Days That Shook the World (2003) s01e09 Episode Script

1
MALE NARRATOR: The history
of the 20th century
was transformed
by the dawn of the nuclear age.
Pioneered as a destructive force,
but harnessed as a positive energy,
the path from
Enrico Fermi's chain reaction
to the disaster at Chernobyl,
bears testimony to the volatile
and unpredictable force
of nuclear power.
This is a dramatic
reconstruction of events
as they happened
on two days that shook the world.
It is December 2nd, 1942.
In Amsterdam, Anne Frank and her family
have been in hiding
for the past four months.
In North Africa, Field Marshal
Montgomery and his desert rats
have won a famous victory
over Rommel at El Alamein.
In New York City,
Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman
appear at the premiere
of the new movie release, Casablanca.
And in Chicago, Illinois,
a group of scientists
are about to change the world forever.
It's early morning, December 2nd,
in the bleak Chicago winter of 1942.
It is bitterly cold, well below zero.
And, to make matters worse,
this morning there is a gas shortage.
Wartime rationing is affecting
dally life all across America.
29-year-old Albert Wattenberg,
is on his way to work
at the University of Chicago.
Al Wattenberg is a physics PhD student.
He's heading for a secret laboratory
built underneath the stands
of Stagg sports field
on the University of Chicago campus.
Albert is a member
of an elite team of scientists
who are working on a top secret
and highly dangerous experiment,
an experiment that could change
the course of the Second World War.
ALBERT: All we did was work and sleep.
Sometimes we thought
of why we were doing it
Several times we discussed
what we would do if the Nazis won.
Where would we hide
in the United States?
We were certain we would be killed,
if we were caught
NARRATOR: The man in charge
of the project is an Italian physicist
called Enrico Fermi.
After years of pioneering research,
Fermi will today begin an unprecedented
and potentially lethal experiment.
Within the confines
of this dingy and dusty squash court,
he will attempt to become
the first man ever
to harness atomic energy.
In 1939, the eminent scientist,
Albert Einstein
wrote to President Roosevelt about
the Italian physicist, Enrico Fermi.
Einstein recommended Fermi's research,
which explored the possibility
of using uranium to trigger
a nuclear chain reaction,
a process that could create
extremely powerful bombs
of a new and devastating type.
Einstein urged Roosevelt
to fund American research
into nuclear chain reactions
and warned him
that the Germans could be close
to the same scientific breakthrough.
In September 1942, President Roosevelt
acted on Einstein's advice.
He gave the go-ahead
for a covert bomb project,
code name,
the Manhattan Engineer District
(PEOPLE SHOUTING)
The race was on to beat the Nazis
to developing
the world's first atomic bomb.
The head of the German atomic
bomb project was Werner Heisenberg,
a former colleague of Fermi
from his days back in Rome.
Heisenberg's own research
was also well advanced.
In September of 1942,
during a meeting
with the leading physicist, Niels Bohr,
he had scribbled a drawing
of a prototype nuclear reactor.
It seemed only a matter of time
before the Germans had the bomb.
Today, December 2nd, 1942,
US troops have suffered
heavy casualties at Guadalcanal,
fighting the Japanese.
It's almost a year since
the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor,
which prompted America
to join the Allied effort.
Everyone wants an end to the war
and quickly.
Enrico Fermi ls the driving force
behind the next key phase
of the Manhattan Project.
Fermi and his team began working
on the project at Columbia University,
situated on Manhattan Island
in New York City
But in the spring of 1942,
they relocated to consolidate their work
under the guise
of the metallurgy laboratory
on the University of Chicago campus.
An incredible sequence
of scientific breakthroughs
has culminated in today's
chain reaction experiment.
As long ago as 1934,
during his research back in Rome,
Enrico Fermi discovered nuclear fission
when he successfully split
the uranium atom.
In today's experiment,
Fermi aims to prove
that when a neutron is fired
at a uranium atom,
It splits into more neutrons,
which, in turn, splits into more atoms
and creates more neutrons,
until the process is self-perpetuating.
This is known as a chain reaction.
Splitting one atom releases energy,
but Fermi believes
that, by splitting billions of atoms
through a chain reaction,
you could create
enormous amounts of energy.
Enough energy, in fact,
to produce a devastating bomb,
unlike any other.
There is an air of excitement
as Fermi and his protégé Leona Woods
enter the dark squash court
The air is thick with dust
from the graphite bricks,
which are used to house
the volatile materials.
