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00:17After the fire in the reactor core had gone out, the Government Commission sent a small
00:22team of specialists to install temperature sensors directly beneath the reactor itself.
00:42They spent 18 hours using a plasma torch to cut through the thick concrete walls.
00:49Under normal circumstances, this would have been an absolutely insane thing to do given
00:55the dangers of radiation.
00:57But like so many things, it seemed like the only answer at the time.
01:08The Soviet people in 1986 had huge trust in their government and were hugely patriotic.
01:16Some folks call it the myth of the Soviet hero.
01:32There was a natural inclination to feel like their union had been forged on this bed of sacrifice.
01:40And the Soviet propaganda machine lapped it up.
01:46The Soviets were saying, your nation is calling you.
01:51It's time to prove your patriotism and do your duty to make a sacrifice.
02:16About two weeks after the initial accident, the Soviets were still faced with a very radioactive
02:21and dangerous situation.
02:24There's a real concern that nuclear fuel, which is extremely hot, could be flowing to the bottom
02:29of the reactor structure, melting its way through the steel and eventually the concrete foundation,
02:35making its way into the groundwater.
02:39An unchecked nuclear core meltdown endangers the water supply for 30 million people, but also
02:46endangers farming, agriculture in all of that part of Europe for decades.
02:52This was kind of an existential moment for the Soviet high command.
02:59From satellite photographs, one of the things that we observed was they brought in miners
03:05to dig a tunnel under the reactor.
03:10Our commander told us that there was an accident and that there was a accident and that there was a
03:16accident.
03:21About what happened in Chernobyl, I, of course, did not know.
03:42The miners had to begin construction of a tunnel around 130 meters long to the point where they
03:49could build a massive heat exchanger.
03:53The idea with the heat exchanger was that it would cool the earth underneath the foundations of the reactor
04:00so that it would prevent a core meltdown reaching the water table beneath the building.
04:07It was a hugely ambitious plan.
04:09It required 400 or more miners to work around the clock for more than a month.
04:38It's pretty amazing what they were asking these miners to do.
04:41Show up at an extremely dangerous work zone essentially to sacrifice themselves.
04:48...
04:52...
04:53With the same tunnel you saw here,seconds the government told us,
04:59that the radiation Hasta wanna model hasta
05:02...
05:04a bit of a Havenerig
05:07...
05:24They were excavating, often using just hand tools, because they feared that if they disturb
05:31the foundations too much, the whole thing could collapse in on them and bury them alive.
05:57We also, as the filmmakers, heard this information about the accident and decided that we should be able to
06:07be brave and go there to film a movie.
06:13If so, he's a propagandist.
06:38The Soviet narrative was to play up the heroism and bravery of the miners almost
06:46in a complete absence of scientific information about whether those same people were in danger.
07:04The mining operation was a complete success.
07:08The heat exchanger itself was built inside the chamber and the whole thing was ready to go.
07:16But it was never turned on.
07:20The temperature inside the building was gradually declining, and their anxiety about the contamination
07:28of the water table evaporated.
07:30So all of the miners' work and sacrifice was a complete waste of time.
07:39I personally did not understand what the radiation is, what the radiation is, what the radiation is,
07:43what the radiation is, what the danger is.
07:46It was almost two years ago, one of our miners' workers died.
07:53After another couple of years, another couple of years.
07:58And then we started deeply understanding,
08:02understanding that, well, it's not bad that we were too late.
08:12The 70% of the people are already no longer.
08:30The fear of the core meltdown had eventually subsided,
08:35but the reactor building itself was still open to the atmosphere.
08:43Mikhail Gorbachev decided that by the end of the year,
08:46they needed to have the remains of Unit 4 permanently entombed,
08:52a building that eventually they christened the sarcophagus.
08:55The problem was they couldn't get very close access.
09:07There was a tremendous amount of radioactive material lying around the site.
09:12And so this had to be the next focus,
09:14to clean up this unprecedented radiation release.
09:19The most intensively contaminated area
09:22was immediately around the reactor
09:24in what they called the special zone.
09:32The approach they took was to remove the top level of
09:36soil from around the direct vicinity of the reactor,
09:39take that away,
09:40use its shielded cab bulldozers that they could put people on.
09:45For 18 miles in any one direction,
09:48they turned over the soil and made this moonscape.
09:55We could not observe how effective this was being,
09:57but we knew that these were at least the right things to do.
10:01But this was just the beginning.
10:06Across more than 5,000 square kilometers,
10:10the earth, leaves on the trees, buildings,
10:14everything was dangerously contaminated with radioactive dust.
