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Watch Chernobyl Inside The Meltdown () free Episode Season 1 Episode 3 online in HD on Dailymotion (2026).
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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.
01:49It'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 the nuclear fuel, which is extremely hot, could be flowing to
02:28the bottom of the reactor structure, melting its way through the steel and eventually the
02:33concrete foundation making 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, and 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 to
03:05dig a tunnel under the reactor.
03:09And in fact, the police said that there was an accident and it was necessary to go.
03:16And to go to the police, what happened in Chernobyl, I was not sure to go.
03:27And to go to the police, what happened in Chernobyl, I was not sure to go.
03:42The miners had to begin construction of a tunnel around 130 meters long to the point
03:49where they could build a massive heat exchanger.
03:53The idea with the heat exchanger was that it would cool the earth underneath the foundations
03:59of the reactor so that it would prevent a core meltdown reaching the water table beneath
04:05the building.
04:07It was a hugely ambitious plan, it required 400 or more miners to work around the clock
04:13for more than a month.
04:38It's pretty amazing what they were asking these miners to do.
04:42Show up at an extremely dangerous work zone, essentially to sacrifice themselves.
04:52And in the same tunnel, the police and the government told me that the radiation
05:00is normal.
05:24They were excavating often using just hand tools because they feared that if they
05:31disturbed the foundations too much, the whole thing could collapse in Ognam and bury them
05:36alive.
05:56We also, as the filmmakers, heard this information about the accident and decided, that we
06:06should be brave and go out there to film the film.
06:13If so, to figure out, he's propagandist.
06:38The Soviet narrative was to play up the heroism and bravery of the miners.
06:45Almost in 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.
07:25And their anxiety about the contamination of 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, what it is,
07:44what it is, what it is.
07:47And then, after two years, one of our miners died, after another couple of years, after another couple of years,
07:56after another couple of years.
08:30The fear of the core meltdown had eventually subsided, but the reactor building itself was still open to the atmosphere.
08:43Mikhail Gorbachev decided that by the end of the year, they needed to have the remains of Unit 4 permanently
08:51entombed, a building that eventually they christened as sarcophagus.
09:04The 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, to clean up this unprecedented radiation release.
09:19The most intensively contaminated area was immediately around the reactor in what they called the special zone.
09:32The approach they took was to remove the top level of soil from around the direct vicinity of the reactor,
09:39take that away, use shielded cab bulldozers that they could put people on.
09:45And for 18 miles in any one direction, they turned over the soil and made this moonscape.
09:55We could not observe how effective this was being, but we knew that these were at least the right things
10:00to do.
10:01But this was just the beginning.
10:06Across more than 5,000 square kilometers, the earth, leaves on the trees, buildings, everything was dangerously contaminated with radioactive
10:17dust.
10:25The Soviet authorities did something that was completely unprecedented.
10:29They moved 100,000 people out of the region and set up an exclusion zone.
10:39And then thousands of workers were brought in from across the Soviet Union and informed,
10:44hey, you're going to get a couple hundred rubles, but 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, the 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 for the people that were brought in, soldiers, conscripts, volunteers,
11:36to clean up the radioactive materials and build the sarcophagus structure to try to contain it.
11:42Now, as the enemy says, the enemy is known, the 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 in 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, but could just be moved around.
12:41And certainly at the very beginning, they lacked dosimeters to check radiation levels,
12:47with the result that nobody was getting an accurate sense of what kind of dose of radiation they were absorbing.
12:55Over time.
12:56First you go to bed, you are on the first day and you are wearing a mask,
12:59but then you forget about it for production, you can forget to wear it.
13:07My decision was made literally the first days after the accident.
13:13So I came to the drafting office and I said I want to go.
13:18I wanted to help my country for people in the West is hard to grasp the level of commitment
13:30which Soviet people had in the sacrifice of your own health or sacrifices in your own life
14:00when we went to one of the core buildings in a Chernobyl station it was almost like people
14:07just dropped everything which they had and just gone
14:15I remember I wandered around in the building and I went into a short yellow corridor
14:24and suddenly I realized that the yellow color covering the floor and windowsills were hundreds
14:32if not thousands of yellow butterflies I don't understand how they ended up there
14:40but they were all dead I looked through the window and I see a guy who was working in a
14:49distance of less
14:50than a few hundred meters from the reactor for a welder he was just sitting there and he was
14:58working so methodically and calmly exposed to probably the largest radiation levels you can ever imagine
15:10I was almost certain he was wasting something that's set in my mind for years how a person can overcome
15:20his own fear
15:46My 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 we were moved to camp for half a year with our
16:06parents
16:08I was eight years old
16:12Our hair held lots of radiation so it was cut
16:18It was very very short I remember that afterwards kids were calling us Chernobyl hedgehogs
16:27And that we should go back where we belong to to Chernobyl
16:31I just felt I want to be comforted I want to be protected I want to be with my family
16:41So here are letters that we wrote to my mom
16:48My dearest mom I cry here everyday 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
17:38In 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
17:54There were almost 10,000 farms affected
17:58Radioactive rain contaminated the land there to the extent that for decades afterwards
18:04Radiation levels in sheep had to be monitored
18:08The danger was that actually it got into the food chain
18:12Orders are down and 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
18:20This is going to make it very very hard
18:23It lasted for almost 30 years
18:25It was a real threat to the way of life
18:27And you never really knew whether actually the danger was contained 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 Soviets 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
19:50I worked for Chernobyl nuclear power plant for a certain year
19:54It was my task to finalize construction of sarcophagus and start-up unit number one
20:02Нужной электроэнергии?