FERMI: Welcome to hell's kitchen.
NARRATOR: Inside the squash court,
they are greeted by
Walter Zinn and Volney Wilson.
Our projections are right on the money.
Zinn and Wilson are two members
of Fermi's elite team
of experimental physicists.
Over the past few weeks, Fermi
and his team have been constructing
what looks like a giant beehive.
This unassuming structure,
known as a pile,
is, in fact, the culmination
of years of theoretical research.
It has cost well over a million dollars,
but this will be a small price to pay
if today's experiment is successful
Canadian physicist Walter Zinn has
overseen the construction of the pile.
Okay, good.
His crew includes half a dozen students,
a local carpenter,
and some high-school dropouts.
The back-of-the-yard boys
from the tough neighbourhood
beyond the Chicago stockyards.
ZINN: Okay, excellent. Okay, now
They have been cutting
graphite bricks for weeks now.
These bars had to be machined
and we set up a machining facility.
The word facility
is a little bit grand for what we had.
We put some machines
and some ventilation into a room
in the squash courts
and proceeded to square up the bars
and cut them to the right lengths.
NARRATOR: In preparation
for today's experiment,
22,000 disks of uranium oxide
have been inserted into holes
cut into 400 tonnes of graphite bricks.
The design of the pile
has been carefully worked out
MAN ON TV: In the middle,
where it will do the most good,
we will put the uranium metal
Around this, we will put
the weaker uranium oxide formed in lumps
and between these,
the graphite moderator.
Under and around the graphite is wood
to carry the load and fill in
the corners of the big block.
NARRATOR: The vital part of the
pile's design is a control mechanism
to stop a nuclear chain reaction
occurring spontaneously.
MAN ON TV: Because if it works,
this pile, Chicago Pile Number One,
will need to be controlled. Here's how.
Into the pile,
we will add rods of cadmium,
which soak up neutrons.
As long as these rods are in the pile,
there can be no reaction.
But pull them out, push them in,
these are the control rods,
which will turn it on and turn it off.
NARRATOR: The pile of graphite blocks
is 57 layers high.
It's now big enough
and contains enough uranium
to sustain a chain reaction.
In scientific terms,
it has reached critical mass.
Despite years of research,
nobody has ever attempted to start,
let alone control,
a nuclear chain reaction.
Today's experiment could be transformed
into a horrific accident
But to the young physicists on the team,
Fermi is a genius.
They believe they are working
on the coolest,
most exciting project in the world.
Once asked how he rated himself
from 0 to 100,
Fermi said,
"Einstein was 100 but I am 99."
Enrico Fermi was born in Rome in 1901.
His interest in science developed
when his older brother, Giulio,
died suddenly
on the operating table during surgery
for a minor throat abscess.
Enrico was only 14
and they were only a year apart in age.
Enrico and Giulio would search
the second-hand markets together
looking for magnets and wire, batteries
and switches and physics books.
They read about motors
and induction coils,
transformers and voltage supplies
and together they built these devices.
They were always pleasantly surprised
when their constructions worked.
Enrico was left isolated and lonely
following Giulio's death.
He found the works of a Jesuit physicist
written in Latin.
They excited the desolate boy
and he read them straight through.
He later told his sister, Marla,
that he hadn't noticed
they were in Latin.
From this point on,
his development as a scientist took off.
A family friend recommended
he studied at the University of Pisa
and it was at Pisa
that his academic career soared.
Chicago Pile Number One,
the world's first nuclear reactor
is now complete.
(MACHINE BEEPING)
Herb Anderson would not have missed
today for the world.
He is one of the key members
of Fermi's team
and has been with him since the
early research days back in Manhattan.
Fermi's team work in two shifts.
The day crew is supervised
by Walter Zinn
and the night crew by Herb Anderson.
There is a friendly, but intense,
rivalry between the two shifts.
My objective was always to equal
or better the performance of Zinn
during the day.
So my group always put on
the same number or one more layer,
and then we went home.
So it wasn't really a 24-hour shift,
but it was more like 16 or 18 hours
or something like that
FERMI: Ciao, Herb.
NARRATOR: Herb Anderson
has been working through the night,
assembling the final layer.
- FERMI: Have you had a very busy night?
- You know it.
The few hours of rest
he's managed to get
have been filled with anticipation.
Later today, he hopes to make history.
FERMI: Okay, let's go to breakfast.
Leona Woods is the only
female member of the team,
but she holds her own with all the men.
