The history of the twentieth 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 Marshall 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.
War-time rationing is affecting daily life all across America.
29-year old Albert Wattenburg is on his way to work at the University of Chicago.
Al Wattenburg 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.
'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.'
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 burgeoning reputation of 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 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.
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.
Enrico Fermi is 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 protege,
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.
"Welcome to Hell's kitchen"
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.
In preparation for today's experiment,
22,000 discs of uranium oxide have been inserted into holes cut
into 400 tons of graphite bricks.
The design of the pile has been carefully worked out.
'Ln the middle we will put the uranium metal where is will do the most good,
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.'
A vital part of the pile's design is a control mechanism
to stop a nuclear chain reaction occurring spontaneously.
...because if it works,
this pile -Chicago pile No.1- will need to be controlled.
Here's how.
Into the pile we will add rods of cadmium that will soak up neutrons,
as long as these rods are in the pile there can be no reaction,
pull them out, push them in,
these are the control rods that will turn it on and turn it off.'
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,
he 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, Julio,
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 Julio 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 Julio'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, Maria,
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 study 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.
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, the night crew by Herb Anderson.
There is a friendly but intense rivalry between the two shifts.
'My objective was 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 twenty four shift, more like 16 or 18... '
Herb Anderson has been working through the night assembling the final layer.
The few hours of rest he's managed to get have been filled with anticipation.
Later today he hopes to make history.
"Okay lets got o 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 cos
you see everybody wore overalls, goggles and a mask against the dust,
so everyone looked alike, in a miners cap, blue ticking workman's cap,
so everyone looked alike and he said if he had to say nasty words to somebody
he didn't want it to be a girl,
so I was excluded from the actual construction although
I was in and out every day with calibrations...
measuring the growing neutron flux of the reactor as it added layer by layer... '
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 lynch-pin of the project
and is now responsible for all the numerical calculations
behind Fermi's scientific theory.
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 splendor of Rome for the new world of opportunity -America.
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 'ltalians 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, Nils Bohr,
tipped him off that he was selected for the Nobel prize.
Enrico Fermi faced the biggest decision of his life.
On November 101938,
he received a phone-call confirming that he had won the Nobel prize for physics.
The Fermi family traveled 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.
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.
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.
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 Chaine reaction run out 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'.
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 brake for the chain reaction.
Fermi instructs the removal of the rod half way out.
All eyes are on Leona as begins the neutron count.
The counter increases its clicking and then steadies.
"Another 6 inches"
The rod is pulled out further.
There is a nervous hush as Fermi checks his calculations
on his ever-present slide rule.
Everything is going to plan.
Suddenly, an emergency safety rod is automatically released.
The automatic shut-down 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 people wanted it to go even higher, so we... simply...
pulled the wires off the bell signal so it wouldn't ring and ring!"
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 and the military.
All eyes are on the pile.
"Another 5 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.
"Its 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 on 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.
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.
'It was quite clear it was the answer of 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.'
Twelve days after Enrico Fermi and his team accomplished
the first chain reaction with Chicago pile Number 1,
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.
'... 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 Dr Fermi had built in the University of Chicago stadium...
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 the 16th July 1945,
the Manhattan project will realize 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 to the air to measure the blast.
On the 6th August 1945,
a combat atomic bomb will be dropped on Hiroshima
with a second 3 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 261986.
At the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida,
the Challenger space shuttle has exploded on take-off.
Swedish prime Minister, Olaf palme, has been shot dead in Stockholm.
South African commandos have launched raids on ANC bases across Africa.
And near the Ukrainian town of prypiat,
the most serious setback to the nuclear age is about to occur.
With a population of over 40,000 and an average age ofjust 26,
pripyat is a young and aspiring town.
Every year over a thousand 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.
Vasyliy Ignatenko, is a local fireman.
He and his 24 year old wife, Ludmilla,
moved to pripiat when they married two years ago.
This Friday afternoon they are enjoying a picnic with two friends
who work at Chernobyl, the local power station.
Vasily & Ludmilla are optimistic about the future.
Vasily 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 even 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 lgor 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.
The Director of the Chernobyl plant,
Victor Brukhanov 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,
Victor Brukhanov came under pressure from Communist party officials
to put reactor number 4 into full commercial operation early,
without completing the necessary safety 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 safety test.
