once been a 17—storey
building wasn't there any more.

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It's clear the reactor's finished.

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It's gone. It's in flames.

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The firefighters' hoses are actually
melting under the intense heat.

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The asphalt under their feet
was melting to...

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...sucking their boots off.

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The severe heat is the least
of the firefighters' problems.

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The firefighters who were first
on scene reported tasting

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a metallic taste in the air.

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And this was essentially particles

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of the nuclear fuel itself.

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As firefighters contend
with the radioactive inferno,

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the man in charge inside
the reactor's control room

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is deputy chief engineer
Anatoly Dyatlov.

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Dyatlov and his colleagues
in the control room are trying

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to make sense of
what's just happened.

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The control panel is telling Dyatlov

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there's no water
in the reactor system.

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That would be amazingly terrifying.

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I can't imagine what
that must have been like.

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You have to have constant supply
of very large amounts of water

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to keep the reactor cool,
or it will melt down.

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Imagine losing water
in your radiator in your car.

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The engine overheats,
the parts would...

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...distort, it would seize.

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The same thing happens
within a nuclear power plant.

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Dyatlov thinks his main priority
at this stage is to protect

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the reactor.

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Dyatlov orders the gates of
the coolant pipe valve to be opened

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to get more water into the reactor.

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One of the operatives from outside
comes running in and he's got

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what's called a nuclear tan —

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his face is red and burned
from exposure to radiation —

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and he tells Dyatlov that
the Unit 4 reactor has exploded.

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It's up in flames,
it's not there any more.

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Dyatlov flat-out refuses
to believe him.

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He just... He can't acknowledge
the possibility that something

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so terrible has happened.

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He was in a state of denial.

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Just imagine you can be responsible
for what happened.

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And Dyatlov just carries on.

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Even though the reactor he's trying
to save no longer exists.

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25 minutes after the explosion,

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making his way to Chernobyl
is the power plant's director,

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Viktor Brukhanov.

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Brukhanov receives a phone call
at home and he's told there's

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been an accident at the plant.

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He's not told how serious it is,

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so he doesn't really have
a huge sense of urgency.

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He actually takes the bus
to the plant.

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Engineer Nikolai Steinberg worked
at Chernobyl under Brukhanov.

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Brukhanov has been plant director
here since construction started

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in 1970, and he's been looking
forward to the day Chernobyl

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is completed and he will preside
over the largest nuclear power plant

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in the Soviet Union.

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But now he sees the wreckage
of the Unit 4 reactor glowing red.

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One of his first thoughts
that went through his mind was,

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"This is prison."

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He would be kept responsible,

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and that sooner or later
he would end in prison.

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Part of the rules of the game
within the Soviet managerial system

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since Stalin's times, that
the director would be always

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certainly kept responsible for...

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...for what happened.

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He retreats to what's known
as the bunker, a safe room,

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as it were, underground.

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Built at the height of the Cold War

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as a shelter in case of
nuclear attack by the West,

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now it will act as a crisis centre

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for the worst nuclear disaster
in history.

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Here, Brukhanov is soon joined
by the power plant's

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resident officer from
the security services, the KGB.

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They were the government watchdog,
really, performing the role

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of the nuclear regulator.

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Serious questions
need to be answered.

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On the other side of the site,

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the fire around Reactor 4
is still raging.

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Fighting the fire was
a constant danger but, of course,

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the radiation was
a much worse danger for them.

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This huge fire would spray extremely
radioactive material into the air.

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The fuel itself, the uranium fuel,
was getting blasted up onto the bits

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of the roof that survived.

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It's estimated that on
parts of the destroyed roof,

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radiation is 16 times stronger
than a fatal dose.

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The problem with radioactivity
is that you can't see it.

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You don't know you're being
exposed to it until much later.

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The firefighters are realising
this is no normal fire.

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Many are starting to vomit.

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They can't go on any more.
More firemen come in,

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more firemen go on the roof.
Same thing.

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So there's a conveyor belt
of people going up there

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and exposing themselves.

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In the bunker, Brukhanov is told

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radiation readings at the plant
are off the scale.

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He refused to accept the high levels
of radiation that were given to him.

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Everyone describes Brukhanov
to be really depressed at that time.

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High levels meant...

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actually, high level of
responsibility for what happened.

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Brukhanov had a very difficult
phone call to make to Moscow.

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It was convenient for him
to believe that

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"Maybe it's not as bad
as we think it is."

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Brukhanov orders water to be put
into the system to save the reactor.

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There was nothing to save any more.

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Senior reactor control engineer
Leonid Toptunov is the man

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trying to fulfil this order.

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Leonid Toptunov was
a young engineer,

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he was 25 years old
and relatively inexperienced.