A tall, shy, athletic girl,
she's become accustomed
to the male-dominated environment
Wally Zinn wouldn't let me work
in the squash courts,
because, you see,
everybody wore overalls
and goggles and a mask against the dust
So everyone looked alike.
And a miner's cap, you know,
a regular striped, blue, ticking
workman's cap.
So everyone looked alike.
And he said, in case he had
to say nasty words at somebody,
he didn't want it to be a girl
So I was excluded
from the actual construction,
although I was in and out everyday
with calibrations
and measuring the growing
neutron flux of the reactor
as it added, layer by layer.
NARRATOR: Leona Woods has invented
one of the world's first Geiger counters
to measure the number of neutrons
in the pile.
Already at Chicago, she joined the team
when they arrived in the spring.
She's since become
a lynchpin of the project
and is now responsible
for all the numerical calculations
behind Fermi's scientific theory.
MAN ON RADIO: Viewing the war outlook
is the brightest in three years.
Secretary of Navy, Knox, disclosed today
that Japanese casualties are believed
to be five times greater than America's
and that the US Navy
is larger and more powerful
than the day before Pearl Harbor.
Balancing the nation
NARRATOR: Fermi and Herb Anderson
listened to the latest
war developments on the radio.
The team has got a busy day
ahead of them
and Leona nervously and hurriedly
prepares breakfast
LEONA: I made pancakes,
mixing the batter so fast
that there were bubbles
of dry flour in it
When fried, they were somewhat crunchy
between the teeth
and Herb thought I'd put nuts in it
NARRATOR: Enrico Fermi,
Leona Woods and Herb Anderson
have become a tight-knit trio,
bonded by their intense
and highly confidential work.
HERB: He said he certainly got
a great deal of pleasure
out of living and doing things.
In a sense, this was very infectious.
He loved to walk,
to climb mountains, to swim.
One thing we did in Chicago was every
day, without fall, during the summer,
swim in Lake Michigan.
Fermi and the other classified
physicists working on the project
cannot tell their wives
or their families anything
about their top-secret work.
They are forbidden from discussing
what they are developing
under the cover
of the metallurgy laboratory.
They only have each other
for support and camaraderie.
MAN ON RADIO: This morning,
the State Department announced
that two million Jews
have perished in Europe.
Five million more are in danger.
NARRATOR: Fermi's thoughts
turn to recent world events
and he reflects on the hand
that fate has dealt him.
Enrico Fermi, his wife Laura,
and their two children
had fled fascist Italy in 1938,
leaving the eternal splendour of Rome
for the new world
of opportunity, America.
(SPEAKING ITALIAN)
Following the rise of fascism
in western Europe,
the Duce, Mussolini,
welcomed Adolf Hitler to Rome
in May 1938.
That summer brought the anti-Semitic
Manifesto della Razza,
which proclaimed, "Italians are Aryans."
"Jews do not belong
to the Italian race."
The Fermis' two children
might have been exempted
from these new laws
as they were Catholic,
but his wife Laura was a Jew.
Fermi wrote in secret
to American universities
and he was offered a professorship
at Columbia University in New York.
That same year, the eminent
Danish physicist, Niels Bohr,
tipped him off that he was selected
for the Nobel Prize.
Enrico Fermi faced
the biggest decision of his life.
On November 10th, 1938,
he received a phone call confirming
that he had won
the Nobel Prize for Physics.
The Fermi family travelled to Stockholm.
From Sweden,
they escaped to the United States.
It wasn't a moment too soon.
Mussolini was outraged
that Fermi had not worn
a military uniform at the ceremony
and had failed to give a fascist salute.
Had Fermi returned to Italy,
he would almost certainly
have been forced to work for Hitler.
Since the Fermi family
landed in America,
the plight of Jews in Europe
had worsened.
In Italy, Jews were deprived
of full citizen rights
and their passports were withdrawn.
Even Fermi's father-in-law,
Admiral Capon,
had been taken away
to a concentration camp.
Fermi knows that the Nazis
could be one step ahead
in the race to build the bomb,
a nightmare scenario.
But if today's experiment is successful,
it will be a giant step forward
in the Allies' effort
to defeat Hitler's war machine.
(PEOPLE CHATTERING)
The stage is now set for the boldest
experiment in human history.
No one has ever done this before.
Enrico Fermi will be the first man
to attempt to release
and control atomic energy.
He orders the electrically-operated
control rods to be withdrawn.
