It's more important to know that the series isn't based on "actual actuality", but the "perceived actuality" among those who were less informed. So when she mentions a "thermonuclear explosion", a nuclear reaction can't explode like a fission bomb, even less so than a fusion (thermonuclear) bomb. It might eject the same amount of nuclear fallout as a thermonuclear bomb (ground detonation), likely a lot more, but not "explode" like one. The same kind of utter nonsense is shown in other locations too, but know that there was a reason for depicting it that way. Not everything was writing negligence.
Something a lot of people don't realise is that even today in our free societies most people don't understand nuclear science or radiation, even with free and easy access to all this information online. Back then, most citizens had no idea. That ignorance was a thousand times worse in the Soviet Union, where information was strictly controlled and the state was secretive about everything. Remember back to the first episode. Even the families of the people who worked at the plant didn't understand what nuclear power was, to them it was just another power plant. Pripyat only existed as a town to support the power plant, the construction of it and the workers who continued to be employed there. These people were more informed than a random citizen in Moscow, but their understanding of nuclear energy and radiation was still almost non-existent. That's why Lyudmilla and Vasily don't understand the risks.
I think a lot of people watching and reacting don't know almost anything about the Soviet system and society and many complain about their own governments by superimposing them into the events in the series.
@@apilolomi 100% agreed. I don't see that as a negative though; shows like this that allow people to try and relate in some way may allow those same people to do research or learn more, even if it's from sources like the YT comments section. Net positive for humanity to have more people educated on history
Great point! It'd be like asking an American how a F22 can break the sound barrier. Well we know it's because it goes really fast. But can't really explain HOW it goes so fast.
I think it's worth noting that back then most people had no idea how dangerous radiation could be. Knowledge was probably even more limited in the Soviet Union.
That's not entirely true (maybe as far as the general public...but not people who worked in the industry...at least the US industry). I had just graduated with degree in Nuclear Engineering when this happened. We had numerous "Health Physics" courses that covered all aspects of radiation exposure.
You guys are forgetting the knowledge about radiation wasn't common back then. Not a lot of people knew what radiation poisoning was and the wife had no clue.
I can't imagine how hard it would be to see a loved one buried in a lead coffin and surrounded by concrete. To me, the biggest comfort of death is the notion that I'll be returning to the earth. My atoms will become the flowers and the rain and future babies being born, just like all of humanity and nature before me. Like my ancestors did and my friends and family will. Death into life into death into life. To have your atoms so warped and poisonous that you're cut off from the circle of life, forever to lie alone as a toxic pile of melted flesh, is horrifying. And to see that happen to a person I love would be like losing them doubly.
Keep in mind, the USSR told NO ONE this happened!! The world didn’t know until weeks after the fact when radiation sensors alerted in countries like Sweden. Even after that, they STILL didn’t fess up. The Cold War was a strange time.
I’m from Slovakia, around 600 miles from Chernobyl. I asked my mom how the authorities here responded to the disaster, whether the people were advised to stay indoors, not pick fruit, etc. and she just said ironically “No. Everything was just fine.” meaning that people here were completely in the dark and led to believe they were safe. I just found it interesting hearing you guys read out the Estonian commenter’s take in a previous video and how it differed from us.
In the GDR it was different. We couldn´t eat fruits or vegetables from the garden. Or drink Milk from Cows. I had to take Iodine. 3 members of my family had there tyroid removed. They got cancer.
@@kateawake I'm sorry to hear that. That’s also infuriating. 200 miles further than us they were being more careful. I mean, they literally say it in the show, “we’re staying here but they’re not letting kids in Germany outside”. Here, they had people mandatorily parading in the streets and schoolchildren doing Young Pioneer marches for the May 1st celebrations just 5 days later with radioactive clouds right over their heads.
I worked in the mid 90s with kids from Chernobyl in Germany. All of them are born after the incident. All had suffered from illnesses. Some had 6 fingers or 6 toes. Some had blood cancer or tyroid cancer. Some were so disfigured they will be in a weelchair for the rest of their life. At the time we tried to give as much love to them as we had. They stayed some weeks in Germany for treatment. Sorry for my english though.
I love the miners in this. Legends. The next episode is the one that breaks me. Also the reason why most people nowadays are aware of the dangers of radiation is _because_ of incidents like Chernobyl.
"If this happened today what would happen?" I'm not sure how extensively the Fukushima nuclear accident was covered in the US after the power plant was hit by a tsunami in 2011, leading to multiple reactor meltdowns. Although it wasn't as catastrophic as Chernobyl-since there was no reactor explosion and less radioactive material was released-it still had a significant impact. I remember the intense news coverage and protests against nuclear energy here in Germany. I believe both the Fukushima and Chernobyl disasters significantly fueled the global movement toward alternative energy sources and further opened the door for renewable power. While it's not on the same scale as Chernobyl, Fukushima is definitely worth looking into if you're interested.
Complete BS about renewable power, many forms but particularly wind and solar were widely utilized and already reaching profitability prior to that point. If Fukushima convinced you that we should be moving away from nuclear energy, then it’s a good thing that you aren’t actually involved in those conversations…
@@beefjezos2713 I didn’t say that wind and solar weren’t already profitable. As for Fukushima, it didn’t convince me of anything, since I was only 11 when it happened. My point was that around that time, I remember a lot of protests against nuclear energy, which ultimately led to the dismantling of all power plants in Germany by 2023. And, I would argue, more investment in alternative energies, including the already promising renewables. And by the way, I don’t believe that nuclear energy is something we should necessarily move away from. Not sure where you got that impression… Maybe you should consider becoming an oracle?
@@moodyinpink Thank you for mentioning this: "And by the way, I don’t believe that nuclear energy is something we should necessarily move away from." To be honest, your stance was not obvious from your first comment. I'm happy to be reading this from a German, because you guys closing down the remaining nuclear power plants during the Russian-Ukrainian war was, what some would say, not a smart move, affecting energy prices in the entire Europe (but mostly central).
@@frufruJ You're right, I didn't make my stance obvious. I didn't think it was necessary-I just wanted to explore the question of what would happen if Chernobyl happened today. I personally have a lot of reasons to be against nuclear energy, especially since I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, which is often linked to radiation exposure. I get why Germany has a pretty negative view on nuclear power, especially after seeing some of the major disasters. But if you look at how many deaths can actually be traced back to nuclear energy, it's way lower compared to oil or gas, for example. I think nuclear energy deserves more exploration and shouldn't be completely dismissed, but I also don't blame people who feel differently. We've made great progress with renewable energy. As for the recent shutdown of the power plants, I don't really want to comment on that, for the reasons I mentioned above. But I do think it’s a bit harsh to blame Germany for the rising prices across Europe. Thanks for keeping things civil-too many people are downright rude in these comments.
There are certain parts of forests in Sweden where it is forbidden to pick berries and mushrooms due to them being radioactive from the fallout of Chernobyl. Animals that eat these, such as the Wild boar, must be examined and checked for radiation before their meat can be removed during the hunting season. In some cases they have been hundreds of times more radioactive than what is considered safe to eat. And Sweden is 1,505 km or 935.6 miles away from Chernobyl.
Underappreciated aspect of this show is the amazing sound design. (I do think the show won an Emmy for it). But the sounds just heighten the tension and the horror of everything that is happening.
I started watching this show a year ago and finished ep 1 but traveled to Europe and then forgot about it. I started watching it again because the Gekkers added it to their channel. Now I have been obsessed, over the past couple of weeks with learning more about the event and other phases of Nuclear energy.
The firefighters wife was definitely irresponsible, but I can't stress enough that the common people of the USSR knew absolutely nothing about what happened, or what radiation was, including even the nurses there. They knew it was dangerous, but it was basically a mystery to them. Also, once someone was suffering with radiation sickness, so long as all of the clothing they were wearing was removed and their skin was cleaned - its not actually something you can catch like a virus. Only direct contact with the uranium particles/radioactive material can make you sick. The story line about the firefighters wife is (thankfully) mostly fictionalized. Any radiation sickness she suffered was due to her own direct exposure when she was in Pripyat. Also just want to give a HUGE trigger warning for the next episode, this whole serious is obviously disturbing and graphic, but episode 4 is particularly upsetting.
In the book, Voices of Chernobyl, there was a page about how the people evacuated from Pripyat were threated in other towns like carrying a plague, a disease. Ostracized, sometimes without food and water. Nobody was informed about what radiation does. Even after the accident, no education.. so people started looting and stealing everything from the irradiated houses or sell car parts around soviet union from anything that was parked near the plant to never touch again...
was legit coming to say this (however the nurses knew, its hinted in the first episode when the nurse asks about iodine pills (she was probably tough in the city as opposed to the older small town doc)and ofc the nurses at hospital 6 knew, the rule about keeping loved ones away is to protect the patient from external contamination)
a note on the divers... Water is actually a very good radiation absorbent. it takes some time for radiation to penetrate through water, which is why you often see reactors sunk in water as it is used as moderator, (the stuff that can absorb or increase radati0on)
Water itself is a shield against radiation. It's why they can have exposed rods under water. Although the water itself can be radioactive, it defeats itself after a certain extent. Then she suits they wear help the rest.