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It's one of the reasons why he
was on the night shift,

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because that's where you gained your
spurs, as it were.

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It was only the third month
that he was on that job.

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It came with prestige,

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it came with his high salary,

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and so he was living...
living his life dream.

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Toptunov heads deep
into the smouldering plant.

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Radiation levels here are now
100,000 times higher than normal.

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It could kill a person
in just four minutes.

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Five hours after an explosion
at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

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In the daylight, it becomes clear
this accident is catastrophic.

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The reactor's nuclear core
is exposed,

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and sending smoke into the air.

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Inside the smoke from the fire
were particles

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of nuclear fuel itself.

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So the actual
very radioactive material

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inside of the reactor core

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was emitted as smoke.

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Toxic radiation thousands of times
higher than normal background levels

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is spreading far beyond the plant.

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The town of Pripyat,
two miles from the power plant.

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It's a normal, normal day, a spring
day with lots of people being about.

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Among them was
electrical engineer Vladimir Kagan.

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There are lots of children about,
weddings taking place.

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And they, of course, are absolutely
unaware of the catastrophe

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that has already happened
and of the danger that they're in.

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At the power plant,

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senior reactor control engineer
Leonid Toptunov and his foremen

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are on a doomed mission.

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They're following orders to get
water into the reactor system

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to prevent nuclear meltdown.

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If there's no reactor left,
there is no point in actually

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adding water to that area.

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But the electrics have failed,

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so they're doing the job manually.

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That's where they got
really hit by radiation.

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Being very sick, already vomiting.

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Despite this,
the men refused to give up.

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Their conduct after the explosion

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is really, truly heroic.

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That they are prepared to sacrifice

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everything they've got,
including their lives.

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They turn on the valves, allow
more water to flow into the reactor.

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But, of course,
it's all to no avail.

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The reactor's not there any more.

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But in the process, what they are
doing is they're exposing themselves

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to what turn out to be
fatal levels of radiation.

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In less than three weeks,

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Toptunov would be dead.

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At Pripyat Hospital,

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the steady flow of plant workers
and firefighters arriving

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from Chernobyl is increasing.

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They now had around 90 patients,
all suffering from something

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the doctors had never
encountered before —

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radiation sickness.

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If you get a big dose of radiation,

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it's got enough energy
to damage DNA.

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The reason it's called
radiation sickness is because

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one of the first symptoms
is vomiting,

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because the cells of this
lining of your digestive system

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replicate rapidly
and they're vulnerable to radiation.

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After the initial vomiting,
other symptoms develop,

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like hair loss, fever
and radiation burns.

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For some of them, it probably
would have been palliative care,

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because there wasn't
much else you could do.

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But even those patients
who weren't beyond help

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didn't get the treatment they needed.

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Civilian hospitals in the Soviet
Union are not prepared for the kind

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of disaster that the Chernobyl
explosion produces.

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This is not just because
they haven't got the resources

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or they're underfunded.

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They're not permitted to even accept
the possibility that a disaster

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like this could happen.

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Nearly 10 hours after the accident.

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Tanker trucks start
spraying the streets of Pripyat.

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This detergent is supposed to absorb
the radioactive material

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00:16:36,322 --> 00:16:39,578
from Chernobyl that's already
reached the town.

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00:16:46,123 --> 00:16:49,888
But the people of Pripyat,
going about their Saturday morning,

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have been told nothing
about the accident.

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00:16:52,913 --> 00:16:55,658
The Soviet Union wanted
to keep a lid on this.

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00:16:55,683 --> 00:16:57,858
They didn't want to tell
anybody about that.

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00:16:57,883 --> 00:17:01,497
And that applied both to the West,
but also to their own citizens.

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They couldn't control radiation,
so they were trying

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to control the information.

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00:17:11,442 --> 00:17:15,417
There was a ring of steel
imposed around Pripyat.

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00:17:15,442 --> 00:17:19,458
If anyone tried to leave the city,
they wouldn't have had much joy.

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00:17:19,483 --> 00:17:23,497
They cut down almost immediately
the telephone communication

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between the city of Pripyat
and the outside world.

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00:17:29,733 --> 00:17:32,247
The Soviet Union didn't do bad news.

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00:17:34,883 --> 00:17:37,068
Catastrophes, accidents,

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nuclear disasters didn't happen
in the Soviet Union.

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00:17:39,243 --> 00:17:40,348
They may happen abroad,

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00:17:40,373 --> 00:17:42,627
they may happen in
capitalist countries,

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00:17:42,652 --> 00:17:44,497
but not in the Soviet Union.