(MACHINE BEEPING)
If the experiment is successful,
Fermi will have proved
that a nuclear chain reaction
is possible.
If anything goes wrong, it could cost
Fermi and his team their lives.
Leona's Geiger counter
will count the neutrons.
If the neutron count
gets higher and faster,
she will know
that the chain reaction is happening.
Three young students
climb on top of the pile.
They will act as firemen,
in case the chain reaction
runs out of control,
on standby with jugs
of cadmium sulphate solution.
It is hoped that the cadmium solution
will stop the pile overheating
and prevent a meltdown.
The students are known
as the suicide squad.
Two, three.
There is only one remaining
control rod in the pile,
which is operated manually
on Fermi's order.
This final rod is holding
the chain reaction in check
until it is withdrawn
the proper distance.
This single rod will act
as the starter, accelerator,
and break for the chain reaction.
Two. Two.
Fermi instructs
the removal of the rod halfway out
All eyes are on Leona
as she begins the neutron count.
The counter increases its clicking
and then steadies.
LEONA: Three.
Three.
Another six inches.
NARRATOR: The rod is pulled out further.
Eight. Twelve.
There is a nervous hush
as Fermi checks his calculations
on his ever-present slide rule.
LEONA: Forty four.
Everything is going to plan.
Sixty eight. Sixty eight.
Eighty four.
(ALARM RINGING)
Suddenly, an emergency safely
rod is automatically released.
The automatic shutdown
has been set too low
and the neutron count
is going higher than they predicted.
Safety circuits, which had been set
to a certain maximum flux,
began to give a bell signal and that..
(ALARM BELL RINGING)
But people wanted still
to go a little higher,
so they simply pulled
the wires off the bell signal,
so it wouldn't ring.
LEONA: Twelve.
NARRATOR: A crowd begins to gather
on the balcony of the squash court
Senior scientists
on the Manhattan Project
and representatives
of the US military arrive,
anxious to witness
today's historic experiment.
No one photographed the scene.
The results would be
immediately conveyed to the President
All eyes are on the pile.
Another one foot.
The control rod
is moved out another foot
The neutron count continues to rise.
Sixty two. Sixty eight.
Seventy two.
Another six inches.
LEONA: Seventy two. Seventy three.
Eighty four. Eighty seven.
(MACHINE BUZZING)
Another five inches.
Fermi makes another calculation.
He knows that the experiment is entering
a make-or-break phase.
If the neutron count doesn't level off,
but continues to rise,
the pile will go critical
and the team will have achieved
the world's first
self-sustaining chain reaction.
By now, Leona Woods can't keep up
with the speed of the Geiger counter.
Fermi knows
that this is the moment of truth.
It's gone critical
It's gone critical
The world's first self-sustained nuclear
chain reaction has been achieved,
but Fermi still has to prove
that he can control it
Radiation is now being released
from the atomic pile.
Everyone watches anxiously.
Each wondering if the experiment
is about to spiral out of control
if Fermi leaves the pile
uncontrolled for too long,
there will be a runaway chain reaction,
a meltdown.
FERMI: If the reactor goes unchecked
for a few hours,
then the rate of
the reaction is so great
the mass becomes red hot
and everyone in the room would be killed
by the intensity of its radiation.
So we thought it would be a good idea
to control the reaction.
(COUNTER CLICKING)
NARRATOR: After 28 minutes,
Fermi orders the reactor to be shutdown.
The control rods are replaced.
The neutron count begins to fall
and the rattle of the Geiger counter
is now just a series of clicks.
Man has operated
the world's first nuclear reactor.
For the first time, the energy
of the atom has been harnessed.
LEONA: It was quite clear
it was the answer
to everyone's hopes and dreams.
There was absolutely dead silence.
Nobody said anything.
Eugene Wigner showed up
with a bottle of Chianti.
We poured it into cups
and we all drank it very quietly.
I'm sure everyone was thinking
immediately ahead to the bomb,
from that minute on.
LEONA: Well, the thing is, Professor,
today's experiment went extremely well,
but what we've got to realise
is that the Germans have probably
already done this experiment.
And what is it going to take
for us to get our acts together?
I mean, I'm extremely concerned.
FERMI: Al, good night.
I'll let you lock up as usual
NARRATOR: Twelve days
after Enrico Fermi and his team
accomplished the first chain reaction
with Chicago Pile Number One,
construction of the world's first
large-scale nuclear reactors began.