20:04Я от электроэнергии стоял за воду
20:07Так называемый саркофаг
20:10Формально был рассчитан
20:11Сначала, речь шла о 50 годах
20:14На самом деле условно обошлись без всяких гарантий
20:18Потому что она опиралась на разрушенные конструкции
20:28building the sarcophagus was made especially difficult because you couldn't approach it
20:33for anything more than minutes at a time to get any work done
20:52the rift of unit 3 had been covered with debris thrown out of reactor number 4 by the force of
21:00the explosion it was like a kind of radioactive assault course there were pieces of reactor
21:11graphite pieces of nuclear fuel you could only safely remain up there near some of those pieces
21:19of debris for minutes or even seconds without receiving a lethal dose so to build the sarcophagus
21:27that had to be dealt with and the approach they took was use of robotics
21:48they had two different kinds of robots one was imported from west Germany a colossal expense
21:56that was specifically designed to deal with radioactive hazards they also had a couple
22:01of robots that were initially built by the Soviet Union themselves to explore the surface of the moon
22:16the idea was that the robots would simply shunt the debris off the edge of the roof and into what
22:22remained of reactor number four and that would then be covered by the sarcophagus
22:44but we saw even the robots failed their electronics couldn't stand the radiation levels for long periods of work
23:02they were completely out of control you can't control them anymore so then they're useless
23:25the engineers and scientists in charge of the cleanup operation of the roof were left with what they felt was
23:30no
23:30alternative they had to send human beings into one of the most dangerous places on the face of the earth
23:38the camera
24:02the
24:04so
24:06of course
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 a reactor four,
24:21and sprint back to safety as quickly as possible.
24:29When I got there first time, I was so psyched up.
24:35Obviously, adrenaline was running through the roof, and 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.
25:18You have to put the protective gear on you.
25:23Two lead sheets, and very heavy industrial respirators,
25:30which are supposed to protect from the radioactive dust.
25:34This was essentially all we had.
25:58I finally got up to the level.
26:02And you go to that little bunker where the door is opening to hell.
26:11That's what they call it.
26:24Your 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 until they had gotten
27:10their allowable dose of radiation.
27:13Not only were there these huge pieces of debris, but there were also pieces of the reactor core itself that
27:21had melted into the bitumen.
27:24They essentially become welded to the top of the roof.
27:32That asphalt was so unwilling to be cut.
27:36I just felt incredible rage to the point that I wanted to literally fall down and start tearing it apart
27:45with my teeth because it was such an incredible intense desire to do what they were asking us to do.
28:05And then what happens?
28:09An incredible relief.
28:18I got very unusual physical reaction as if I had a heavy severe cold.
28:25So I wasn't able to breathe.
28:30I spoke to many people who were there.
28:32Some of it had incredible headache almost immediately.
28:36Almost everybody had something.
28:44The number of people that they ran through, thousands of people getting a limit of dose and then, you know,
28:52being sent on their way having done all they could.
28:57I had six trips total to the roof.
29:01I have never been so drained.
29:05Not only physically, but emotionally as well and mentally.
29:13The number of people who were there were.
29:15That's how you pay them.
29:16800.
29:17800.
29:17800.
29:17800.
29:18300.
29:25800.
29:39They are already on Earth.
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, the commanders of the operation made the decision
30:35to send a trio of radiation scouts with a red banner to the top of the chimney that was above
30:41the reactors.
30:43I remember that, you know, people were risking their lives because the debris wasn't cleaned up yet.
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 in the Great War,
31:26and the victory in the Great War.
31:33The narrative was still, we are the unique and remarkable Soviet Union.
31:39And I viewed it with astonishment.
31:41There were no forces that were in the Great War.
32:00And the lightier used it to live.
32:00Now, the war was absolutely ridiculous, it was simply but not.
32:04But if there were no weapons that were made for the war,
32:05and the era, and the capital of the war was still under the war,
32:06and the war was still under the war, and the war was still under the war.
32:11about that, endangering people's lives for symbolism.
32:17This is the stupidest thing.
32:41And that's why, yes, it was necessary to raise the flag on this dirty pipe to shout out to everyone
32:51that we won the radiation.
33:06Who won the radiation, I don't know.
33:10Because as she was, she killed people, so she killed them.
33:25The wreckage of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor that exploded is now buried under a 200-foot-tall concrete tomb.
33:34The completion of the sarcophagus meant that the wreckage of Unit 4 was effectively sealed off from the remaining units
33:42of the plan.
33:58I remember Niklas. He was in charge of the whole project.
34:04I said, would you not want to look at the sarcophagus?