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00:17:47,683 --> 00:17:51,938
To keep their totalitarian grip,
the Soviet Communist government

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00:17:51,963 --> 00:17:55,167
need to maintain their
apparent invincibility.

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00:18:02,652 --> 00:18:05,218
But word is starting to spread
around Pripyat

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00:18:05,243 --> 00:18:07,348
about an accident at the plant.

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00:18:13,652 --> 00:18:15,247
The operators who worked there,

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00:18:15,272 --> 00:18:17,818
they were coming back and they were
talking to their families.

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00:18:17,843 --> 00:18:21,528
Some people already knew
that something bad happened.

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00:18:42,123 --> 00:18:45,018
The security services
need to take action.

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00:18:46,483 --> 00:18:49,888
Secret documents reveal
how they ensured silence.

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00:18:51,192 --> 00:18:54,627
The KGB reports that measures
have been taken to prevent

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00:18:54,652 --> 00:18:57,416
the spread of information
about the accident,

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00:18:57,441 --> 00:19:00,335
and dissemination of
panic-causing rumours.

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00:19:03,280 --> 00:19:06,846
Panic is a euphemism for
people learning the truth.

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00:19:08,201 --> 00:19:12,455
KGB was considered
to be all-powerful organisation,

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with ears and eyes everywhere.

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00:19:15,691 --> 00:19:19,585
It didn't take much to convince
the population

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00:19:19,610 --> 00:19:22,696
that they had to be
really very careful.

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00:19:22,721 --> 00:19:27,536
No-one is to find out what happened
earlier that night at Chernobyl.

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00:19:49,921 --> 00:19:52,646
Moscow, more than 400 miles away

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00:19:52,671 --> 00:19:56,136
from the Chernobyl
Nuclear Power Plant.

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00:19:56,161 --> 00:19:58,646
A report about the accident
arrives for the leader

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00:19:58,671 --> 00:20:01,366
of the Soviet Union,
Mikhail Gorbachev.

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00:20:03,490 --> 00:20:07,646
When Mikhail Gorbachev came
to power in March of 1985,

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00:20:07,671 --> 00:20:09,295
he was quite different.

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00:20:11,211 --> 00:20:15,776
He was talking the talk of change
and reform and opening up.

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00:20:18,641 --> 00:20:20,936
The introduction of glasnost —

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or openness, as it is sometimes
translated into English.

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The state invited
citizens' participation

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00:20:28,671 --> 00:20:32,415
in voicing their concern
about problems in the economy,

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00:20:32,440 --> 00:20:34,545
in society, and
how to overcome them.

246
00:20:38,110 --> 00:20:40,776
Gorbachev really looked
like a Western leader.

247
00:20:40,801 --> 00:20:43,616
He talked and behaved
like a Western leader.

248
00:20:43,641 --> 00:20:45,826
And he was the man
that Margaret Thatcher said

249
00:20:45,851 --> 00:20:47,415
that she could do business with.

250
00:20:51,671 --> 00:20:55,106
Despite Gorbachev's calls
for honesty and openness,

251
00:20:55,131 --> 00:20:59,295
when the report from Chernobyl
arrives, it tells him virtually

252
00:20:59,320 --> 00:21:01,576
nothing of what actually happened.

253
00:21:02,751 --> 00:21:06,136
If you read that document, it looks
like, yes, something bad happened,

254
00:21:06,161 --> 00:21:11,056
but all the bad, mostly,
was in the past, that the radiation

255
00:21:11,081 --> 00:21:13,776
levels were low, manageable,

256
00:21:13,801 --> 00:21:15,366
the fire extinguished.

257
00:21:19,360 --> 00:21:20,766
Those who were reporting to him

258
00:21:20,791 --> 00:21:23,076
were hoping that
they could localise the incident.

259
00:21:23,101 --> 00:21:25,796
This is a very famous
Soviet euphemism

260
00:21:25,821 --> 00:21:28,156
for not telling the whole truth.

261
00:21:31,901 --> 00:21:35,126
We can deal with this without
it getting to the very top,

262
00:21:35,151 --> 00:21:37,596
and therefore all of us
getting into a lot of trouble.

263
00:21:41,901 --> 00:21:44,766
But the Chernobyl disaster
is so huge

264
00:21:44,791 --> 00:21:47,516
it would prove impossible to hide.

265
00:22:01,510 --> 00:22:03,596
200 miles north of Chernobyl.

266
00:22:06,580 --> 00:22:09,355
On the day that
the Chernobyl disaster happened,

267
00:22:09,380 --> 00:22:11,516
I was in Minsk, in Belarus.

268
00:22:11,541 --> 00:22:12,636
I was in school.