The site was at Hanford,
Washington State,
on the banks of the Columbia River.
MAN ON TV:
In the bright desert sunshine,
the sombre shape
of the mammoth-sized secret plant
began to mushroom up and out
What had been built
by the Dupont Company
for the Manhattan Engineer District,
were three Fermi-type nuclear reactors,
scaled up from the one
Doctor Fermi had built
under the University of Chicago stadium.
NARRATOR: Leona Woods
will later go to Hanford
to work on these giant reactors.
One of the few women physicists
on the Manhattan Project.
She supports atomic energy
throughout her life,
until her death in 1986.
Herb Anderson will go on to work
at Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico
alongside Enrico Fermi.
Together, they will develop a more
violent and explosive chain reaction.
At dawn, on 16th July, 1945,
the Manhattan Project
will realise their goal,
Trinity, the creation and explosion
of the first atomic bomb.
Fermi will claim
he didn't hear the huge explosion.
He was too busy throwing
bits of paper up in the air
to measure the blast.
On 6th August, 1945,
a combat atomic bomb
will be dropped on Hiroshima,
with a second
three days later over Nagasaki,
forcing Japan to surrender
and bringing an end
to the Second World War.
After the war,
Enrico Fermi will return to Chicago,
disillusioned by the seamless transition
of the Manhattan Project
into a nuclear arms race.
Fermi refuses to support
the subsequent development
of the hydrogen bomb.
He dies of cancer in 1954, aged just 53.
Al Wattenberg
later becomes Professor of Physics
at the University of Illinois.
He keeps the famous Chianti bottle
as a memory of the part
he played in Fermi's chain reaction.
It is April 26th, 1986.
At the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida,
the Challenger Space Shuttle
has exploded on takeoff.
Swedish Prime Minister, Olof Palme,
has been shot dead in Stockholm.
South African commandos
have launched raids
on ANC bases across Africa.
And near the Ukrainian town of Pripyat,
the most serious setback
to the nuclear age is about to occur.
With a population of over 40,000
and an average age of just 26,
Pripyat is a young and aspiring town.
Every year,
over 1,000 babies are born here.
It's an unusually hot April morning
and parents and children are outside
enjoying the weather.
Pripyat is confidently
stepping out into the future.
There's a new secondary school,
a hotel, a cinema
and even an amusement park
on the drive into town.
Vastly Ignatenko is a local fireman.
He and his 24-year-old wife, Ludmilla
moved to Pripyat
when they married two years ago.
(SPEAKING IN RUSSIAN)
This Friday afternoon,
they are enjoying a picnic
with two friends who work at Chernobyl,
the local power station.
Vastly and Ludmilla
are optimistic about the future.
Vastly is up for promotion
and with their first baby
expected in June,
they are about to move
from a communal flat
into their very own apartment.
Pripyat is a new town,
built for the workers employed
at the nearby Chernobyl
nuclear power station.
Block 4,
containing a fourth nuclear reactor,
has only recently been completed
and promises more prosperity
for the area.
But the sunny confidence
in this atomgrad,
or atomic city, masks a darker reality.
Alarmed by the bombing
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
the Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin,
ordered his nuclear scientists
to go all out to build the Red Bomb.
The program was led by Igor Kurchatov,
who built the first
Soviet nuclear reactor.
A network of secret cities
with nuclear reactors was quickly built.
These atom towns produced plutonium
for the Soviet Union's war machine
and provided atomic energy
for the largest country on Earth.
But in the rush to achieve
nuclear parity with the West,
many corners were cut
in design and safety.
Just four years later, in August 1949,
the Soviet Union had built and tested
its first atomic bomb.
The Director of the Chernobyl plant,
Viktor Bryukhanov,
and his chief engineer, Nikolai Fomin,
report for duty.
They are responsible
for running the flagship
of the Soviet Union's nuclear fleet.
But today, they've got a problem.
The Chernobyl power station
has four separate
nuclear reactors on site.
Three years ago, in the summer of 1983,
Viktor Bryukhanov came under pressure
from Communist Party officials
to put Reactor Number 4
into full commercial operation early,
without completing
the necessary safely test
If he hadn't agreed to do so,
thousands of workers, engineers
and his superiors in the ministries
would have lost bonuses,
worth up to three times
their monthly salaries.
Brukhanov and Fomin have still not
completed the safely test
They both know
they can't wait much longer.
Today, Reactor Number 4
is due to have its
annual maintenance shutdown.