34:09Yes, of course.
34:10The engineering skill with remote tools was very impressive.
34:19But it had only a limited lifespan.
34:23Although it was an achievement to have it completed at all, it certainly wasn't the most secure or sound construction.
34:32The sarcophagus was really necessary just as much for propaganda reasons as 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.
35:16In the beginning of 1988, they began to reveal diseases, which you didn't know before.
35:22After all, you practically didn't know about them.
35:30It's impossible.
35:32It's impossible.
35:32It's only possible to support it, so that it didn't progress.
35:36It's nothing more.
35:37It's impossible to do with a weak spirit here.
35:40They didn't leave.
35:43And those who left, they will work.
35:50It's not my voice.
35:52It's nice to remember my voice, what I was when I was.
35:55Well, since I had cancer.
36:03I never regretted going there, and I never will.
36:08I've had nightmares, and 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, and that will never change.
36:34600,000 people.
36:37The liquidators.
36:39They were heroic and brave and servants of the Soviet Union.
36:45Nothing about that part of their propaganda campaign was 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 owed their bravery a debt of gratitude.
37:05And perhaps most important, the central government owed them the truth of what caused this catastrophe.
37:27Ever since the dreadful accident at Chernobyl, the world has been waiting anxiously for the Russians to explain what went
37:33wrong.
37:34The International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna will discuss the Soviet disaster.
37:42It was absolutely a priority for the U.S. government to learn what had triggered this accident,
37:47and what the circumstances were that led to this disaster.
37:50There had been dribs and drabs, particularly of the recovery, the liquidators, the miners.
37:55But a comprehensive story hadn't yet been presented.
37:59We felt at the IA that the main thing after an accident is to help its members.
38:05But the second is that the world must learn from the accident.
38:10I was there, and the atmosphere at the conference was one of great anticipation.
38:16This is a time of great change in the Soviet Union.
38:19This is Gorbachev's perestroika.
38:20This is Glasnost.
38:22And that was supposed to be about openness.
38:26The entire world's scientific community had an eye and an ear on 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 the Soviet Union's report about the accident in Vienna was Valeriy Lygarsov.
38:52He was one of the leading members of the government commission that was sent down to Chernobyl from Moscow
38:59in the hours after the explosion took place.
39:07And he remained there for weeks afterwards, leading specific parts of the cleanup operation,
39:14and then investigating the causes, which was regarded as classified.
39:22In Vienna, Dr. Lygarsov prepared to present from a technical standpoint what had gone on.
39:30I remember talking to Moscow about this.
39:33I said, how long time will he need?
39:35Well, perhaps five hours, they said.
39:38Five hours, I said.
39:39This is not a party conference.
39:42No, no, we will need a lot of time.
39:45Dr. Lygarsov went over the written report for at least two or three days.
39:53Broadly speaking, the Soviet explanation of the accident was that it resulted from an experiment that went horribly off the
40:02rails.
40:03Inherent in the explanation came out that the reactor design was flawed, certainly from a Western standpoint.
40:11It didn't have the sort of radioactive material containment philosophy, the safety philosophy that Western reactors had.
40:19We are going to improve the safety systems, taking into account the Chernobyl accident.
40:26Here was a moment where the Gorbachev regime was getting credit for putting science first, propaganda to the rear, and
40:35acknowledging a series of mistakes.
40:37Most delegates, it seems, are impressed by the Soviets' frankness.
40:41I have been astonished, as I think most participants have been, at how forthcoming they have proved to be here.
40:49Also implicit in their description was a certain blame for the operators.
40:53Things the operators did that they shouldn't have done.
40:57The Russians believe human error caused a deadly explosion and radiation leaked.
41:01Most people in the West were happy to take their word for that.
41:05The problem was that all they had was the information that was released to them, and that was extremely carefully
41:11edited.
41:21There are scientists in Vienna who say they don't believe your delegation is still saying as much about Chernobyl as
41:27it 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
41:43which has not yet been sufficiently processed by Soviet experts.
41:52As time went by, Legasov attempted to bring about the sorts of reforms that he thought were necessary to improve
41:59the way the nuclear state in the USSR ran.
42:09This is the guy finally coming forward with the promises of Glasnost.
42:13But it was only in the wake of Chernobyl when he discovered exactly the extent of the secrecy and corruption
42:22of the Soviet nuclear state.
42:34Legasov became more and more depressed and more and more desperate.
42:39His health was shattered by the degree of radiation exposure he'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 of the Chernobyl accident.
43:14So what did go wrong at Chernobyl?
43:17The Russians say it was operator error.
43:20Ultimately, in Vienna, the Soviet report did not tell the whole truth of what had happened.
43:41It was pretty obvious that there would be a criminal trial in the Soviet Union, attempting to shift blame from
43:47the reactor design to the actions of individuals instead.
43:52But it was un'athletically believed that there would be a massive, massive...
43:55Well, there was a conviction that what has been a really high- polish.
43:58But there was an error, there was a real power.
43:59A massive amount of damage and pressure per turn.
43:59Just a minute.
44:04A massive amount of damage to the people have occurred.
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