269
00:22:14,791 --> 00:22:17,435
I was only nine years old,
but I remember that day well

270
00:22:17,460 --> 00:22:19,666
because an extraordinary thing
happened.

271
00:22:19,691 --> 00:22:22,796
When I was sitting with the rest of
my classmates in the classroom,

272
00:22:22,821 --> 00:22:26,956
the door opened and my mum asked
if she could take me home.

273
00:22:28,101 --> 00:22:32,485
My father happened to work at
the Institute of Nuclear Research

274
00:22:32,510 --> 00:22:34,355
near Minsk.

275
00:22:34,380 --> 00:22:38,276
The institute detected some
extraordinary levels of radiation,

276
00:22:38,301 --> 00:22:43,156
and my father telephoned my mum
and asked her to bring me home,

277
00:22:43,181 --> 00:22:45,956
close windows and clean our shoes.

278
00:22:51,771 --> 00:22:56,355
With radiation continuing to pour
out of the reactor, the government

279
00:22:56,380 --> 00:22:58,636
in Moscow will be forced to act...

280
00:23:06,301 --> 00:23:09,305
...but in Pripyat,
life carries on as usual.

281
00:23:26,941 --> 00:23:29,796
Then, a day and a half
after the accident...

282
00:24:31,871 --> 00:24:36,516
The residents of Pripyat were told
the city was being evacuated.

283
00:24:36,541 --> 00:24:40,156
They were given one hour
to collect together some belongings,

284
00:24:40,181 --> 00:24:43,666
a couple of clays' worth of clothing,
their identity papers,

285
00:24:43,691 --> 00:24:47,435
and told to assemble at
various points throughout the city

286
00:24:47,460 --> 00:24:49,666
where buses had been laid on
to take them away.

287
00:25:17,510 --> 00:25:22,076
In just four hours, the entire
population of Pripyat

288
00:25:22,101 --> 00:25:23,406
would be evacuated.

289
00:25:42,431 --> 00:25:44,046
This was much too late.

290
00:25:44,071 --> 00:25:48,766
People had already been exposed
to very large amounts of radiation.

291
00:25:50,901 --> 00:25:55,126
Nobody knows how many people died
as a result of that delay.

292
00:26:05,941 --> 00:26:07,796
As Pripyat began to empty,

293
00:26:07,821 --> 00:26:11,126
a helicopter is taking off
on a special mission.

294
00:26:13,901 --> 00:26:18,586
It was pretty quickly clear
that spraying water into the reactor

295
00:26:18,611 --> 00:26:21,196
was not going to put out
these fires.

296
00:26:23,791 --> 00:26:27,196
So they decided that
they would have to smother the fire.

297
00:26:27,221 --> 00:26:30,766
And the only way to do that
was to bring in helicopters.

298
00:26:32,301 --> 00:26:36,666
Each helicopter has to lift
a small portion of the 50,000 bags

299
00:26:36,691 --> 00:26:39,716
of sand it's estimated
will be needed to drop them

300
00:26:39,741 --> 00:26:41,305
into the reactor core.

301
00:26:43,330 --> 00:26:45,946
These were military trained
helicopter pilots,

302
00:26:45,971 --> 00:26:47,766
so they knew what they were doing.

303
00:26:47,791 --> 00:26:49,406
They were very skilled.

304
00:26:50,741 --> 00:26:54,225
And, of course,
they were very brave.

305
00:26:54,250 --> 00:26:57,916
Captain Alexander Maruhin flew
alongside other helicopter pilots

306
00:26:57,941 --> 00:27:00,475
who were trying to put out the fire.

307
00:28:26,380 --> 00:28:29,406
It was a very risky undertaking.

308
00:28:29,431 --> 00:28:31,766
They had to fly low because
they were dropping material

309
00:28:31,791 --> 00:28:34,636
into a space something
like five metres wide.

310
00:28:34,661 --> 00:28:38,836
So the lower they were, the better
chance they had of success.

311
00:28:38,861 --> 00:28:40,475
But, of course, the lower they were,

312
00:28:40,500 --> 00:28:42,305
the more radiation
they're exposed to.

313
00:28:43,891 --> 00:28:46,916
And they were allowed to fly over
just for a few seconds

314
00:28:46,941 --> 00:28:49,796
so that hopefully they didn't
get too much radiation.

315
00:28:49,821 --> 00:28:52,355
But they had to do it
again and again and again.

316
00:29:23,431 --> 00:29:29,046
Workers at a nuclear power plant
north of Stockholm in Sweden

317
00:29:29,071 --> 00:29:30,666
went into work.

318
00:29:32,141 --> 00:29:35,406
On their way, walking to work,
there was some rain.