There's a wonderful tell by Legasov at 18:23 when he's told they pressed AZ-5 before the core exploded. You don't get to find out why until the end of Episode 4, but great foreshadowing.
I really appreciate you guys watching Chernobyl. For Europeans like me, I have glimpsed comments and as an Italian I understand you My parents told me that fear had broken out here in Italy. It was the Americans who warned us not to eat certain foods: meat, fish, milk, mushrooms and a certain type of vegetables. People didn't leave their homes, and ate canned food. And many women have had abortions out of fear. As far as the KGB was concerned they were dangerous to people who told the truth about the state. Valery Legasov had a wife and two children. Boris Shcherbina had a wife and son. Not only were Valery and Boris in danger but their family and friends would have been taken away to prison or gulags (concentration camps) or death. KGB they used to shoot people in the back. I wish someone had warned me about episode 4 I want to warn you about episode 4: animals and pets. Kisses from Italy
If you think that the makeup was really good than you should have seen Akimov's. They did all the makeup and shot a lot more than it was shown but couldn't use the footage since it was way too gruesome... he's face was completely gone and you could even see parts of his skull in some places... That's why in the show when Khomyuk questioned him you could only see his feet...
@@calebhall383 I bet there is a place where you can see more footage but what I was able to find was just an image on a reddit post that people say is just a photoshopped image of Toptunov
@@calebhall383 Lookup "The Most Painful Death Ever (VIEWER DISCRETION)" by Wendigoon. Not related to Chernobyl but a radiology accident in Japan involving a neutron source. More higher dose concentration, but lasted only about a second. It's a particularly disturbing story, but I think Wendigoon covers it with the most respect, compared to some other ones I don't even want to name. Also, even if they don't show the same disturbing graphics, there are others to look into as well; like the most radioactive apartment building, and the scrapped hospital radioactive source in India (or Thailand, or thereabouts, not sure anymore).
The diving suits they gave them were made of a polymer that was unusually good at absorbing radiation. This wasn't known at the time, and MAY have helped to reduce their radiation exposure. But there is only so much something that thin can do.
It bears mentioning that people in the Soviet Union were kept ignorant and uninformed on purpose. The masses are easier to control that way. Regular people knew next to nothing about nuclear power or radiation. Most just didn't understand the danger and explains why parents went to watch the plant on fire with their children. To them, it was harmless and something entertaining.
@tileux To think it would have all been avoided if the company that owned the plant upgraded it's flood defenses which they were warned to do long before the tsunami.
@tileux Honestly if you can find that list I would appreciate it because ALL of the lists I find about accidents at powerplants are at best 30 give or take a couple long. As well as just about half being minor incidents with little to no contamination and usually involved leaking material or exposure to radiation for a small group in the vicinity, usually criticality accidents or exposure to leaking material. The other half actually do show up on the severity scale, though it is also worth noting all the really bad ones were between the 50s and 70s when we were still figuring out what we were doing. On the 1-7 severity scale of Nuclear incidents before Cherno our lowest was 4 which we 6 or so that chart with the rest being 1s which are considered anomalies. Usually due to the material or radiation being contained or the reactor shut down, also with minor to no exposure to workers in the vicinity. After Cherno our HIGHEST out of 6 or so incidents not counting the 1s is a 4. Cherno and Fukushima being the worst as 7s themselves. but those are literally all of the incidents at power plants and MOST had nothing to do with the cores themselves as most were incidents like ie, Maryland in 89 a pressurized heater sleeve cracked but they shut it down, or 86 iin VA 4 workers died to a feed water pipe burst but onto the nuclear incident list it goes even though it was a steam explosion, that is what all the 1s are equivalent to. I truly have no idea where you are getting thousands from, especially since there are only around 400 or so reactors in the world today, so either all of them had at least 2-3 major accidents or a few are having hundreds. I have found a list with MUCH more rated accidents on it with an interactive map allowing you to click on each incident for info, I could see that housing 1k incidents, the problem is pretty much NONE of them have to do with reactors. They include things like orphan source encounters, incidents with medical practices involving radiation, to a guy in 2023 who accidentally irradiated himself with a portable x-ray device while performing weld inspections. Even with all these incidents it is still statistically safer than all of our other forms of power generation. Now I am not saying accidents can't happen but what I am saying is since the wild west of the earlier 20th century the safety standards and countermeasures have done nothing but improve, not to mention modern reactors are much more robust. Now I am not saying you are wrong, 100% accidents will happen, but what I am saying is it takes an act of god like the tsunami or ignorance about the design flaws leading to a test done improperly, etc. Not every incident would be Cherno or Fuku scale and realistically most will be workers hurting themselves and most that do happen to involve the core usually are handled by a shutdown but don't break containment as unlike Chernobyl's RBMK every reactor that gets built gets a reinforced concrete containment building that could tank a kamikaze F16. I am not trying to argue with you, you are right in that accidents will always happen, it is important to be aware of the risks. But right now our current forms of power pollute to much directly and renewables while my next choice indirectly though mining and mass production. We need alternatives and combine sources, renewables working with nuclear because right now most of our eggs are in the deadliest one in oil, gasoline, coal. I mean as we burn coal we release radiation into the air anyway as well as all the other gunk that comes from burning hydrocarbons. Which we are breathing in now, actively killing our home planet. Anything is honesty better than what we are doing rn. EIther way I was serious about that list, if you can find it reply to this, I legitimately have a morbid fascination with nuclear incidents so if you actually have a list or can find one that has 1k then my autistic ass wants to read that shit.
If you want another real story turned into a movie that was done really well, you should watch Society of the Snow. It's about a group of mostly guys about your age that survive a plane crash in the Andes and pull together to do everything they can to survive and return home. The cinematography, special effects/makeup, and acting are really good. The story is very famous in South America.
Okay just dumping a few facts here: People who suffer from radiation poisoning do not radiate themselves. They are contaminated, however, most of the radioactive material on them should have been washed off when they were submitted to the hospital. The main reason they tell the wife not to touch him is due to his immune system failing. Even though she might get in touch with some radioative particles left in his hair and on his skin, it's actually more dangerous for him than for her. And, of course, the thing with radition is that it gets worse the longer you are exposed to it. The wife was already exposed to severe radiation back in the town near the plant and now she prolongs her exposure by being with her husband (though this might not really add much to what she had already taken in). It's also worthwhile to remember that the radation from the core itself does not spread so much, however, as you saw in the first episode the cloud of smoke from the fire carried a lot of radioactive particles. These are also carried by wind for hundreds of kilometers and can contaminate plants, crops etc. The farer away the better of course. Still they told people in southern Germany to thoroughly clean fruits and vegetables before eating them and not to hunt bore, eat venison from local forrests for some time.
You have to listen to the podcast that goes with the show. It helped explain a lot about the show and how they were able to attain the realism as well as the changes they had to make to fit into a mini series.
there is a podcast, you can listen to an episode of the podcast after an episode of the show, there are no spoilers for the next episode.. It provides some interesting details on the decisions about dramatization and reality
I am German, 62 years old. At the time of the Chernobyl disaster, our two sons were 2 and 4 years old. Our place of residence was West Berlin, part of the Federal Republic of Germany, protected by soldiers from the USA, Great Britain and France. We received information in ever faster succession while citizens of the GDR (communist side of Germany) didn't even know that anything had happened in their "big brother" USSR. In the Eastern Bloc the principle was to keep quiet, keep quiet and keep quiet again. The system is never to blame, only the individual. The fact that the whole technology itself had the potential for a catastrophe (but was cheap) was kept quiet. Ask yourself why the "top talent" of this type of energy production (regardless of whether they are in the West or the East) never live near these power plants. It's all so "safe", isn't it?
People watching this series keep saying that the lady was being stupid to want to be near her husband even after his degradation. Yes she is, but any one of us who know to love would've been there doing the same things because the knowledge of how radiation works and contains another person was not known to even most of the medical personnels back then. Just imagine how a layman could know the intensity of it's contagious nature even if they have seen the victim of it with their own eyes.
No they didn't know it was radiation. You are looking at this situation through a fortunate lens of growing up with privileged rights and a smart phone device in your hands. They didn't have the rights and they didn't have an access to the knowledge. Many thought it was regular burns. The few who did know it was radiation was either made to stay silent about it or didn't dare to be honest in fear of who was keeping an ear out.
I think I watched that back in 2020. In like 2-3 days, spending all my free time on this. Even though I’m Russian-Ukrainian I didn’t really have any family story connected to Chernobyl and I was born in 90ties, but I think Soviet vibe shown there is so accurate. Finishing the show I literally on the next day sat to rewatch it with my mom who was 12 when that happened and she lived little east from Moscow. She liked that show a lot as well
Hi again , my wife woke me up and told me what happened in Ukraine but no one really took it seriously as we didn't really see what the danger was , but soon when the warnings came when our nuclear power plants reacted and scientists went out to the people and we all started to understand what happened . A couple of days later the government issued warnings about the drinking tapwater and farmers were forced to slaughter , grain was destroyed and fresh milk fruit berries and mushrooms were destroid. Absolute prohibition to pick berries and fruit or anything in nature that we Swedes love to do and as i previosly wrote it is still forbidden to pick mushrooms , fruit and berries in certain places along Swedens esrt coast. Thank you for your kind thoughts about yhe accident , it took many years before we could live normally again. Warm greetings from Stockholm to you all.