10:25The Soviet authorities did something that was completely unprecedented.
10:29They moved 100,000 people out of the region
10:32and set up an exclusion zone.
10:39And then thousands of workers were brought in from across the Soviet Union
10:43and informed, hey, you're going to get a couple hundred rubles,
10:47but that's about it.
10:48Get to work and serve the Soviet cause.
10:59The Soviets are slowly releasing more pictures of the cleanup around Chernobyl.
11:04Moscow says two of the four Chernobyl reactors will go back online this year.
11:12By the middle of the summer of 1986,
11:15the area around the plant had begun to resemble a battlefield.
11:2140,000 people were encamped in tents around the Chernobyl plant.
11:28The term liquidators was one that the Soviets used
11:31for the people that were brought in,
11:34soldiers, conscripts, volunteers,
11:36to clean up the radioactive materials
11:39and build the sarcophagus structure to try to contain it.
11:42Now, as the enemy said, the enemy is known.
11:45The work is planned.
11:56A lot of the cleanup was essentially experimental.
12:02Spraying buildings with water cannon.
12:08They even began spraying beetroot pulp mixed with water
12:13in order to try and control the movement of dust.
12:20All of the animals were rounded up.
12:23And if they can find them, they were euthanized.
12:28It was extraordinarily challenging.
12:33Ultimately, radionuclides could not be destroyed,
12:37but could just be moved around.
12:40And certainly at the very beginning,
12:43they lacked dosimeters to check radiation levels,
12:47with a result that nobody was getting an accurate sense
12:50of what kind of dose of radiation they were absorbing.
12:55.
13:07My decision was made literally in the first days after the accident.
13:12So I came to the drafting office and I said,
13:16I want to go.
13:18I wanted to help my country.
13:24For people in the West,
13:26it's hard to grasp the level of commitment
13:30which Soviet people had in the sacrifice of your own health,
13:37the sacrifices in your own life.
13:43It's dangerous.
13:45It's dangerous.
13:46It's dangerous.
13:46It's dangerous.
13:47What are you doing?
13:47What are you doing here?
13:49I'm not loving it.
13:49The government asked us to do it.
13:50We are in honor.
13:52We are in honor.
13:53We are in honor.
13:54We are in honor.
13:55We are in honor.
13:56We are in honor.
14:00When we went to one of the core buildings
14:03in the Chernobyl station,
14:05it was almost like people just dropped everything which they had
14:09and just gone.
14:16I remember I wandered around in the building
14:19and I went into a short yellow corridor.
14:24And suddenly I realized that the yellow color covering the floor
14:29and the window sills were hundreds if not thousands of yellow butterflies.
14:37I don't understand how they ended up there, but they were all dead.
14:44I looked through the window and I see a guy who was working in a distance
14:49of less than a few hundred meters from the reactor for a welder.
14:55He was just sitting there and he was working so methodically and calmly.
15:02Exposed to probably the largest radiation levels you can ever imagine.
15:10I was almost certain he was whistling something.
15:15That's set in my mind for years how a person can overcome his own fear.
15:46My parents were called for the liquidation of Chernobyl disaster.
15:50My parents were called for the liquidation of Chernobyl disaster.
15:51After we evacuated the city next to the power plant, they had to go back.
15:58And because we didn't have a place to stay,
16:02we were moved to camp for half a year without parents.
16:08I was eight years old.
16:13Our hair held lots of radiation, so it was cut.
16:19It was very, very short.
16:21I remember that afterwards,
16:23kids were calling us Chernobyl hedgehogs.
16:27And that we should go back where we belong to, to Chernobyl.
16:32I just felt I want to be comforted.
16:35I want to be protected.
16:37I want to be with my family.
16:41So here are letters that we wrote to my mom.
16:48My dearest mom, I cry here every day because we are beaten up here.
16:56Please take us from here as soon as you can, please.
17:01We cannot be here without you.
17:15The tale of this saga is really quite terrifying in terms of its overall impact on people.
17:22Not their health necessarily, but on their livelihoods.
17:25Maybe hundreds of thousands of people in the Soviet Union.
17:28But it was also clear that it was going to have a radiation impact on the UK.
17:35People outside the Soviet Union are still paying the price for Chernobyl.
17:39In Britain, some sheep still cannot be sold because of high radiation levels.
17:44There was an unexpected heavy fall of rain, which did have an impact on Cumber and North Wales.
17:51From the point of view of the farmers, it was a disaster.
17:55There were almost 10,000 farms affected.
17:59Radioactive rain contaminated the land there to the extent that for decades afterwards, radiation levels in sheep had to be
18:06monitored.