319
00:29:38,891 --> 00:29:42,716
They had to pass through the testing
area designed to make sure

320
00:29:42,741 --> 00:29:46,276
they didn't take any radiation out
after they'd been at work.

321
00:29:46,301 --> 00:29:50,506
They were setting off
the alarm bells as they walked in.

322
00:29:50,531 --> 00:29:52,666
The Swedes didn't know
to start with.

323
00:29:52,691 --> 00:29:54,916
Why should workers coming in to work

324
00:29:54,941 --> 00:29:58,156
in a nuclear power plant
in the morning set off the alarm?

325
00:30:00,181 --> 00:30:03,836
The radioactivity that was emitted
into the atmosphere at Chernobyl,

326
00:30:03,861 --> 00:30:07,046
it didn't form a single cloud
that sat over the countryside

327
00:30:07,071 --> 00:30:08,636
and just poured radioactivity down,

328
00:30:08,661 --> 00:30:11,586
it was spread out across
a vast part of Europe.

329
00:30:11,611 --> 00:30:14,426
And so any time that it did rain,
there was a chance

330
00:30:14,451 --> 00:30:16,705
that radioactivity would come
from the sky

331
00:30:16,730 --> 00:30:18,325
and fall onto the ground.

332
00:30:21,451 --> 00:30:26,245
In Sweden, engineers check the power
plant for a radiation leak.

333
00:30:26,270 --> 00:30:27,816
They find no problems.

334
00:30:31,041 --> 00:30:33,656
They knew it wasn't
from their reactor.

335
00:30:33,681 --> 00:30:35,856
They worked out where
the wind had come from,

336
00:30:35,881 --> 00:30:37,886
and they realised
it came from the south.

337
00:30:37,911 --> 00:30:42,296
And it very quickly became clear
that something had happened

338
00:30:42,321 --> 00:30:43,736
in the Soviet Union.

339
00:30:44,841 --> 00:30:48,325
Despite the Soviets' best efforts
to hide Chernobyl,

340
00:30:48,350 --> 00:30:51,746
the accident is impossible
to conceal any longer.

341
00:31:10,923 --> 00:31:14,928
Three days after the toxic nuclear
smoke started to be released

342
00:31:14,953 --> 00:31:16,848
by Reactor 4 at Chernobyl,

343
00:31:16,873 --> 00:31:19,818
Radio Moscow broadcast
this statement.

344
00:31:54,953 --> 00:31:57,457
There's sort of a 20—second report
that something has happened

345
00:31:57,482 --> 00:31:58,928
at the Chernobyl power plant,

346
00:31:58,953 --> 00:32:01,738
but there's no... There's nothing
concrete that's telling people

347
00:32:01,763 --> 00:32:03,648
anything that
they really need to know.

348
00:32:06,283 --> 00:32:09,207
Despite the danger,
life in the Soviet Union

349
00:32:09,232 --> 00:32:10,818
carries on as normal.

350
00:32:12,763 --> 00:32:17,848
The May Day parades were
coming up very soon in Ukraine

351
00:32:17,873 --> 00:32:19,778
and across the rest
of the Soviet Union.

352
00:32:19,803 --> 00:32:23,128
There's tens of thousands of people
on the street celebrating,

353
00:32:23,153 --> 00:32:27,207
and exposing themselves
to potentially deadly radiation.

354
00:32:27,232 --> 00:32:30,207
Risking the lives
and risking the health

355
00:32:30,232 --> 00:32:33,868
of populations, including children,

356
00:32:33,893 --> 00:32:36,207
was considered to be acceptable.

357
00:33:09,622 --> 00:33:11,908
Five days after
the catastrophic accident

358
00:33:11,933 --> 00:33:14,517
at the Chernobyl
Nuclear Power Plant,

359
00:33:14,542 --> 00:33:15,597
it's May Day.

360
00:33:17,492 --> 00:33:21,078
1st of May was a major holiday
in the Soviet Union.

361
00:33:21,103 --> 00:33:24,318
It was the Labour Day,
as it is in this country,

362
00:33:24,343 --> 00:33:27,678
but, of course, in the Soviet Union,
it had enormous political

363
00:33:27,703 --> 00:33:31,238
significance because the Soviet
Union is the state of the workers,

364
00:33:31,263 --> 00:33:33,108
the state of the labourers.

365
00:33:35,542 --> 00:33:39,038
It was a day off, no matter
which day of the week it was.

366
00:33:42,213 --> 00:33:45,678
It was the day when
you celebrated socialism.

367
00:33:45,703 --> 00:33:48,318
So there were military parades,

368
00:33:48,343 --> 00:33:51,038
people's parades.
Everybody was out on the street.

369
00:33:51,063 --> 00:33:53,158
And this is generally
a happy occasion.