They both know they can't wait much longer.
Today, reactor number four is due to have its annual maintenance shutdown.
It's an ideal opportunity to carry out the long overdue safety test.
But Brukhanov has just returned from the 27th party congress
where Mikhail Gorbachov has called for the production of nuclear energy to double.
As a loyal party man,
Brukhanov 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.
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 one o'clock,
the operators in the Control Room
start to reduce the output from reactor number 4.
The ideal conditions for the safety test are 20 to 30% of normal output level.
Everything is going according to plan
and reactor number 4 is soon reduced to 50% of normal output.
But while the conditions are being prepared to run the safety test,
there is an unexpected turn of events.
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.
Brukhanov reluctantly complies with the request.
But it will mean abandoning the long awaited safety test.
Shortly after eight o'clock,
Valentin Belokon, a 28 year old doctor from pripyat hospital.
Begins his shift.
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,
Vasily is getting ready for his night shift at the fire station.
He's due on duty at 10 o'clock,
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 safety test aborted earlier in the day.
Anatoly Dytalov, 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 3 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.
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 safety 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.
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 safety 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.
Vasily 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.
Vasily tells her not to worry and to get a good nights sleep,
they've got a busy day tomorrow.
In the Control Room,
Toptunov has removed enough rods to increase output levels
from reactor number 4.
But it's still only at 7 percent of output
- well short of the minimum 20 percent required to carry out the safety test.
They need to raise more rods,
but to do so they must disable the automatic shutdown mechanism
that is 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,
Dyatalov switches off the automatic over-ride himself.
The reactor seems to be stabilizing,
but at only 12 per cent 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 Tuptunov to start manually raising the rods.
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 shut down of the reactor.
But it's too late.
There's not enough time to stop the chain reaction.
In four 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 is 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.
'We saw flashes.
We thought they were shooting stars.
Just flashes.
Like lightening... we didn't hear any thunder.
The engine was running.
In the control room,
the power suddenly fails 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.
The alarm is raised and the men of Kiev Fire Brigade No 6 spring into action.
None of the fire fighters are expecting anything unusual.
There have been fires at the Chernobyl plant before.
Wearing their normal regulation uniforms,
the firemen set off on the shortjourney from pripyat Fire station to Chernobyl.
Vasily and the men of Brigade No 6
are the first fire fighters to arrive at the scene.
'At first when we got there,
for a moment or two after we got there,
we thought it mightjust 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... '
The fire fighters 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,
Victor Brukhanov 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.
'I thought I was alright at first,
your mind can't really take it in...
You think...
I'll be fine,
I can handle it,
that part of you that thinks its indestructible...
but When I got up there,
it was burning in so many places on Block 3.'
Toptunov and Akimov alert the other operators in the station
in a bid to stop the spread of the fire to the other reactors.
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.
The firemen have managed to stop the fire
spreading on the roof of reactor number 3.
But they are feeling strange and disorientated.
Vasily is going through the firststages of radiations sickness.
He is delirious,
his throat is dry, he wants to vomit.
They are all weak and staggering, thirsty and dizzy.
Dr Belokon has broken down the locked door to the first aid station.
He gives Vasily some iodine and an injection of relanium.
'... the roof was melting under our feet... he smoke... the smoke... '
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.
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 neighbouring
Belarus and Russia and is heading towards the west.
But in prypiat 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 Vasily
and the rest of his brigade are in the local hospital.
He is so radiated, the nurses are afraid to touch him
Vasily 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 pripiat.
The smoking reactor is still releasing millions of curies of radioactivity
into the atmosphere.
It will burn for another 9 days.
The spectre of radiation fills Chernobyl's fields and prypiat's empty apartments.
Where mortal danger has no colour, taste or smell.
Following the disaster,
there will be a ten-day news blackout in the Soviet Union.
Dr Belokon survives but he will be an invalid the rest of his life.
Akimov and Toptunov die of acute radiation sickness within 12 days.
Victor Brukhanov, Nickolai 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 7 and 5 year sentences for negligence.
Vasily 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.
Vasiliy'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 5 million people live on radiation contaminated land
will develop new cancers and genetic mutations.
There is no so-called 'peaceful' atom.
Chernobyl is humanity's final warning.