18:08The danger was that actually it got into the food chain.
18:12Orders are down, but no one knows when the product will fully regain customer confidence.
18:17I am at a standstill, and by not being able to sell them, this is going to make it very,
18:21very hard.
18:23It lasted for almost 30 years.
18:25It was a real threat to the way of life, and you never really knew whether actually the danger was
18:32contained or not.
18:45The cleanup operation within the exclusion zone continued.
18:50But they still had to build this sarcophagus, this concrete tomb, to contain the reactor core.
18:58Gorbachev gave the scientists and engineers less than four months to complete one of the most dangerous and ambitious civil
19:06engineering projects in history.
19:15Soviet television today showed pictures of a containment wall going up around the devastated Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
19:23The Soviet's initial attempt to try to cover over the destroyed reactor building was built with the means they had
19:29at the time,
19:30which was remote-controlled cranes, remote-controlled concrete pumpers that could be done very quickly.
19:35What content, wait for your attention.
19:49I waited forkl historical people.
19:54I changed the pics of the network SUROS.
19:55What was my task, the finalized construction of sarcophagus Iran started byudo by driver's formation?
20:02Do you need electricity?
20:05This electricity comes from the building.
20:08It's called a sarcophagus.
20:10It was originally planned.
20:12It was about 50 years ago.
20:15In fact, it was without any guarantees,
20:18because when it was focused on the destroyed construction,
20:23it was the beginning of the building.
20:28Building the sarcophagus
20:30was made especially difficult,
20:32because you couldn't approach it
20:33for anything more than minutes at a time
20:35to get any work done.
20:52The roof of Unit 3 had been covered
20:55with debris thrown out of reactor number 4
20:59or by the force of the explosion.
21:02It was like a kind of radioactive assault course.
21:10There were pieces of reactor graphite,
21:12pieces of nuclear fuel.
21:15You could only safely remain up there
21:17near some of those pieces of debris
21:19for minutes or even seconds
21:21without receiving a lethal dose.
21:24So, to build the sarcophagus,
21:27that had to be dealt with.
21:28And the approach they took was use of robotics.
21:47They had two different kinds of robots.
21:50One was imported from West Germany,
21:54a colossal expanse,
21:56that was specifically designed
21:58to deal with radioactive hazards.
22:00They also had a couple of robots
22:02that were initially built
22:03by the Soviet Union themselves
22:05to explore the surface of the moon.
22:16The idea was that the robots
22:18would simply shunt the debris
22:19off the edge of the roof
22:21and into what remained of reactor number 4.
22:29could not be able to escape.
22:30And that would then be covered by the sarcophagus.
22:45But we saw even the robots failed.
22:48Their electronics couldn't stand
22:49the radiation levels
22:50for long periods of work.
23:02They were completely out of control.
23:04You can't control them anymore.
23:07So then, they're useless.
23:25The engineers and scientists in charge of the cleanup operation of the roof were left
23:29with what they felt was no alternative.
23:33They had to send human beings into one of the most dangerous places on the face of the
23:38world.
23:55That is why they were created by the company and now the business that
23:59fired the merchant of the business.
24:01.
24:01.
24:04.
24:05.
24:06.
24:07.
24:09The commanders of the operation were under no illusion about how dangerous this was.
24:14To scrape pieces of debris off the roof and run with it,
24:18and then throw it into what remained of Reactor 4,
24:21and sprint back to safety as quickly as possible.
24:29When I got there the first time, I was so psyched up.
24:35Obviously, adrenaline was running through the roof,
24:38and everything was in a complete blur.
24:46You had to wait for hours sweating, waiting to get there.
24:53I'm not sure how much they were told about the level of danger they were facing going into it,
24:58but they did what they were told.
25:00They began to call themselves bio-robots.
25:06Do you want to go to the task?
25:09No.
25:11Do you want to go to the task?
25:11Do you want to go to the task?
25:12Yes.
25:12Good job.
25:18You have to put the protective gear on you.
25:23Two lead sheets,
25:26and very heavy industrial respirators,
25:29which are supposed to protect from the radioactive dust.
25:34This was essentially all we had.
25:58I've finally got up to the level.
26:02And you go to that little bunker,
26:05where the door is opening to hell.
26:11That's what they call it.
26:23Your heart is pumping incredibly fast.
26:30Your mind is nowhere near your normal condition.
26:45I have to collect whatever I can and throw it down to the ground from the roof.
26:51And this is what all your focus, all your concentration was all about.