370
00:34:00,103 --> 00:34:04,397
May Day parades are also
taking place throughout the USSR,

371
00:34:04,422 --> 00:34:08,548
including the towns and cities
much closer to Chernobyl.

372
00:34:21,343 --> 00:34:24,158
There was a very strong argument
for cancelling the May Day parade

373
00:34:24,183 --> 00:34:25,678
in Kyiv in particular.

374
00:34:25,703 --> 00:34:28,358
Kyiv is 100 kilometres
from Chernobyl.

375
00:34:30,933 --> 00:34:34,438
It was experiencing
very high levels of radiation.

376
00:34:35,742 --> 00:34:40,908
Secret KGB documents reveal how
little concern the authorities had

377
00:34:40,933 --> 00:34:44,517
about the danger of
holding the celebrations.

378
00:34:44,542 --> 00:34:49,038
You probably would assume
that the report,

379
00:34:49,063 --> 00:34:52,238
especially three clays
after the accident,

380
00:34:52,263 --> 00:34:55,288
would deal exclusively
with Chernobyl,

381
00:34:55,313 --> 00:34:57,958
that that would be
the main preoccupation.

382
00:34:57,983 --> 00:35:01,548
Well, in reality, the report
is about something else.

383
00:35:02,773 --> 00:35:07,908
The major Soviet holiday was coming
up, and they were there to assure

384
00:35:07,933 --> 00:35:10,678
that there would be
no sign of dissent.

385
00:35:12,383 --> 00:35:15,358
That was one of
the tasks of the KGB.

386
00:35:15,383 --> 00:35:18,238
They just didn't change
their mode of operation,

387
00:35:18,263 --> 00:35:21,748
Chernobyl or no Chernobyl,
radiation or no radiation.

388
00:35:21,773 --> 00:35:26,158
It does have a slightly unfortunate
choice of words where it leads

389
00:35:26,183 --> 00:35:29,267
by saying that the preparations
for the celebrations

390
00:35:29,292 --> 00:35:32,188
are taking place in
an exceptionally healthy

391
00:35:32,213 --> 00:35:35,798
political situation in
the republic, which may be so,

392
00:35:35,823 --> 00:35:39,678
but "healthy" is not something
that applies to the area

393
00:35:39,703 --> 00:35:41,517
at this particular moment.

394
00:35:44,983 --> 00:35:48,678
Cancelling the May Day celebrations,
it would have sent a clear message

395
00:35:48,703 --> 00:35:52,467
that something was clearly up,
both at home and abroad.

396
00:35:54,742 --> 00:35:57,078
Gorbachev couldn't
allow that to happen.

397
00:35:57,103 --> 00:36:00,358
It's one of the more controversial
decisions of his career.

398
00:36:03,742 --> 00:36:08,078
But as the celebrations continued,
the wind direction changed.

399
00:36:09,263 --> 00:36:11,798
Prevailing winds
and the weather systems

400
00:36:11,823 --> 00:36:16,878
were moving the radiation cloud
away from Ukraine,

401
00:36:16,903 --> 00:36:18,108
across Belarus...

402
00:36:19,383 --> 00:36:20,467
...and into Russia.

403
00:36:25,133 --> 00:36:26,748
Within the Soviet Union,

404
00:36:26,773 --> 00:36:29,078
all states are supposed
to be equal, but clearly

405
00:36:29,103 --> 00:36:30,828
some were more equal than others.

406
00:36:30,853 --> 00:36:33,387
And at the top of the tree
was always Russia.

407
00:36:33,412 --> 00:36:35,288
It was the seat of government.

408
00:36:35,313 --> 00:36:37,878
It was where many of
the leaders came from.

409
00:36:37,903 --> 00:36:40,467
It was the most powerful,
the richest state

410
00:36:40,492 --> 00:36:43,798
within the Soviet Union,
and it needed to be protected.

411
00:36:45,103 --> 00:36:48,998
Reportedly, a top secret operation
named Cyclone begins.

412
00:36:50,213 --> 00:36:53,318
It sounds like something
out of a sci-fi movie, or...

413
00:36:53,343 --> 00:36:57,387
It sounds ridiculous,
but it actually happened.

414
00:36:57,412 --> 00:37:02,078
Military airplanes loaded with
silver iodide took to the skies

415
00:37:02,103 --> 00:37:06,108
and chased those clouds moving
from Ukraine in the direction

416
00:37:06,133 --> 00:37:08,318
of the Russian Republic

417
00:37:08,343 --> 00:37:12,597
and shot the clouds —
literally shot the clouds —

418
00:37:12,622 --> 00:37:16,548
with silver iodide capsules
to make it rain.