It's an ideal opportunity to carry out
the long overdue safety test.
But Bryukhanov has just returned
from the 2741 Party congress
where Mikhail Gorbachev has called for
the production of nuclear energy
to double.
As a loyal party man, Bryukhanov is keen
to increase production levels
and impress his bosses.
But with the spotlight turned
on the nuclear industry,
he can't afford any accidents
and needs to run the safety test
(SPEAKING IN RUSSIAN)
He looks to his chief engineer
for advice.
Fomin, the only nuclear engineer
at Chernobyl,
is keen to proceed
and approves the test
Brukhanov, an electrical engineer,
trusts his colleague's judgement
and agrees.
A little after 1:00,
the operators in the Control Room
start to reduce the output
from Reactor Number 4.
The ideal conditions for the safely test
are 20-30% of normal output level
Everything is going according to plan,
and Reactor Number 4 is soon reduced
to 50% of normal output.
(ALARM BELL RINGING)
But while the conditions
are being prepared
to run the safety test,
there is an unexpected turn of events.
(SPEAKING IN RUSSIAN)
The Kiev grid controller
is on the line, demanding
an increase in output from the station.
One of the regional power stations
has gone down
and they need more output
from Chernobyl to compensate.
(SPEAKING IN RUSSIAN)
Brukhanov reluctantly complies
with the request,
but it will mean abandoning
the long-awaited safely test
At this time of year, a sudden demand
for more electricity isn't so unusual
The May Day holiday is coming up.
All across the Soviet Union,
management and workers
are under pressure to meet targets
set by the leaders in Moscow.
Vastly and Ludmilla,
have holiday plans of their own.
They are due to leave in the morning
once Vastly comes off his shift
at the fire station,
and take the train to Belarus to spend
the holiday with Vasily's parents.
Shortly after 8:00,
Valentin Belokon,
a 28-year-old doctor
from Pripyat hospital, begins his shift
(SPEAKING IN RUSSIAN)
With the May Day holiday looming,
people are in high spirits
and the hospital has received
a number of emergency calls.
It promises to be a long night
for Dr Belokon.
After a day of relaxation,
Vastly is getting ready
for his night shift at the fire station.
(SPEAKING IN RUSSIAN)
He's due on duty at 10:00,
but he finds it hard
to drag himself away from Ludmilla.
At Chernobyl,
the night shift has just come on duty.
It's only a skeleton crew,
but they will now be responsible
for conducting the safely test
aborted earlier in the day.
Anatoly Dyatlov,
a newly-promoted deputy chief engineer,
is managing the station tonight
Alexander Akimov is night shift
supervisor of Reactor Number 4.
Leonid Toptunov
is the operator in charge.
There has been a-10 hour delay
with the test now,
and one of the engineers
from the previous shift,
Yuri Tregub,
stays on to handover to the night shift.
The Kiev grid controller
calls to confirm that the extra output
is no longer required.
Power is reduced ready for the test
The reactor's power output is regulated
by moving the control rods up and down.
There are 211 control rods.
They act as the starter,
the accelerator and the brake.
Tonight the operator in charge of
manipulating the control rods
is 26-year-old Leonid Toptunov.
He graduated from university
three years ago.
Like most of the staff at Chernobyl,
he is a trained electrical engineer.
Toptunov starts to lower the control
rods into the core
and power levels begin to fall
Ludmilla is getting ready for bed.
She's finished packing their bags,
for the trip to Belarus in the morning.
(SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
Senior Sergeant Vastly Ignatenko
and the fire officers
from Pripyat Brigade Number 6
are having a quiet night, so far.
(SPEAKING IN RUSSIAN)
Back in the control room,
Toptunov has made a mistake
setting the control rods.
Power levels have now fallen too low
to carry out the safely test
It's almost a complete shutdown.
What's more,
Reactor number 4 is extremely unstable
when operating at low power.
Toptunov needs to raise the power
levels as quickly as possible.
Fearing that he might
make the situation worse,
Toptunov telephones an operator
at Reactor Number 3.
(SPEAKING IN RUSSIAN)
He doesn't know what to do because
in the manual a lot of the instructions
have been crossed out.
He is advised to follow the
instructions that are crossed out
because there is no official stamp
on the changes.
Following his recent promotion,
Dyatlov is keen to impress his bosses.
He has his orders.
They must go ahead and carry out
the safely test as instructed.
Akimov and Toptunov
think that it's too risky.