27:04There's a man there with a stopwatch, and they could go for maybe 30, 45 seconds,
27:09until they had gotten their allowable dose of radiation.
27:13Not only were there these huge pieces of debris,
27:17but there were also pieces of the reactor core itself
27:21that had melted into the bitumen.
27:24They'd essentially become welded to the top of the roof.
27:31That asphalt was so unwilling to be cut.
27:36I just felt incredible rage
27:40to the point that I wanted to literally fall down
27:43and start tearing it apart with my teeth,
27:46because it was such an incredible, intense desire
27:50to do what they were asking us to do.
28:06And then what happens?
28:09An incredible relief.
28:18I got very unusual physical reaction,
28:22as if I had a heavy, severe cold.
28:25So I wasn't able to breathe.
28:30I spoke to many people who were there.
28:33Some of it had an incredible headache almost immediately.
28:37Almost everybody had something.
28:44The number of people that they ran through,
28:47thousands of people getting a limit of dose,
28:51and then, you know, being sent on their way,
28:53having done all they could.
28:57I had six trips total to the roof.
29:01I have never been so drained,
29:05not only physically,
29:07but emotionally as well and mentally.
29:12And then, you know,
29:15you were paying a premium.
29:15800.
29:16800.
29:17800.
29:18800.
29:28800.
29:29700.
29:30500.
29:32300.
29:35300.
29:58800.
29:59½
29:59Constructing a building around the ruins of a semi-destroyed nuclear reactor
30:04under any circumstances would be extremely difficult.
30:09But the construction of the sarcophagus was also subject to the absurd demands of Soviet politics.
30:29To celebrate the restarting of reactor number one,
30:33the commanders of the operation made the decision to send a trio of radiation scouts
30:37with a red banner to the top of the chimney that was above the reactors.
30:43I remember that, you know, people were risking their lives because the debris wasn't cleaned up yet.
30:59We put a statue with a statue?
31:00Yes.
31:01Only this.
31:02We put a statue.
31:07While you couldn't get much scientific information about the true danger of what was going on,
31:14there were no shortage of stories of our noble military, our noble Civil Defense Corps.
31:20This wonderful symbol, the symbol of the victory.
31:33The narrative was still, we are the unique and remarkable Soviet Union.
31:39And I viewed it with astonishment.
31:41And I was a friend with the
32:11about that, endangering people's lives for symbolism.
32:16This is the stupidest thing.
32:41And that's why, yes, it was necessary to raise the flag on this dirty wall,
32:49so that everyone would say, we won the radiation.
33:06Who won her, I don't know.
33:10Because if she was, she killed people, so she killed them.
33:25The wreckage of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor that exploded
33:28is now buried under a 200-foot-tall concrete tomb.
33:34The completion of the sarcophagus meant that the wreckage of Unit 4
33:38was effectively sealed off from the remaining units of the plan.
33:54Guns blisks... прилetell.
33:58I remember Nicholas.
34:00He was in charge of the whole project.
34:05I said, would you not want to see the sarcophagus?
34:09Yes, of course.
34:11The engineering skill with remote tools was very impressive.
34:19But it had only a limited lifespan.
34:24Although, as an achievement to have it completed at all,
34:27it certainly wasn't the most secure or sound construction.
34:32The sarcophagus was really necessary
34:34just as much for propaganda reasons
34:36as for reasons of radiological safety.
34:57They could say that they put Chernobyl and the disaster behind them.
35:03Once again, the Soviet Union had triumphed over an implacable enemy.
35:16When it was about 88 years old,
35:19the diseases began to appear,
35:21which you didn't even know about that before.
35:23that you practically didn't know about them.
35:30It's impossible.
35:32It's only possible to support her,
35:33so that she didn't progress.
35:36Nothing.
35:38We have nothing to do here.
35:40They left.
35:43And those who left, they will work.
35:50This is not my voice.
35:52It's nice to remember my voice,
35:54what he was when I was.
35:55From the time I turned the pain.
36:03I never regretted going there,
36:05and I never will.
36:08I've had nightmares,
36:09and I had quite a few health issues,
36:14but I was so needed,
36:19I was so demanded.
36:21I literally was important there.
36:24Chernobyl made me a man,
36:26and that will never change.
36:34600,000 people.
36:37The liquidators.
36:39They were heroic, and brave,
36:41and servants of the Soviet Union.
36:45nothing about that part of their propaganda campaign
36:48was untrue.
36:50I don't think that there was a myth of Soviet sacrifice.
36:54I think that was real.
36:58Not just the Soviet people, but the rest of the world
37:01owed their bravery a debt of gratitude.