419
00:37:20,263 --> 00:37:23,798
It rained over Belarus and the rain
brought down the radioactive fallout

420
00:37:23,823 --> 00:37:28,318
matter onto the ground and onto
the people who lived there,

421
00:37:28,343 --> 00:37:31,038
several hundred thousands of people.

422
00:37:31,063 --> 00:37:34,438
They became victims
of the radioactive rain.

423
00:37:37,492 --> 00:37:41,158
In many respects, Belarus
is a forgotten victim of Chernobyl.

424
00:37:41,183 --> 00:37:43,387
It suffered extensive damage,

425
00:37:43,412 --> 00:37:46,717
its economy was ruined
for many years.

426
00:37:46,742 --> 00:37:49,467
And a large part of this,
or a contributory part of this,

427
00:37:49,492 --> 00:37:53,438
is the fact that huge areas
of its productive farmland,

428
00:37:53,463 --> 00:37:55,267
forests, became irradiated.

429
00:37:58,463 --> 00:38:01,108
One of the main areas of
contamination I've worked in

430
00:38:01,133 --> 00:38:02,908
in the east of Belarus

431
00:38:02,933 --> 00:38:06,467
has levels of radioactive caesium

432
00:38:06,492 --> 00:38:10,438
that is almost the same
as what you see in Chernobyl.

433
00:38:10,463 --> 00:38:13,637
The Soviet Union needed help,
and it would arrive

434
00:38:13,662 --> 00:38:15,188
through back channels.

435
00:38:26,412 --> 00:38:28,928
Over 6,000 miles from Chernobyl,

436
00:38:28,953 --> 00:38:31,188
at the University of California,

437
00:38:31,213 --> 00:38:35,637
a bone marrow transplant specialist,
Dr Robert Gale, was getting ready

438
00:38:35,662 --> 00:38:37,278
to fly to Moscow.

439
00:38:37,303 --> 00:38:40,998
And I got a call in
the middle of the night from

440
00:38:41,023 --> 00:38:44,108
Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin,

441
00:38:44,133 --> 00:38:48,878
who said that Mr Gorbachev
had asked him to ask me

442
00:38:48,903 --> 00:38:50,158
to come to Moscow.

443
00:38:52,023 --> 00:38:55,798
I grabbed my toothbrush
and hopped on the next flight.

444
00:38:57,412 --> 00:38:59,928
The flight was empty.

445
00:38:59,953 --> 00:39:03,878
I mean, there was me and
the pilot and two stewardesses.

446
00:39:05,263 --> 00:39:07,407
You know, most people
with any common sense

447
00:39:07,432 --> 00:39:09,098
were headed the other way.

448
00:39:11,363 --> 00:39:14,458
We have to remember that
in April 1986,

449
00:39:14,483 --> 00:39:17,208
the Cold War is
still very much on.

450
00:39:17,233 --> 00:39:21,298
The fact that the Soviets accepted
help from the Americans does suggest

451
00:39:21,323 --> 00:39:25,458
that by that point they realised
that the situation was serious.

452
00:39:28,682 --> 00:39:35,617
I was spirited off the plane
and into a limousine

453
00:39:35,642 --> 00:39:38,848
and taken directly to the hospital.

454
00:39:41,483 --> 00:39:44,978
Dr Gale arrives at
Hospital Number Six in Moscow.

455
00:39:47,873 --> 00:39:52,098
Here, the Chernobyl firefighters
and workers who received the highest

456
00:39:52,123 --> 00:39:54,617
doses of radiation
are being treated.

457
00:39:56,873 --> 00:39:58,298
Their bone marrow —

458
00:39:58,323 --> 00:40:02,048
stuff in our bones that
produces the red blood cells

459
00:40:02,073 --> 00:40:04,458
and white blood cells
and platelets —

460
00:40:04,483 --> 00:40:06,848
has been irreversibly destroyed,

461
00:40:06,873 --> 00:40:09,537
so they're going to die
of infection or bleeding.

462
00:40:11,963 --> 00:40:16,098
Dr Gale had a pioneering solution
to help these patients.

463
00:40:19,153 --> 00:40:22,737
Well, there are hormones
that stimulate your bone marrow.

464
00:40:22,762 --> 00:40:25,048
And my colleagues and I at UCLA

465
00:40:25,073 --> 00:40:29,768
had molecularly cloned
those hormones.

466
00:40:33,073 --> 00:40:37,298
Drug companies were in the process
of developing this as a treatment.

467
00:40:37,323 --> 00:40:41,158
So you would give this hormone
to some cancer patient

468
00:40:41,183 --> 00:40:42,878
who got chemotherapy,

469
00:40:42,903 --> 00:40:45,597
and this would make
their bone marrow recover.