Power levels are too low
and the test should be abandoned.
But Dyatlov says
he's prepared to take responsibility.
Dyatlov orders Toptunov
to raise the control rods,
thereby increasing
the power of the reactor.
Dr Belokon is continuing
his emergency rounds of Pripyat
He's been called to attend to a drunk
who has fallen
from a third floor balcony.
(SPEAKING IN RUSSIAN)
Vastly is suddenly called to the phone
by the fire station switchboard.
It's his wife on the line.
Everything is ok.
Ludmilla's realised
he's forgotten to take his sandwiches.
She offers to bring his supper
to the fire station.
Vastly tells her not to worry
and to get a good night's sleep.
They've got a busy day tomorrow.
(ALARM RINGING)
In the control room,
Toptunov has removed enough rods
to increase output levels
from Reactor Number 4.
But it's still only 7% of output,
well short of the minimum 20%
required to carry out the safely test
They need to raise more rods,
but to do so they must disable
the automatic shutdown mechanism
designed to prevent the reactor
going into meltdown.
Toptunov is very worried
and says it's too dangerous.
Anxious to carry out
the test as ordered,
Dyatlov switches off
the automatic over-ride himself.
The reactor seems to be stabilizing,
but only at 12% of its output.
There is still not enough power for
the test to be carried out correctly.
Dyatlov demands
that they must start the test
He orders Toptunov
to begin manually raising the rods.
(ALARMS BLARING)
Power now begins to rise dramatically.
The core overheats
like a radioactive volcano.
Toptunov is frightened by
the readings on the instruments
and the growing instability.
36 seconds after
the beginning of the test
Akimov presses
the emergency panic button
for immediate shutdown of the reactor.
But it's too late.
There's not enough time
to stop the chain reaction.
In 4 seconds, it reaches
100 times normal power level
Akimov cuts the electricity
so that the rods fall into the core
under their own weight.
But the reactor core is now so hot
that it's distorted
and the rods can no longer move freely.
Instead, they are stuck
and aggravating the reactor even more.
20 seconds later,
the roof blows off Reactor Number 4.
5 seconds later, the core erupts,
and scatters
50 tons of nuclear fuel, graphite
and debris up to 3 kilometres away.
The radiation released is
10 times greater than an atomic bomb.
Dr Belokon is on his way
back to the hospital
DR BELOKON: We saw flashes.
We thought they were shooting stars.
Just flashes.
Like lightning
we didn't hear any thunder.
The engine was running.
NARRATOR: In the control room, the power
suddenly falls and the lights go out.
There is panic and confusion.
They have no idea of the scale
of the disaster.
Toptunov even calls
a couple of trainee operators,
who he dispatches to the reactor hall
to see what's happened.
(ALARM BUZZING)
The alarm is raised
and the men of Kiev Fire Brigade
Number 6 spring into action.
(WOMAN ANNOUNCING ON PA)
None of the firefighters
are expecting anything unusual
There have been fires
at the Chernobyl plant before.
Wearing their normal
regulation uniforms,
the firemen set off on the short journey
from the fire station to Chernobyl
(SIRENS WAILING)
When the trainee operators finally
get to the reactor hall,
they cannot believe their eyes.
OPERATOR: There was this weird
kind of luminous light
I've never seen anything
like that in my life.
We knew that the only thing
that could be burning like that,
with that crazy light,
was the reactor itself.
NARRATOR: They quickly realise
the danger they are in,
but it is too late
(SPEAKING IN RUSSIAN)
Vastly and the men of Brigade Number Six
are the first firefighters
to arrive at the scene.
VASILY: At first when we got there,
for a moment or two,
we thought it might just be a fire,
like any other fire.
But I felt this strange, metal taste
in my mouth and tingling on my face.
But no one held back.
We sensed the danger but we all
understood it had to be done.
NARRATOR: The firefighters
have not been issued
with any anti-radiation suits
or breathing apparatus.
Shift supervisor, Alexander Akimov,
decides to assume command in defiance
of Dyatlov, who is panicking.
Akimov phones
the plant director, Viktor Bryukhanov
to tell him there is a small fire
in the reactor hall
The firemen must climb up
onto the reactor roof
to try and contain the fire from
spreading to the other three reactors.
FIREMAN:
I thought I was all right at first
Your mind can't really take it in.
You think I'll be fine.
I can handle it
There's a part of you
that thinks it's indestructible.