20:03 fun...but there's a small misconception...you guys are looking at radiation like an infection or disease...its not...its a state of being. An object is either radioactive or isn't. The animals weren't being put down cos of birth defects they were being put down cos every thing in that vicinity had become radioactive...yes they'd probably have mutated offspring but the real issue is that animals themselves would be radioactive...just having a pet from there or eating fruit from an apple tree in the area could give you cancer.
Hey guys, quick note: a person that was decontaminated and is suffering from radiation sickness, is not contagious! So what she is doing is against todays medical advice (due to him being at high risk of infection and with no immune system), but she is not endangering herself… it is good to keep in mind, that even nowadays, the general public is not all that well informed about radiation, as can be seen from yours and many reactors comments about her behavior, so let’s give grace that the people back then sometimes knew even less, without judging their intellect :)
Not quite. If exposure is only external in nature, then yes decontamination is all that is needed. However, the first responders inhaled significant quantities of radioactive material. Thus, their bodily fluids and exhalations were dangerously radioactive. That's why their remains were bagged, welded into lead containers, and submerged in concrete.
@@cobblepott4169 Not quite ;) yes, their waste was radioactive and there might have been trace amounts of radioactive particles ingested and as such in their bones etc. But not in any level as to endanger others during short skin-to-intact-skin contacts to radiation sickness or significant amounts of radiation, after they were washed and their hair often shorn. Also further incorrect: they were buried in zinc caskets and the concrete only followed two years later.
For the fireman and his wife story, once the firemen's clothes/gear was removed and he was washed clean he was no longer a source of radiation. He was suffering from acute radiation exposure which led to his quick death. Her touching him would have done nothing to her and the baby, the show did this for the drama. The wife would have been exposed mainly when she was in the city of Pripyat and more than likely got chronic radiation exposure then. Sadly to say with any kind of radiation exposure, the younger you are the worse it is.
They built a new structure in 2016 called the "sarcophagus" because the original structure they built was falling apart and at risk of collapsing and spreading contaminated dust into the air. It was built off to the side and rolled into place using rails. It has remotely operated machinery that will deconstruct the original structure and properly dispose of the contaminated debris. It's supposed to last 100 years. There is a PBS Nova episode about it's construction that is a good watch (Season 44 Episode 8).
You guys should watch the documentary Klitschko. It's about the Klitschko brothers Vitali and Wladimir, who both were World Heavyweight Champions. They grew up near Chernobyl, and they had to be evacuated. Their father helped with the clean-up, and eventually died of cancer. Vitali is now the Mayor of Kiev, and Wladimir lives back there as well. Their life story is amazing. If you've never seen them box, you should look up some of their fights on here.
2:01 My understanding is that certain polymers (plastics, rubbers, etc) turned out to be significantly more protective against nuclear radiation than was known at the time.
Quite a few misconceptions about radiation, actually, both in general and in the show to some extent (and understanding of it was somewhat limited back then, so it's understandable). First of all, yes - there has been an event more recently that's come somewhat close to Chernobyl in terms of catastrophic effects. The Fukushima power plant in Japan when it was hit by a tidal wave. Quite a few people died to the accident and the radiation, and the surrounding area pretty much became a 2nd exclusion zone. Secondly, the dangers of touching an irradiated person are quite exaggerated in the show. The thing about radiation exposure is that there are 2 types - external and internal. External is when you have some radioactive dust or whatever land on your skin. Now, depending on the type of radiation, that might not even be that bad since your skin will actually stop a decent bit of such exposure. And it washes off fairly easily. A deep scrub in a shower, a change of clothes, maybe some iodine pills, and you'll probably be fine. As soon as the radioactive particles are removed from your body, you're not getting exposed any more. Now... internal exposure is much worse. If you breathe in radioactive dust or ingest contaminated fluids or material, you can't get it out. You can't scrub your lungs clean from the inside, so all that radioactive debris just stays there, continuously irradiating you from within, and you're more or less screwed. That's the difference between Dyatlov and Toptunov - Dyatlov didn't go into the water. He wasn't breathing in the smoke. He only got mildly contaminated, compared to the firefighters and the two engineers. The other guys... there was no saving them with how much contaminated material got into their body. By the time they're dying in the hospital, the patients have already been cleaned thoroughly on the surface, so touching them is not a real danger. Should probably wash your hands afterwards, but unless they're exposed to their bodily fluids or stick their hands inside them somewhere, the nurses should be fine. Also, to the point of "What can we do today" - we actually do have some stuff. For example, Prussian Blue is a dye pigment. The very same one famously used by Bob Ross for his paintings. It also has a quirky little side effect that if you eat it, it binds with certain radioactive materials in your body. If that's the type of exposure you received, it could very well decontaminate your insides and save (or at least prolong) your life. There are some other options along similar lines as well, but that's the gist of it. And to the point of it being "Supercharged cancer" - not quite. At least not on its own. A large enough dose of radiation can kill you with acute radiation sickness, like what the firefighters went through. A steady, slow dose like with Legasov gradually damages the DNA in your cells. Those cells don't die, but instead continue to function and reproduce as they normally would, except the damaged DNA causes flaws in that reproduction. Those flaws then lead to incorrect development of those cells, causing tumours and other abnormalities that we call "cancer". It's not a specific type of cancer, but radiation damage greatly increases the likelihood that you will develop certain types of cancer. I believe leukemia (blood cancer) is quite common in such cases, lung cancer for those who breathe it in, etc. Hope that helps explain some stuff!
The most recent nuclear disaster was the meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi, where the reactors melted down due to a persistent loss of power from a tsunami.
There's a lot of debate in the comments about "who knew about radiation back then". To put it in perspective, there's still debate from scientists on how airplanes achieve lift. We "generally" know how it works, but it's not definitive. To assume that people just ~40yrs after nuclear fission was achieved just automagically had answers to a sudden and devastating tragedy is more fictional than the show we're all watching together. The show is meant to be a depiction of how mismanagement, bureaucracy, and a lack of well-thought out SOPs for the sake of ego and pride can result in a needless loss of life for everyone.
Ok, I wanted to write my thoughts since 1st episode, but I was cooking and my hands were full😂 You need to understand that this show is an adaptation. Some things are exaggerated - there was immediate evacuation during 24 hours. Some people actions are justified - like Diatlov. People were taught that 2+2=4, not -6,7. It was an axiom that reactors can't explode. It's like I'm telling you, that Moon made of cheese. It's uncomprehendable. And about silencing everything in ep 1. You may google "Radium girls".
The show is very accurate, especially in respect to the whole "vibe" in Soviet Russia. But there are two big errors: One is that the thermal explosion would be orders of magnitude smaller. They just calculated wrong. It would still be catastrophic, hence the necessity of sacrificing three workers to fix it, but it wouldn't have destroyed whole countries. And it's pretty obvious that that should be impossible from just one tank exploding. The other error is suggesting that touching Vasily Ignatenko would endanger his wife. You can't catch radiation from someone who has been radiation poisoned, after the substances have been taken/washed off them. I think they follow a book written by her where she may have made such a suggestion (I haven't read it), but any radiation poisoning she or her child sustained would have been from being in Pripyat at the time of the catastrophe, or being subjected to other factors (like radioactive rain) later on.
Hi Guys, yes so it goes...Be ready to next episode gets worse and worse. You will not find out until what and how happened till the last episode. Remember what I said radiation does NOT transfer from from person to person, this is filmmakers license....The Soviets know well how and how radiation works, just like US..Be Sure you watch all the ending credits. There is one line i hope u get. it's the MOST important thing of all this incident. Remember if the Soviets did not solve this then you and I would not be speaking.. OK I will be watching
Teacher: Who is your Father? Kid: My Father is Soviet Union. Teacher: And who is your Mother? Kid: My Mother is Communist Party. Teacher: And who do you want to be? Kid: I wanna be an orphan.
I believe (and hope ) that the leaders in charge for the most vulnerable workers gave them Iodine when they realised the severity of the stuation,, //.. and about other critical situations similar to this..? The huge Earthquake in Japan in 2011 is what comes to my mind.. I think they evacuated a lot of people close to the reactors in Fukushima ?? I need to check n this myself.. Thanks for your great reactions.. After all , this is llike watching a Horror Movie in Real World,, Watching You make me remember the worries many of us young people in the 1980`s felt about the World-Situation...and in the end, you just gotta do what you can.. One step at a time.. :)
The show is amazing at giving you the feeling of just how crazy the event and resolution was. But the show also take a lot of liberties that are not factual, even if "based" on real events. As long as you don't treat it as a documentary, then it is fine. A recommendation is to check out the podcast.
I wonder why the doctors let these people suffer. They were not able to stop the affects of the radiation, why didn’t they just let them go as pain free as possible.
