Chernobyl

Potemkin Villager · Post by **Potemkin Villager** » 07 Jan 2020, 20:08

One of my relations obviously decided I was getting far too happy slappy at christmas time so got me the DVD "Chernobyl" as a present.

It is pretty grim going but highly recommended as a dark study of the murky area where politics meets science and the blame game is played with lethal efficiency. Of course as the shit hits the fan the apparatchiks take to a bunker as mere mortals do heroic things bathed in high levels of gamma radiation and suffer the gruesomely detailed consequences.

Was it really all that long ago?

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 07 Jan 2020, 20:42

I have chatted with a few Russians who have stated that quite a lot of the details are bullshit. I've watched it and it's entertaining and, in technical terms, provides a pretty good explanation of the physics involved. But, the political stuff and the depiction of the scientists involved is bullshit according to both the Russians I have chatted with as well as reporting by the Russian media.

Potemkin Villager · Post by **Potemkin Villager** » 07 Jan 2020, 21:28

Being a Sky production I have no illusions whatsoever about the provenance of the story telling in depicting the blame games and motives of the main decision makers. I cannot think how this might actually achieved with any accuracy either about this or any other man made disaster.

However it is probably as close to anything as a depiction of what it is like trying to deal with and living through a disaster of such a magnitude and IMO is worth a watch for that alone.

Post by **clv101** » 08 Jan 2020, 00:17

I read Serhii Plokhy's book 'Chernobyl' a few months back. Really good, strong emphasis on the politics and people involved. I'd recommend it to anyone wanting to understand more than the physics and engineering which it also covers well.

raspberry-blower · Post by **raspberry-blower** » 08 Jan 2020, 19:07

I actually put a thread about said programme at the time of its airing on Sky here

Little John is right about much of the storyline being at odds to what actually happened. Sky did run a programme where they interviewed surviving miners who dug a tunnel under the stricken reactor - the original plan was to inject liquid Nitrogen under the reactor to act as a heat exchanger, but even though the tunnel was dug, this plan was never executed. The miners said that their attitude depicted on the show was accurate but they also mentioned about a couple of glaring falsehoods on the show. The show also had the sole surviving member of Vladimir Shevchenko's camera team who couldn't speak due to throat cancer. The other two members succumbed to radiation poisoning.