But when I got up there, it was burning
in so many places on Block 3.
NARRATOR: Toptunov and Akimov
alert the other operators in the station
in a bid to stop the spread of the fire
to the other reactors.
(COUGHING)
But it's already too late
for the two young operators.
Within hours, they develop
radiation herpes all over their bodies.
Their bone marrow is destroyed
and their immune system collapses.
They are the first to die at Chernobyl
Other casualties are quickly dispatched
to a hospital in Pripyat
(AMBULANCE SIREN WAILING)
The deadly radiation is still spewing
out of the ruptured power station.
It too is rolling down towards Pripyat,
settling invisibly on the sleeping town.
Ludmilla is finding it hard to sleep.
She gets up to open the window.
She feels her face beginning to tingle,
as if rain is hitting her cheeks.
(COUGHING)
The firemen have managed to stop
the fire spreading
on the roof of Reactor Number 3.
But they are feeling strange
and disorientated.
Vastly is going through the first stages
of radiation sickness.
He is delirious,
his throat is dry, he wants to vomit
They are all weak and staggering,
thirsty and dizzy.
(VOMITING)
Dr Belokon has broken down
the locked door
to the first-aid station.
He gives Vastly some iodine
and an injection of Relanium.
VASILY: The roof was melting under
our feet The smoke The smoke
NARRATOR: The firemen have a strange,
metallic taste in their mouth.
They need to have a smoke, or a drink,
or something to take away the taste.
(ALARMS BUZZING)
Plant Director Brukhanov
arrives at the power station
to ascertain
the extent of the damage for himself.
He is met there by Chief Engineer Fomin.
Brukhanov and Fomin cannot bear
to even contemplate the unthinkable.
They seem unable to grasp
the severity of the situation.
The reactor must be intact
They agree that they will have to inform
Vladimir Marin of the
Central Committee's Atomic Sector.
(SPEAKING IN RUSSIAN)
Brukhanov lies to Marin, telling him
the reactor core has not been destroyed.
The deadly plume of radiation
has already blown across the country
to nelghbouring Belarus and Russia
and is heading towards the West
But in Pripyat, life goes on as normal
Officials have arrived from Moscow
to assess the damage to the reactor.
Radiation levels in Pripyat
are now enormous.
Moscow officials, Civil Defence,
and the Medical Board
are trying to decide what to do.
Ludmilla has found out that Vastly and
the rest of his brigade
are in the local hospital
He is so radiated,
the nurses are afraid to touch him.
Vastly and the other firemen
and radiation victims
are flown to
a secret hospital in Moscow.
The evacuation will eventually
be ordered, 36 hours after the blast,
but it's too late
for the people of Pripyat
(SPEAKING IN RUSSIAN)
NARRATOR: The smoking reactor
is still releasing millions of curies
of radioactivity into the atmosphere.
It will burn for another nine days.
The spectre of radiation
fills Chernobyl's fields
and Pripyat's empty apartments,
where mortal danger
has no colour, taste or smell
Following the disaster,
there will be a 10-day news blackout
in the Soviet Union.
Meanwhile, in the West,
radiation is reported in Sweden.
And US satellites are alerting the world
to the Chernobyl disaster.
REPORTER: The Pentagon is thought
to have learnt first of the disaster
intercepting radio signals
inside the Soviet Union
and then diverting
a reconnaissance satellite.
(COUGHING)
Dr Belokon survives, but he will be
an invalid for the rest of his life.
Akimov and Toptunov die of
acute radiation sickness within 12 days.
Victor Bryukhanov, Nikolai Fomin
and Anatoly Dyatlov
will be tried in August 1987.
Brukhanov receives a 10-year sentence.
Fomin attempts to commit suicide,
but he and Dyatlov receive seven
and five year sentences for negligence.
Vastly will die in Moscow
on May 13th, 1986,
with Ludmilla at his bedside.
She will grieve for her husband,
and for the child she is still carrying.
Her baby daughter, Natasha,
will live for only five days,
killed by the radiation
she absorbed in the womb.
Vasily's baby daughter, Natasha,
will be buried alongside him
in Mitino cemetery in Moscow.
Chernobyl is
the world's worst nuclear disaster.
The legacy of radiation contamination
will last for centuries
and claim hundreds
of thousands more victims
than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
More than five million people
live on radiation-contaminated land
and they will develop
new cancers and genetic mutations.
There is no so-called peaceful atom.
Chernobyl is humanity's final warning.