You don't necessarily "catch" radiation from other people either. What's dangerous is the radioactive "dust" that gets on people. It's the atoms which have not yet radiated. Once the atom gives off the radiation it causes intense damage to whatever it hits. Gamma is just super intense light and is extremely dangerous outside the body. If we start at the energy of red light, UV is 2x that energy, X ray is about 1000x of UV, & gamma radiation is 100x stronger than X ray. So it's something like 100,000x of a UV light sunburn. You can't then infect that radiation burn onto other people but the sunburn is infused through your entire body inside and out. If the dust gets on you and the dust is radiating then you can "infect" other people. It's really bad if the "dust" gets inside your body because the other type of radiation "alpha decay" can't really pass through your skin but it fires actual particles (not light). Each particle can blast through your cells and explode your DNA. It's like throwing a bowling ball into a china cabinet. The reason they were passing out "stable iodine" in the show is because your thyroid collects iodine. So you eat a bunch of regular iodine to displace and keep the radioactive atoms from collecting there so it can actually get into your body and hopefully pass through before it gives off the radiation. We actually have a medical procedure where people with an overactive thyroid can be fed an exact amount of radioactive iodine and it collects there and then destroys some percentage of the gland over time.
Everytime you ask yourself "was the USSR actually this paranoid, absurd, obsessed with projecting strength and yet full of lies " - the answer is always yes. Which is why putin's efforts to rebuild it were never appreciated outside of russia. You can't just resign from a job and move to another town. Your job is assigned to you after graduation. So is your apartment. You most likely don't own a car because the queue to get one was 10+ years (can't buy one, must queue). My dad was conscripted in 1985, spent most of his service in Afghanistan. Came back home in 1987 (a year after the catastrophy) - the city of Kharkiv, Eastern Ukraine. 1.5 million residents, 40+ university and a particle accelerator, 4+ military academies. All in one city and yet STILL noone could coherently explain to a new physics student (my dad) what happened at Chernobyl. There was just so little information available. My grandpa on my mum's side worked in the Kharkiv Radio-Electronic Institute. He guessed something had happened because of the lab readings his friend shared qith him but there was ZERO official information for like 3 days. The high-ups couldn't answer anything either. He was nearly dragged into the clean up effort later but his field of study wasn't even remotely connected to nuclear energy so he dodged it. BTW the other 3 reactors at Chernobyl were kept in service until the year 2000. There is a second casing there now built in 2017. There is also a project to deconstruct the old Soviet Sarcophagus (the concrete casing) because it's falling apart. The ruzzian army raided the labs in 2022 (and also dug trenches in the Red Forest - resulting in several of their soldiers getting sick) but the deconstruction process has been restarted as far as I know. P. S. This is like a third reaction I am watching and an average Western's ignorance towards everything USSR-related is kinda baffling... Lyudmila touched her husband because noone explained to her and the other families what was the danger. In reality her story is worse - she had to take care of all the firefighters in the hospital because the stuff refused to touch them (but didn't tell her why). Her poor husband was throwing up parts of his organs near the end.
Maybe you guys could watch band of brothers next. Its another mini series and the best depiction of ww2 out there, also rated even higher then Chernobyl.
The effect of the radiation on unborn children is graphically illustrated in the HBO documentary “Chernobyl Heart”. The effects are some of the most horrible I have ever seen.
theres a "physicist reacts to" thats really interestig, showing that regular people still have no idea. i think the physicist is actually the women they based the character on.
once this series is over, if you wish to know first hand experience from the "State' side, i recommend watching 2006 Battle for Chernobyl - now i will say that the initial info is slightly inaccurate, however, you have interviews with liquidators, generals, Gorbachev and others, including actual footage of the damage and effort to clean it up, i will warn you though, the interviews are in Russian/Ukrainian but there is a translator speaking in English
I think this is an incredible show but it does bother me that they suggest that you can get radiation from touching someone. She was exposed in Pripyat well before she got to the hospital. Other comments have covered this in more detail. This show in particular comes from the book voices of chernobyl.Lyudmilla’s story comes from that book. They may be using her account of what happened in the hospital so it could explain why it’s not accurate.
So, let's be clear on a few things. 1. The burned firefighter and most of the people in Moscow's hospital exposed to radiation don't look like that at all, that make up is made up just for the show and is far from what a real person look like, is just a redish, sometimes white color. But nothing like that. Immune system will deteriorate and skin will begin the process of necrosis when is acute radiation syndrome but it does not look at all like that. 2. Radiation is NOT contagious from human to human, not to children, nor to fetuses, or anybody in reality, but they didn't knew that, they didin't told her becuase nodody did really knew what would possibly happen and even today, most people don't know that, People evacuated from the nearby towns to Moscow or other cities suffered from outcasting, bullying and segregation just because of this. The wife's baby did die but due to a congenital heart disease and cirrhosis. You get sicke when you are exposed to 3. The 3 guys who went through the water, were in total dark, They found the valves and they lived, they survived and lived healthy normal lifes aftewards, 2 of them are still alive and the final one passed away in 2005. 4. The miners never got naked as they are told what could happen based on the firefighters and etc..
So this show does take some liberties with the medical aspects of radiation, and it’s done primarily for dramatic license. In most cases the danger of a radiation dose below that which will kill you outright is cellular damage. The determining factors are the type of radiation, the amount of radiation, and the manner in which it was absorbed. In all but the most extreme of cases this means an escalating chance of radiation related illness, primarily cancer. At very high non lethal doses the damage can manifest very quickly, but it’s not immediate. At these doses your cells lose the ability to reproduce because the DNA which controls that has been destroyed or mutated. You essentially begin to decompose until the cumulative systemic failure of your bodies systems results in your death. In even the fastest studied cases of high non lethal doses this takes at least 24-48 hours. Doses higher than that kill you outright (your tissue literally boils).
ok so these guys are... growing on me... They seem to know that they all need to..Know.. and Well that is the first step for a greater understanding of the world, realizing what you don't understand. It is a bit, rough, listening to them, but well.. I guess we all were young at some point. And credit should be given were due. A few notes that I am sure may have been said before... A nuclear meltdown can NOT cause a "nuclear explosion" in the same way an atomic bomb can. The forces and lensing needed for a fission explosion to happen are incredibly complicated. Nuclear power in its own way is incredibly safe which, sounds silly given what you are watching... But the message of Chernobyl isn't "Nuclear Power Bad' but much more "Even something very good, can go bad under bad circumstances," One last comment, Fukushima is basically the "good" Chernobyl... IE, it was a "worst case scenario" situation, but... Because of the type of reactor, the safety of the core, modern advances, etc... The damage it caused while horrible, was a fraction of what COULD have happened with a core like the one in the show.
I think you guys need to stop researching/reading comments on your own. The one guy mentioned something about the sentence Dyatlov received for his role in the disaster but you shouldn't know that yet!!!
The writers are good, but they are still american, so they can't help but write the most stereotypical ussr they have known from american propaganda for decades. You have to take into account that this show is very biased.
@@kassiogomes8498 the military officer is shown on a completely different light, the one that drives himself into the radiation. So I'm not sure your assumption is true.
@@kassiogomes8498 *You* have to take into account that the American writers used this series to criticize *their own* government at the time of release. It’s not some simple criticism about the Soviet Union which is long gone, it’s about how the government lies and the people pay the price.
Here's a horrifying thing. The flashlights working with crank was for the series, in reality they had to walk that in the dark.
Do you have a source for this? I've read several people say it, but none have had a source for it -- they've just been repeating each other.
WHAT... WTF....
They were amazing. Truely impressive men.
@@IndianTelephone And they actually all survived too.
I'ts good to keep in mind that the people didn't know the dangers of radiation. They were pretty much kept in the dark from everything.
It's more important to know that the series isn't based on "actual actuality", but the "perceived actuality" among those who were less informed.
So when she mentions a "thermonuclear explosion", a nuclear reaction can't explode like a fission bomb, even less so than a fusion (thermonuclear) bomb.
It might eject the same amount of nuclear fallout as a thermonuclear bomb (ground detonation), likely a lot more, but not "explode" like one.
The same kind of utter nonsense is shown in other locations too, but know that there was a reason for depicting it that way. Not everything was writing negligence.
Something a lot of people don't realise is that even today in our free societies most people don't understand nuclear science or radiation, even with free and easy access to all this information online. Back then, most citizens had no idea. That ignorance was a thousand times worse in the Soviet Union, where information was strictly controlled and the state was secretive about everything. Remember back to the first episode. Even the families of the people who worked at the plant didn't understand what nuclear power was, to them it was just another power plant. Pripyat only existed as a town to support the power plant, the construction of it and the workers who continued to be employed there. These people were more informed than a random citizen in Moscow, but their understanding of nuclear energy and radiation was still almost non-existent.
That's why Lyudmilla and Vasily don't understand the risks.
I think a lot of people watching and reacting don't know almost anything about the Soviet system and society and many complain about their own governments by superimposing them into the events in the series.
@@apilolomi 100% agreed. I don't see that as a negative though; shows like this that allow people to try and relate in some way may allow those same people to do research or learn more, even if it's from sources like the YT comments section. Net positive for humanity to have more people educated on history
Great point! It'd be like asking an American how a F22 can break the sound barrier. Well we know it's because it goes really fast. But can't really explain HOW it goes so fast.
I think it's worth noting that back then most people had no idea how dangerous radiation could be. Knowledge was probably even more limited in the Soviet Union.
Exactly. It was an unknown threat to the public
Three mile Island??
Even the shoe store.
Yes. Back in a day they would x-Ray your feet for measurements. The silver tray waste was highly radioactive. This was the 50’s.