37:05And perhaps most important,
37:07the central government owed them the truth
37:10of what caused this catastrophe.
37:27Ever since the dreadful accident at Chernobyl,
37:30the world has been waiting anxiously for the Russians
37:32to explain what went wrong.
37:34The International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna
37:37will discuss the Soviet disaster.
37:42It was absolutely a priority for the U.S. government
37:45to learn what had triggered this accident
37:47and what the circumstances were
37:48that led to this disaster.
37:50There had been dribs and drabs,
37:52particularly of the recovery,
37:54the liquidators, the miners,
37:56but a comprehensive story
37:57hadn't yet been presented.
37:59We felt at the IA that the main thing
38:02after an accident is to help its members,
38:05but the second is that the world must learn
38:08from the accident.
38:10I was there,
38:11and the atmosphere at the conference
38:13was one of great anticipation.
38:16This was a time of great change in the Soviet Union.
38:18This is Gorbachev's perestroika.
38:20This is glasnost.
38:22And that was supposed to be about openness.
38:26The entire world scientific community
38:28had an eye and an ear
38:30on what are the Soviets going to say
38:33and is it going to be in any way honest?
38:42The person put in charge of presenting
38:45the Soviet Union's report about the accident in Vienna
38:48was Valeriy Lygarsov.
38:52He was one of the leading members
38:55of the government commission
38:56that was sent down to Chernobyl from Moscow
38:59in the hours after the explosion took place.
39:07And he remained there for weeks afterwards,
39:10leading specific parts of the cleanup operation
39:14and then investigating the causes,
39:17which was regarded as classified.
39:21In Vienna, Dr. Lygarsov prepared to present
39:26from a technical standpoint what had gone on.
39:29I remember talking to Moscow about this.
39:33I said, how long time will he need?
39:35Well, perhaps five hours, they said.
39:38This is not a party conference.
39:42No, no, we will need a lot of time.
39:45Dr. Lygarsov went over the written report
39:48for at least two or three days.
39:53Broadly speaking, the Soviet explanation of the accident
39:56was that it resulted from an experiment
40:00that went horribly off the rails.
40:03Inherent in the explanation came out
40:06that the reactor design was flawed,
40:08certainly from a Western standpoint.
40:11It didn't have the sort of
40:12radioactive material containment philosophy,
40:15the safety philosophy that Western reactors had.
40:19We are going to improve the safety systems,
40:22taking into account the Chernobyl accident.
40:26Here was a moment where the Gorbachev regime
40:29was getting credit for putting science first,
40:33propaganda to the rear,
40:35and acknowledging a series of mistakes.
40:38Most delegates, it seems,
40:39are impressed by the Soviets' frankness.
40:41I have been astonished, as I think most participants have been,
40:45at how forthcoming they have proved to be here.
40:49Also implicit in their description
40:51was a certain blame for the operators,
40:54things the operators did that they shouldn't have done.
40:56The Russians believe human error caused the deadly explosion
40:59and radiation leak.
41:01Most people in the West were happy
41:03to take their word for that.
41:05The problem was that all they had
41:07was the information that was released to them,
41:09and that was extremely carefully edited.
41:21There are scientists in Vienna who say they don't believe your delegation
41:24is still saying as much about Chernobyl as it knows.
41:28Are you saying as much as you know?
41:31Everything that I've heard is correct.
41:37Of course, there still remains quite a lot of information
41:44which has not yet been sufficiently processed by Soviet experts.
41:51As time went by,
41:54Legasov attempted to bring about the sorts of reforms
41:57that he thought were necessary to improve the way
42:00the nuclear state in the USSR ran.
42:09This is the guy finally coming forward with the promises of Glasnost.
42:14But it was only in the wake of Chernobyl
42:17when he discovered exactly the extent of the secrecy
42:21and corruption of the Soviet nuclear state.
42:34Legasov became more and more depressed,
42:37and more and more desperate.
42:39His health was shattered by the degree of radiation exposure
42:42he'd been subjected to,
42:44and he began to realize how rotten the USSR was at its core.
42:59Legasov's suicide made him one of tens of thousands of victims
43:03of the Chernobyl accident.
43:14So what did go wrong at Chernobyl?
43:16The Russians say it was operator error.
43:20Ultimately, in Vienna,
43:23the Soviet report did not tell the whole truth of what had happened.
43:27It was pretty obvious that there would be a criminal trial
43:45in the Soviet Union,
43:46attempting to shift blame from the reactor design
43:48to the actions of individuals instead.
43:52Because there was a claim under the nuclear changes being
43:58Let's try it.
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