The Army Sent Into the Reactor's Shadow

Name: The Army Sent Into the Reactor's Shadow
Genre: Documentary

Hundreds of thousands of liquidators confront radioactive debris that machines and boundaries cannot make safe.

This episode needs All Access, from $4.99 a week.

Transcript

Chernobyl's 1986 reactor accident created a contaminated exclusion zone. People were barred from entering or living there; its reactor hall was lethal.
On April 26th, 1986, a safety test became history's worst nuclear accident.
An explosion and fire destroyed the building around the fourth reactor.
A continuing graphite fire was a major problem for rescuers and plant personnel.
The explosion emitted 500 times more radiation than the atomic bomb dropped at Hiroshima.
The Soviet Union established the Zone of Alienation after radiation spread.
The exclusion zone covered about 1,000 square miles.
A boundary could isolate contaminated land. It could not clean the ruins.
About 600,000 liquidators assisted with cleanup operations.
Lift it. Drop it. Move back.
About 200,000 early workers at the site received substantial radiation doses.
About 150 liquidators and plant workers were treated for acute radiation sickness.
28 of those patients died within a relatively short time.
Numbers record exposure. They cannot show what waiting felt like.
We cleared what we could, then waited to learn what it cost.
The accident caused widespread radioactive contamination and enormous concern.
In 1992, cameras followed Soviet scientists through the plant's continuing cleanup.

Yet even after the liquidators cleared debris, Soviet scientists still had to find the reactor's missing fuel.

All Access is $4.99 a week, $14.99 a month or $39.99 a year. The annual plan starts with three days free.

Renews until you cancel. Terms · Privacy