That's not entirely true (maybe as far as the general public...but not people who worked in the industry...at least the US industry). I had just graduated with degree in Nuclear Engineering when this happened. We had numerous "Health Physics" courses that covered all aspects of radiation exposure.
That's nonsense. Everyone with an education knew what radiation was and it's effect.
You guys are forgetting the knowledge about radiation wasn't common back then. Not a lot of people knew what radiation poisoning was and the wife had no clue.
I can't imagine how hard it would be to see a loved one buried in a lead coffin and surrounded by concrete. To me, the biggest comfort of death is the notion that I'll be returning to the earth. My atoms will become the flowers and the rain and future babies being born, just like all of humanity and nature before me. Like my ancestors did and my friends and family will. Death into life into death into life. To have your atoms so warped and poisonous that you're cut off from the circle of life, forever to lie alone as a toxic pile of melted flesh, is horrifying. And to see that happen to a person I love would be like losing them doubly.
Damn. You put it so elegantly. Something so horrific in beautiful words.
This made me cry. You are a great writer ☹️
Keep in mind, the USSR told NO ONE this happened!! The world didn’t know until weeks after the fact when radiation sensors alerted in countries like Sweden. Even after that, they STILL didn’t fess up. The Cold War was a strange time.
I’m from Slovakia, around 600 miles from Chernobyl. I asked my mom how the authorities here responded to the disaster, whether the people were advised to stay indoors, not pick fruit, etc. and she just said ironically “No. Everything was just fine.” meaning that people here were completely in the dark and led to believe they were safe. I just found it interesting hearing you guys read out the Estonian commenter’s take in a previous video and how it differed from us.
In the GDR it was different. We couldn´t eat fruits or vegetables from the garden. Or drink Milk from Cows. I had to take Iodine. 3 members of my family had there tyroid removed. They got cancer.
@@kateawake I'm sorry to hear that. That’s also infuriating. 200 miles further than us they were being more careful. I mean, they literally say it in the show, “we’re staying here but they’re not letting kids in Germany outside”. Here, they had people mandatorily parading in the streets and schoolchildren doing Young Pioneer marches for the May 1st celebrations just 5 days later with radioactive clouds right over their heads.
I worked in the mid 90s with kids from Chernobyl in Germany. All of them are born after the incident. All had suffered from illnesses. Some had 6 fingers or 6 toes. Some had blood cancer or tyroid cancer. Some were so disfigured they will be in a weelchair for the rest of their life. At the time we tried to give as much love to them as we had. They stayed some weeks in Germany for treatment. Sorry for my english though.
Did they have a good life at least? Were you able to learn about them after treatment?
God bless you and all who tried to help!
I love the miners in this. Legends.
The next episode is the one that breaks me.
Also the reason why most people nowadays are aware of the dangers of radiation is _because_ of incidents like Chernobyl.
"If this happened today what would happen?"
I'm not sure how extensively the Fukushima nuclear accident was covered in the US after the power plant was hit by a tsunami in 2011, leading to multiple reactor meltdowns. Although it wasn't as catastrophic as Chernobyl-since there was no reactor explosion and less radioactive material was released-it still had a significant impact.
I remember the intense news coverage and protests against nuclear energy here in Germany. I believe both the Fukushima and Chernobyl disasters significantly fueled the global movement toward alternative energy sources and further opened the door for renewable power. While it's not on the same scale as Chernobyl, Fukushima is definitely worth looking into if you're interested.
Complete BS about renewable power, many forms but particularly wind and solar were widely utilized and already reaching profitability prior to that point. If Fukushima convinced you that we should be moving away from nuclear energy, then it’s a good thing that you aren’t actually involved in those conversations…
@@beefjezos2713 I didn’t say that wind and solar weren’t already profitable. As for Fukushima, it didn’t convince me of anything, since I was only 11 when it happened. My point was that around that time, I remember a lot of protests against nuclear energy, which ultimately led to the dismantling of all power plants in Germany by 2023. And, I would argue, more investment in alternative energies, including the already promising renewables.
And by the way, I don’t believe that nuclear energy is something we should necessarily move away from. Not sure where you got that impression… Maybe you should consider becoming an oracle?
@@moodyinpink Thank you for mentioning this: "And by the way, I don’t believe that nuclear energy is something we should necessarily move away from." To be honest, your stance was not obvious from your first comment.
I'm happy to be reading this from a German, because you guys closing down the remaining nuclear power plants during the Russian-Ukrainian war was, what some would say, not a smart move, affecting energy prices in the entire Europe (but mostly central).
@@frufruJ You're right, I didn't make my stance obvious. I didn't think it was necessary-I just wanted to explore the question of what would happen if Chernobyl happened today.
I personally have a lot of reasons to be against nuclear energy, especially since I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, which is often linked to radiation exposure. I get why Germany has a pretty negative view on nuclear power, especially after seeing some of the major disasters. But if you look at how many deaths can actually be traced back to nuclear energy, it's way lower compared to oil or gas, for example. I think nuclear energy deserves more exploration and shouldn't be completely dismissed, but I also don't blame people who feel differently. We've made great progress with renewable energy.
As for the recent shutdown of the power plants, I don't really want to comment on that, for the reasons I mentioned above. But I do think it’s a bit harsh to blame Germany for the rising prices across Europe.
Thanks for keeping things civil-too many people are downright rude in these comments.
There are certain parts of forests in Sweden where it is forbidden to pick berries and mushrooms due to them being radioactive from the fallout of Chernobyl.
Animals that eat these, such as the Wild boar, must be examined and checked for radiation before their meat can be removed during the hunting season. In some cases they have been hundreds of times more radioactive than what is considered safe to eat.
And Sweden is 1,505 km or 935.6 miles away from Chernobyl.
Underappreciated aspect of this show is the amazing sound design. (I do think the show won an Emmy for it). But the sounds just heighten the tension and the horror of everything that is happening.
I started watching this show a year ago and finished ep 1 but traveled to Europe and then forgot about it. I started watching it again because the Gekkers added it to their channel. Now I have been obsessed, over the past couple of weeks with learning more about the event and other phases of Nuclear energy.
The firefighters wife was definitely irresponsible, but I can't stress enough that the common people of the USSR knew absolutely nothing about what happened, or what radiation was, including even the nurses there. They knew it was dangerous, but it was basically a mystery to them. Also, once someone was suffering with radiation sickness, so long as all of the clothing they were wearing was removed and their skin was cleaned - its not actually something you can catch like a virus. Only direct contact with the uranium particles/radioactive material can make you sick. The story line about the firefighters wife is (thankfully) mostly fictionalized. Any radiation sickness she suffered was due to her own direct exposure when she was in Pripyat. Also just want to give a HUGE trigger warning for the next episode, this whole serious is obviously disturbing and graphic, but episode 4 is particularly upsetting.
In the book, Voices of Chernobyl, there was a page about how the people evacuated from Pripyat were threated in other towns like carrying a plague, a disease. Ostracized, sometimes without food and water. Nobody was informed about what radiation does. Even after the accident, no education.. so people started looting and stealing everything from the irradiated houses or sell car parts around soviet union from anything that was parked near the plant to never touch again...
was legit coming to say this (however the nurses knew, its hinted in the first episode when the nurse asks about iodine pills (she was probably tough in the city as opposed to the older small town doc)and ofc the nurses at hospital 6 knew, the rule about keeping loved ones away is to protect the patient from external contamination)
the nurses at hospital 6 barely knew what they were dealing with, my aunt was one of them
a note on the divers... Water is actually a very good radiation absorbent. it takes some time for radiation to penetrate through water, which is why you often see reactors sunk in water as it is used as moderator, (the stuff that can absorb or increase radati0on)
Water itself is a shield against radiation. It's why they can have exposed rods under water.
Although the water itself can be radioactive, it defeats itself after a certain extent. Then she suits they wear help the rest.
There's a wonderful tell by Legasov at 18:23 when he's told they pressed AZ-5 before the core exploded. You don't get to find out why until the end of Episode 4, but great foreshadowing.
13:40 the in-sync reaction was hilarious.
I really appreciate you guys watching Chernobyl. For Europeans like me, I have glimpsed comments and as an Italian I understand you
My parents told me that fear had broken out here in Italy. It was the Americans who warned us not to eat certain foods: meat, fish, milk, mushrooms and a certain type of vegetables. People didn't leave their homes, and ate canned food. And many women have had abortions out of fear.
As far as the KGB was concerned they were dangerous to people who told the truth about the state. Valery Legasov had a wife and two children. Boris Shcherbina had a wife and son. Not only were Valery and Boris in danger but their family and friends would have been taken away to prison or gulags (concentration camps) or death. KGB they used to shoot people in the back.
I wish someone had warned me about episode 4
I want to warn you about episode 4: animals and pets. Kisses from Italy
If you think that the makeup was really good than you should have seen Akimov's. They did all the makeup and shot a lot more than it was shown but couldn't use the footage since it was way too gruesome... he's face was completely gone and you could even see parts of his skull in some places... That's why in the show when Khomyuk questioned him you could only see his feet...
Is there a place to see his cut footage?
