This was a breathtaking dramatisation of the horrors and chaos following a nuclear power plant disaster. It was 6 hours spanned over 5 weeks and compulsive viewing. Every programme in this series rattled my conscience in a way that few have in the past. Like so many people, I thought I had a fairly good idea of what happened following this nuclear power plant tragedy in 1986. But, on reflection, after watching this series, I realize I didn’t.
The set depicting the Soviet Union at that time, the cast of actors playing the main characters, and very realistically portrayed.
All sorts of horrors unfolded with images of burned bodies following intense radiation, peoples lives and communites uprooted overnight when a massive exclusion zone was administered to protect others from radioactive contamination and still cannot return to their homes to this day. There were the thousands of people killed both immediately and over time as a result of what they call Acute Radiation Syndrome.
But the disaster also unveiled the astonishing heroism of those many people who were aware that they were about to give their life to save others. Hundreds of miners and soldiers who worked around the clock trying to avert disaster by removing the graphite debrit above the reactor core – jobs which meant certain death. There were the many firemen who tried desperately to contain the fire after the explosion. There was also the heroism of those in high ranking positions, like Legasov, a senior nuclear physicist, who recognized the flaws in the system design and put his head on the line by speaking out in court a few years later. Thanks to his work this design flaw was eradicated not only in other Soviet Union reactors but in other countries that used this design. Safety continues to improve in part because of people like this.
But as always, the real horror lies in the detail so masterly depicted in this series. For example, in the way that thousands of people were recruited in the aftermath of this disaster to carry out duties such as, shooting the thousands of dogs and pets left in the exclusion zone. So that they could never carry their radioactive bodies outside. This really was heartbreaking stuff. I won’t go into the other gory details here. For as difficult as it is to watch, it needs to be understood and if TV like this can educate on such matters then so be it. Television has a role beyond entertainment – not least in helping to make sure that we never allow tragedies like this to happen again.