470
00:40:45,622 --> 00:40:51,668
Now, we had given these hormones
to mice and dogs

471
00:40:51,693 --> 00:40:53,998
and even monkeys,

472
00:40:54,023 --> 00:40:57,668
but we haven't given it
to humans before.

473
00:40:57,693 --> 00:41:00,458
Of course, the Politburo said no.

474
00:41:00,483 --> 00:41:05,278
They said, "Well, we don't want
Soviet citizens to be guinea pigs."

475
00:41:06,853 --> 00:41:09,028
I came up with an idea, which was,

476
00:41:09,053 --> 00:41:11,278
"Why don't you inject this into me

477
00:41:11,303 --> 00:41:14,158
"so these firefighters
won't be the first?"

478
00:41:15,383 --> 00:41:19,438
Dr Gale and his Russian counterpart
at Hospital Six

479
00:41:19,463 --> 00:41:22,438
both took doses of
the untested hormones.

480
00:41:25,103 --> 00:41:27,668
Our blood counts went up
the next morning.

481
00:41:27,693 --> 00:41:30,308
We were the guinea pigs
and we got permission.

482
00:41:31,943 --> 00:41:35,798
We had about 204 people
in the hospital

483
00:41:35,823 --> 00:41:38,238
with radiation sickness.

484
00:41:38,263 --> 00:41:40,438
29 of them died.

485
00:41:40,463 --> 00:41:44,597
So we were able to rescue
more than 90%.

486
00:41:48,622 --> 00:41:52,828
Six days after the accident,
an exclusion zone is set up

487
00:41:52,853 --> 00:41:54,978
around the Chernobyl
Nuclear Power Plant.

488
00:41:57,283 --> 00:42:01,958
The higher-ups decided that maybe,
after all, they ought to evacuate

489
00:42:01,983 --> 00:42:06,637
people from 100 or so other villages
in the surrounding areas.

490
00:42:06,662 --> 00:42:11,668
So they created this 20—mile
exclusion zone around the reactor,

491
00:42:11,693 --> 00:42:14,158
and that remains in place
to this day.

492
00:42:14,183 --> 00:42:17,798
But the exclusion zone
is not the only area

493
00:42:17,823 --> 00:42:20,308
that has suffered
radioactive fallout.

494
00:42:22,682 --> 00:42:26,258
The radioactive cloud
from the Chernobyl nuclear reactor

495
00:42:26,283 --> 00:42:28,108
has now spread across
the whole of Britain,

496
00:42:28,133 --> 00:42:29,828
according to official readings.

497
00:42:40,177 --> 00:42:44,346
In the UK, the May bank holiday
weekend is getting under way.

498
00:42:46,171 --> 00:42:48,585
Radiation spread with the winds.

499
00:42:48,610 --> 00:42:54,375
Any parcel of air that had gone
over Chernobyl during the ten clays

500
00:42:54,400 --> 00:42:57,096
when it was burning was radioactive.

501
00:43:03,041 --> 00:43:05,625
And some of it just spread
across the North Sea

502
00:43:05,650 --> 00:43:08,146
and started raining out
over Scotland and Wales.

503
00:43:13,811 --> 00:43:17,146
People started to be told that
they shouldn't go out in the rain.

504
00:43:18,841 --> 00:43:21,906
People wouldn't harvest
vegetables from their allotments

505
00:43:21,931 --> 00:43:23,455
because they were frightened.

506
00:43:23,480 --> 00:43:26,705
This is in the UK, not just around
the corner from the reactor.

507
00:43:26,730 --> 00:43:29,066
So people were very worried.

508
00:43:29,091 --> 00:43:30,936
The authorities were very worried.

509
00:43:34,931 --> 00:43:40,096
It was, I remember, a really scary
time when it was going on.

510
00:43:45,041 --> 00:43:47,296
CHILDREN LAUGH

511
00:43:47,321 --> 00:43:51,465
The whole of Europe was
frightened by what might happen.

512
00:44:08,660 --> 00:44:11,465
A deadly clean-up operation begins.

513
00:44:11,490 --> 00:44:13,946
The rule really was that
the job had to be done.

514
00:44:13,971 --> 00:44:18,196
The liquidators were really the
heroes of the story of Chernobyl.

515
00:44:18,221 --> 00:44:21,715
A shocking tragedy adds
to the death toll.

516
00:44:26,581 --> 00:44:30,436
And war threatens the safety
of Chernobyl once more.

517
00:44:30,461 --> 00:44:35,026
The unthinkable of attacking
nuclear power stations has happened.

518
00:44:41,941 --> 00:44:47,076
Subtitles by Red Bee Media