@@calebhall383 I bet there is a place where you can see more footage but what I was able to find was just an image on a reddit post that people say is just a photoshopped image of Toptunov
@@calebhall383 Lookup "The Most Painful Death Ever (VIEWER DISCRETION)" by Wendigoon. Not related to Chernobyl but a radiology accident in Japan involving a neutron source. More higher dose concentration, but lasted only about a second. It's a particularly disturbing story, but I think Wendigoon covers it with the most respect, compared to some other ones I don't even want to name. Also, even if they don't show the same disturbing graphics, there are others to look into as well; like the most radioactive apartment building, and the scrapped hospital radioactive source in India (or Thailand, or thereabouts, not sure anymore).
"Now you look like the Minister for Coal."
You're going to ask men to go into that radioactive hell for you, they get to muss your suit.
Don’t know if you guys noticed but one of the miners was Jeor Mormont’s actor.
The diving suits they gave them were made of a polymer that was unusually good at absorbing radiation. This wasn't known at the time, and MAY have helped to reduce their radiation exposure. But there is only so much something that thin can do.
Sometimes, being lucky is good enough.
It bears mentioning that people in the Soviet Union were kept ignorant and uninformed on purpose. The masses are easier to control that way. Regular people knew next to nothing about nuclear power or radiation. Most just didn't understand the danger and explains why parents went to watch the plant on fire with their children. To them, it was harmless and something entertaining.
around at 3 min, she knows, that she is pregnant. She is saying "no" because she fears, that she wouldn't be allowed to visit her husband anymore.
I think Fukushima powerplant in Japan was the most similar thing to have happened since Chernobyl. But it wasn't quite as bad
@tileux To think it would have all been avoided if the company that owned the plant upgraded it's flood defenses which they were warned to do long before the tsunami.
@tileux Honestly if you can find that list I would appreciate it because ALL of the lists I find about accidents at powerplants are at best 30 give or take a couple long. As well as just about half being minor incidents with little to no contamination and usually involved leaking material or exposure to radiation for a small group in the vicinity, usually criticality accidents or exposure to leaking material. The other half actually do show up on the severity scale, though it is also worth noting all the really bad ones were between the 50s and 70s when we were still figuring out what we were doing. On the 1-7 severity scale of Nuclear incidents before Cherno our lowest was 4 which we 6 or so that chart with the rest being 1s which are considered anomalies. Usually due to the material or radiation being contained or the reactor shut down, also with minor to no exposure to workers in the vicinity. After Cherno our HIGHEST out of 6 or so incidents not counting the 1s is a 4. Cherno and Fukushima being the worst as 7s themselves. but those are literally all of the incidents at power plants and MOST had nothing to do with the cores themselves as most were incidents like ie, Maryland in 89 a pressurized heater sleeve cracked but they shut it down, or 86 iin VA 4 workers died to a feed water pipe burst but onto the nuclear incident list it goes even though it was a steam explosion, that is what all the 1s are equivalent to. I truly have no idea where you are getting thousands from, especially since there are only around 400 or so reactors in the world today, so either all of them had at least 2-3 major accidents or a few are having hundreds. I have found a list with MUCH more rated accidents on it with an interactive map allowing you to click on each incident for info, I could see that housing 1k incidents, the problem is pretty much NONE of them have to do with reactors. They include things like orphan source encounters, incidents with medical practices involving radiation, to a guy in 2023 who accidentally irradiated himself with a portable x-ray device while performing weld inspections. Even with all these incidents it is still statistically safer than all of our other forms of power generation. Now I am not saying accidents can't happen but what I am saying is since the wild west of the earlier 20th century the safety standards and countermeasures have done nothing but improve, not to mention modern reactors are much more robust. Now I am not saying you are wrong, 100% accidents will happen, but what I am saying is it takes an act of god like the tsunami or ignorance about the design flaws leading to a test done improperly, etc. Not every incident would be Cherno or Fuku scale and realistically most will be workers hurting themselves and most that do happen to involve the core usually are handled by a shutdown but don't break containment as unlike Chernobyl's RBMK every reactor that gets built gets a reinforced concrete containment building that could tank a kamikaze F16. I am not trying to argue with you, you are right in that accidents will always happen, it is important to be aware of the risks. But right now our current forms of power pollute to much directly and renewables while my next choice indirectly though mining and mass production. We need alternatives and combine sources, renewables working with nuclear because right now most of our eggs are in the deadliest one in oil, gasoline, coal. I mean as we burn coal we release radiation into the air anyway as well as all the other gunk that comes from burning hydrocarbons. Which we are breathing in now, actively killing our home planet. Anything is honesty better than what we are doing rn. EIther way I was serious about that list, if you can find it reply to this, I legitimately have a morbid fascination with nuclear incidents so if you actually have a list or can find one that has 1k then my autistic ass wants to read that shit.
If you want another real story turned into a movie that was done really well, you should watch Society of the Snow. It's about a group of mostly guys about your age that survive a plane crash in the Andes and pull together to do everything they can to survive and return home. The cinematography, special effects/makeup, and acting are really good. The story is very famous in South America.
Okay just dumping a few facts here: People who suffer from radiation poisoning do not radiate themselves. They are contaminated, however, most of the radioactive material on them should have been washed off when they were submitted to the hospital. The main reason they tell the wife not to touch him is due to his immune system failing. Even though she might get in touch with some radioative particles left in his hair and on his skin, it's actually more dangerous for him than for her. And, of course, the thing with radition is that it gets worse the longer you are exposed to it. The wife was already exposed to severe radiation back in the town near the plant and now she prolongs her exposure by being with her husband (though this might not really add much to what she had already taken in).
It's also worthwhile to remember that the radation from the core itself does not spread so much, however, as you saw in the first episode the cloud of smoke from the fire carried a lot of radioactive particles. These are also carried by wind for hundreds of kilometers and can contaminate plants, crops etc. The farer away the better of course. Still they told people in southern Germany to thoroughly clean fruits and vegetables before eating them and not to hunt bore, eat venison from local forrests for some time.
He's internally infected with radiation though, it'll be in his sweat, blood and urine. She's been holding him and kissing him.
@@PuffTheMagicDragon86 Yes, still a drop in the ocean after what she had already been exposed to.
That's not how radiation works. You don't get "infected" with radiation.
@@PuffTheMagicDragon86 yeah I was gonna say, every particle of air he breathes and water he secretes still has radiation
@@Veri183 pretty much making all the scenes she's in with him pointless then.
Those poor men were still humans at the end of the day.
You have to listen to the podcast that goes with the show. It helped explain a lot about the show and how they were able to attain the realism as well as the changes they had to make to fit into a mini series.
You're good boys! I'm proud how you guys try to understand everything
"Miguel wouldn't have been on love island!" loooool
I remember this show premiered the Sunday after GOT season 8 ended.
there is a podcast, you can listen to an episode of the podcast after an episode of the show, there are no spoilers for the next episode.. It provides some interesting details on the decisions about dramatization and reality
I am German, 62 years old. At the time of the Chernobyl disaster, our two sons were 2 and 4 years old. Our place of residence was West Berlin, part of the Federal Republic of Germany, protected by soldiers from the USA, Great Britain and France.
We received information in ever faster succession while citizens of the GDR (communist side of Germany) didn't even know that anything had happened in their "big brother" USSR. In the Eastern Bloc the principle was to keep quiet, keep quiet and keep quiet again. The system is never to blame, only the individual.
The fact that the whole technology itself had the potential for a catastrophe (but was cheap) was kept quiet. Ask yourself why the "top talent" of this type of energy production (regardless of whether they are in the West or the East) never live near these power plants. It's all so "safe", isn't it?
People watching this series keep saying that the lady was being stupid to want to be near her husband even after his degradation. Yes she is, but any one of us who know to love would've been there doing the same things because the knowledge of how radiation works and contains another person was not known to even most of the medical personnels back then. Just imagine how a layman could know the intensity of it's contagious nature even if they have seen the victim of it with their own eyes.
No they didn't know it was radiation. You are looking at this situation through a fortunate lens of growing up with privileged rights and a smart phone device in your hands. They didn't have the rights and they didn't have an access to the knowledge.
Many thought it was regular burns. The few who did know it was radiation was either made to stay silent about it or didn't dare to be honest in fear of who was keeping an ear out.
Tree Mile Island- Harrisburg Pennsylvania. March, 28. 1979.
I think I watched that back in 2020. In like 2-3 days, spending all my free time on this. Even though I’m Russian-Ukrainian I didn’t really have any family story connected to Chernobyl and I was born in 90ties, but I think Soviet vibe shown there is so accurate. Finishing the show I literally on the next day sat to rewatch it with my mom who was 12 when that happened and she lived little east from Moscow. She liked that show a lot as well
Hi again , my wife woke me up and told me what happened in Ukraine but no one really took it seriously as we didn't really see what the danger was , but soon when the warnings came when our nuclear power plants reacted and scientists went out to the people and we all started to understand what happened . A couple of days later the government issued warnings about the drinking tapwater and farmers were forced to slaughter , grain was destroyed and fresh milk fruit berries and mushrooms were destroid. Absolute prohibition to pick berries and fruit or anything in nature that we Swedes love to do and as i previosly wrote it is still forbidden to pick mushrooms , fruit and berries in certain places along Swedens esrt coast. Thank you for your kind thoughts about yhe accident , it took many years before we could live normally again. Warm greetings from Stockholm to you all.
That's like such a small waterbottle on the table 😅
20:03 fun...but there's a small misconception...you guys are looking at radiation like an infection or disease...its not...its a state of being. An object is either radioactive or isn't.
The animals weren't being put down cos of birth defects they were being put down cos every thing in that vicinity had become radioactive...yes they'd probably have mutated offspring but the real issue is that animals themselves would be radioactive...just having a pet from there or eating fruit from an apple tree in the area could give you cancer.
Hey guys, quick note: a person that was decontaminated and is suffering from radiation sickness, is not contagious! So what she is doing is against todays medical advice (due to him being at high risk of infection and with no immune system), but she is not endangering herself… it is good to keep in mind, that even nowadays, the general public is not all that well informed about radiation, as can be seen from yours and many reactors comments about her behavior, so let’s give grace that the people back then sometimes knew even less, without judging their intellect :)
Not quite. If exposure is only external in nature, then yes decontamination is all that is needed. However, the first responders inhaled significant quantities of radioactive material. Thus, their bodily fluids and exhalations were dangerously radioactive. That's why their remains were bagged, welded into lead containers, and submerged in concrete.
@@cobblepott4169 Not quite ;) yes, their waste was radioactive and there might have been trace amounts of radioactive particles ingested and as such in their bones etc. But not in any level as to endanger others during short skin-to-intact-skin contacts to radiation sickness or significant amounts of radiation, after they were washed and their hair often shorn. Also further incorrect: they were buried in zinc caskets and the concrete only followed two years later.
@@cobblepott4169 Source please. The show?
For the fireman and his wife story, once the firemen's clothes/gear was removed and he was washed clean he was no longer a source of radiation. He was suffering from acute radiation exposure which led to his quick death. Her touching him would have done nothing to her and the baby, the show did this for the drama. The wife would have been exposed mainly when she was in the city of Pripyat and more than likely got chronic radiation exposure then. Sadly to say with any kind of radiation exposure, the younger you are the worse it is.
They built a new structure in 2016 called the "sarcophagus" because the original structure they built was falling apart and at risk of collapsing and spreading contaminated dust into the air. It was built off to the side and rolled into place using rails. It has remotely operated machinery that will deconstruct the original structure and properly dispose of the contaminated debris. It's supposed to last 100 years. There is a PBS Nova episode about it's construction that is a good watch (Season 44 Episode 8).
If Cannon an F1 fan? Respect for the Ferrari shirt.
You can actually “see” the radiation & the fallout on movies they took right after the explosion. The effects are chilling.
You guys should watch the documentary Klitschko. It's about the Klitschko brothers Vitali and Wladimir, who both were World Heavyweight Champions. They grew up near Chernobyl, and they had to be evacuated. Their father helped with the clean-up, and eventually died of cancer. Vitali is now the Mayor of Kiev, and Wladimir lives back there as well. Their life story is amazing. If you've never seen them box, you should look up some of their fights on here.
2:01 My understanding is that certain polymers (plastics, rubbers, etc) turned out to be significantly more protective against nuclear radiation than was known at the time.
Quite a few misconceptions about radiation, actually, both in general and in the show to some extent (and understanding of it was somewhat limited back then, so it's understandable).
First of all, yes - there has been an event more recently that's come somewhat close to Chernobyl in terms of catastrophic effects. The Fukushima power plant in Japan when it was hit by a tidal wave. Quite a few people died to the accident and the radiation, and the surrounding area pretty much became a 2nd exclusion zone.
Secondly, the dangers of touching an irradiated person are quite exaggerated in the show. The thing about radiation exposure is that there are 2 types - external and internal. External is when you have some radioactive dust or whatever land on your skin. Now, depending on the type of radiation, that might not even be that bad since your skin will actually stop a decent bit of such exposure. And it washes off fairly easily. A deep scrub in a shower, a change of clothes, maybe some iodine pills, and you'll probably be fine. As soon as the radioactive particles are removed from your body, you're not getting exposed any more. Now... internal exposure is much worse. If you breathe in radioactive dust or ingest contaminated fluids or material, you can't get it out. You can't scrub your lungs clean from the inside, so all that radioactive debris just stays there, continuously irradiating you from within, and you're more or less screwed. That's the difference between Dyatlov and Toptunov - Dyatlov didn't go into the water. He wasn't breathing in the smoke. He only got mildly contaminated, compared to the firefighters and the two engineers. The other guys... there was no saving them with how much contaminated material got into their body. By the time they're dying in the hospital, the patients have already been cleaned thoroughly on the surface, so touching them is not a real danger. Should probably wash your hands afterwards, but unless they're exposed to their bodily fluids or stick their hands inside them somewhere, the nurses should be fine.
Also, to the point of "What can we do today" - we actually do have some stuff. For example, Prussian Blue is a dye pigment. The very same one famously used by Bob Ross for his paintings. It also has a quirky little side effect that if you eat it, it binds with certain radioactive materials in your body. If that's the type of exposure you received, it could very well decontaminate your insides and save (or at least prolong) your life. There are some other options along similar lines as well, but that's the gist of it.
And to the point of it being "Supercharged cancer" - not quite. At least not on its own. A large enough dose of radiation can kill you with acute radiation sickness, like what the firefighters went through. A steady, slow dose like with Legasov gradually damages the DNA in your cells. Those cells don't die, but instead continue to function and reproduce as they normally would, except the damaged DNA causes flaws in that reproduction. Those flaws then lead to incorrect development of those cells, causing tumours and other abnormalities that we call "cancer". It's not a specific type of cancer, but radiation damage greatly increases the likelihood that you will develop certain types of cancer. I believe leukemia (blood cancer) is quite common in such cases, lung cancer for those who breathe it in, etc.
Hope that helps explain some stuff!
The horrible fact about the men on the hospital: The series toned it way down compared to what they looked like.
The most recent nuclear disaster was the meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi, where the reactors melted down due to a persistent loss of power from a tsunami.
She knew people back then just didn’t know how bad radiation was
“All right Jack, I’ll save you” 🤣😂
lol the show started in Brazilian Portuguese I was startled for a sec
the actual minister of coal had been a coal miner for decades, and was extremely respected by miners across the USSR.
The ones in the hospital were not told the firefighters had radiation poison. The wife assumed her husband was only burned.
regular people didn't know about the danger of radiation, it was still a new technology back then
There's a lot of debate in the comments about "who knew about radiation back then". To put it in perspective, there's still debate from scientists on how airplanes achieve lift. We "generally" know how it works, but it's not definitive. To assume that people just ~40yrs after nuclear fission was achieved just automagically had answers to a sudden and devastating tragedy is more fictional than the show we're all watching together. The show is meant to be a depiction of how mismanagement, bureaucracy, and a lack of well-thought out SOPs for the sake of ego and pride can result in a needless loss of life for everyone.
Boris deserves more love than Stannis
0:25 the megaton explosion did go off. i did it lmfao
3:14 radiation doesn't transfer from human to human, that's just TV.
Just fyi, real minister of coal worked in the mines since he was 15 years old.
And he wasnt white collar as series showed him.
The fact that out of those 3 men 2 are still alive today, Real heroes
Btw the decay of the people sick with radiation has slightly exaggerated and accelerated
When I saw this episode, I was about to faint.
Ok, I wanted to write my thoughts since 1st episode, but I was cooking and my hands were full😂
You need to understand that this show is an adaptation. Some things are exaggerated - there was immediate evacuation during 24 hours.
Some people actions are justified - like Diatlov. People were taught that 2+2=4, not -6,7. It was an axiom that reactors can't explode. It's like I'm telling you, that Moon made of cheese. It's uncomprehendable.
And about silencing everything in ep 1. You may google "Radium girls".
Red face never means being hot with nuclear energy. Thats your blood bleeding through your pores. I think that bit of knowledge is a real clarifier.
next episode has one of the best sequences in TV
23:45 Yes, It's called RadAway
The show is very accurate, especially in respect to the whole "vibe" in Soviet Russia. But there are two big errors: One is that the thermal explosion would be orders of magnitude smaller. They just calculated wrong. It would still be catastrophic, hence the necessity of sacrificing three workers to fix it, but it wouldn't have destroyed whole countries. And it's pretty obvious that that should be impossible from just one tank exploding.
The other error is suggesting that touching Vasily Ignatenko would endanger his wife. You can't catch radiation from someone who has been radiation poisoned, after the substances have been taken/washed off them. I think they follow a book written by her where she may have made such a suggestion (I haven't read it), but any radiation poisoning she or her child sustained would have been from being in Pripyat at the time of the catastrophe, or being subjected to other factors (like radioactive rain) later on.
Hi Guys, yes so it goes...Be ready to next episode gets worse and worse. You will not find out until what and how happened till the last episode. Remember what I said radiation does NOT transfer from from person to person, this is filmmakers license....The Soviets know well how and how radiation works, just like US..Be Sure you watch all the ending credits. There is one line i hope u get. it's the MOST important thing of all this incident. Remember if the Soviets did not solve this then you and I would not be speaking.. OK I will be watching
Great reactions.
Love youre video's and i love this series sowe everything is looking up for me
Teacher: Who is your Father?
Kid: My Father is Soviet Union.
Teacher: And who is your Mother?
Kid: My Mother is Communist Party.
Teacher: And who do you want to be?
Kid: I wanna be an orphan.
I believe (and hope ) that the leaders in charge for the most vulnerable workers gave them Iodine when they realised the severity of the stuation,, //.. and about other critical situations similar to this..? The huge Earthquake in Japan in 2011 is what comes to my mind.. I think they evacuated a lot of people close to the reactors in Fukushima ?? I need to check n this myself.. Thanks for your great reactions.. After all , this is llike watching a Horror Movie in Real World,, Watching You make me remember the worries many of us young people in the 1980`s felt about the World-Situation...and in the end, you just gotta do what you can.. One step at a time.. :)
The show is amazing at giving you the feeling of just how crazy the event and resolution was. But the show also take a lot of liberties that are not factual, even if "based" on real events. As long as you don't treat it as a documentary, then it is fine. A recommendation is to check out the podcast.
I wonder why the doctors let these people suffer. They were not able to stop the affects of the radiation, why didn’t they just let them go as pain free as possible.
You don't necessarily "catch" radiation from other people either. What's dangerous is the radioactive "dust" that gets on people. It's the atoms which have not yet radiated. Once the atom gives off the radiation it causes intense damage to whatever it hits. Gamma is just super intense light and is extremely dangerous outside the body. If we start at the energy of red light, UV is 2x that energy, X ray is about 1000x of UV, & gamma radiation is 100x stronger than X ray. So it's something like 100,000x of a UV light sunburn. You can't then infect that radiation burn onto other people but the sunburn is infused through your entire body inside and out. If the dust gets on you and the dust is radiating then you can "infect" other people. It's really bad if the "dust" gets inside your body because the other type of radiation "alpha decay" can't really pass through your skin but it fires actual particles (not light). Each particle can blast through your cells and explode your DNA. It's like throwing a bowling ball into a china cabinet.
The reason they were passing out "stable iodine" in the show is because your thyroid collects iodine. So you eat a bunch of regular iodine to displace and keep the radioactive atoms from collecting there so it can actually get into your body and hopefully pass through before it gives off the radiation. We actually have a medical procedure where people with an overactive thyroid can be fed an exact amount of radioactive iodine and it collects there and then destroys some percentage of the gland over time.
Please prepare yourselves for the next episode. It traumatized me.
Everytime you ask yourself "was the USSR actually this paranoid, absurd, obsessed with projecting strength and yet full of lies " - the answer is always yes. Which is why putin's efforts to rebuild it were never appreciated outside of russia.
You can't just resign from a job and move to another town. Your job is assigned to you after graduation. So is your apartment. You most likely don't own a car because the queue to get one was 10+ years (can't buy one, must queue).
My dad was conscripted in 1985, spent most of his service in Afghanistan. Came back home in 1987 (a year after the catastrophy) - the city of Kharkiv, Eastern Ukraine. 1.5 million residents, 40+ university and a particle accelerator, 4+ military academies. All in one city and yet STILL noone could coherently explain to a new physics student (my dad) what happened at Chernobyl. There was just so little information available.
My grandpa on my mum's side worked in the Kharkiv Radio-Electronic Institute. He guessed something had happened because of the lab readings his friend shared qith him but there was ZERO official information for like 3 days. The high-ups couldn't answer anything either. He was nearly dragged into the clean up effort later but his field of study wasn't even remotely connected to nuclear energy so he dodged it.
BTW the other 3 reactors at Chernobyl were kept in service until the year 2000. There is a second casing there now built in 2017. There is also a project to deconstruct the old Soviet Sarcophagus (the concrete casing) because it's falling apart. The ruzzian army raided the labs in 2022 (and also dug trenches in the Red Forest - resulting in several of their soldiers getting sick) but the deconstruction process has been restarted as far as I know.
P. S.
This is like a third reaction I am watching and an average Western's ignorance towards everything USSR-related is kinda baffling...
Lyudmila touched her husband because noone explained to her and the other families what was the danger. In reality her story is worse - she had to take care of all the firefighters in the hospital because the stuff refused to touch them (but didn't tell her why). Her poor husband was throwing up parts of his organs near the end.
The most disturbing thing is that they downplayed the radiation poisoning effects for TV standards.
Maybe you guys could watch band of brothers next. Its another mini series and the best depiction of ww2 out there, also rated even higher then Chernobyl.
The effect of the radiation on unborn children is graphically illustrated in the HBO documentary “Chernobyl Heart”. The effects are some of the most horrible I have ever seen.
theres a "physicist reacts to" thats really interestig, showing that regular people still have no idea. i think the physicist is actually the women they based the character on.
once this series is over, if you wish to know first hand experience from the "State' side, i recommend watching 2006 Battle for Chernobyl - now i will say that the initial info is slightly inaccurate, however, you have interviews with liquidators, generals, Gorbachev and others, including actual footage of the damage and effort to clean it up, i will warn you though, the interviews are in Russian/Ukrainian but there is a translator speaking in English
that Brazilian Portuguese at the start of video gave me whiplash
The hardest episode for me. There are a few technical issues but that is minor.
I think this is an incredible show but it does bother me that they suggest that you can get radiation from touching someone. She was exposed in Pripyat well before she got to the hospital. Other comments have covered this in more detail. This show in particular comes from the book voices of chernobyl.Lyudmilla’s story comes from that book. They may be using her account of what happened in the hospital so it could explain why it’s not accurate.
3:00 I mean, the show kinda starts with her barfing... lol
So, let's be clear on a few things.
1. The burned firefighter and most of the people in Moscow's hospital exposed to radiation don't look like that at all, that make up is made up just for the show and is far from what a real person look like, is just a redish, sometimes white color. But nothing like that. Immune system will deteriorate and skin will begin the process of necrosis when is acute radiation syndrome but it does not look at all like that.
2. Radiation is NOT contagious from human to human, not to children, nor to fetuses, or anybody in reality, but they didn't knew that, they didin't told her becuase nodody did really knew what would possibly happen and even today, most people don't know that, People evacuated from the nearby towns to Moscow or other cities suffered from outcasting, bullying and segregation just because of this. The wife's baby did die but due to a congenital heart disease and cirrhosis. You get sicke when you are exposed to
3. The 3 guys who went through the water, were in total dark, They found the valves and they lived, they survived and lived healthy normal lifes aftewards, 2 of them are still alive and the final one passed away in 2005.
4. The miners never got naked as they are told what could happen based on the firefighters and etc..
Fukushima happened...
I had erased these scenes from my memory, God thats awful
Pretty sure this and a few other meltdowns is the reason everyone is scare to use nuclear power that and gas makes more money😂
So this show does take some liberties with the medical aspects of radiation, and it’s done primarily for dramatic license. In most cases the danger of a radiation dose below that which will kill you outright is cellular damage. The determining factors are the type of radiation, the amount of radiation, and the manner in which it was absorbed. In all but the most extreme of cases this means an escalating chance of radiation related illness, primarily cancer. At very high non lethal doses the damage can manifest very quickly, but it’s not immediate. At these doses your cells lose the ability to reproduce because the DNA which controls that has been destroyed or mutated. You essentially begin to decompose until the cumulative systemic failure of your bodies systems results in your death. In even the fastest studied cases of high non lethal doses this takes at least 24-48 hours. Doses higher than that kill you outright (your tissue literally boils).
ok so these guys are... growing on me... They seem to know that they all need to..Know.. and Well that is the first step for a greater understanding of the world, realizing what you don't understand. It is a bit, rough, listening to them, but well.. I guess we all were young at some point. And credit should be given were due.
A few notes that I am sure may have been said before... A nuclear meltdown can NOT cause a "nuclear explosion" in the same way an atomic bomb can. The forces and lensing needed for a fission explosion to happen are incredibly complicated. Nuclear power in its own way is incredibly safe which, sounds silly given what you are watching... But the message of Chernobyl isn't "Nuclear Power Bad' but much more "Even something very good, can go bad under bad circumstances,"
One last comment, Fukushima is basically the "good" Chernobyl... IE, it was a "worst case scenario" situation, but... Because of the type of reactor, the safety of the core, modern advances, etc... The damage it caused while horrible, was a fraction of what COULD have happened with a core like the one in the show.
1 or 2 episodes start to involve dealing with the contaminated animals. It's very difficult to watch and can be skipped in my opinion.
I think you guys need to stop researching/reading comments on your own. The one guy mentioned something about the sentence Dyatlov received for his role in the disaster but you shouldn't know that yet!!!
I've read the did the minister of coal dirty, the real one was a miner, not some AC office party man.
For dramatic effect. And the scene works great.
The writers are good, but they are still american, so they can't help but write the most stereotypical ussr they have known from american propaganda for decades. You have to take into account that this show is very biased.
@@kassiogomes8498 the military officer is shown on a completely different light, the one that drives himself into the radiation. So I'm not sure your assumption is true.
@@kassiogomes8498 *You* have to take into account that the American writers used this series to criticize *their own* government at the time of release. It’s not some simple criticism about the Soviet Union which is long gone, it’s about how the government lies and the people pay the price.
@@rodrigovaccari7547 The military man isn't a party official. That's why he was painted as a heroic man.