Chernobyl nuclear fusion – from radioactive wasteland to a tourist trap to a television mini-series

From the radioactive death zone to the Ukrainian tourist attraction and as a source of inspiration for a high-quality television program – the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster has come a long way in 33 years, but it still remains a lot to do before coming back from disaster.

The history of Chernobyl appears in the historical drama in five episodes of HBO of the same name. He quickly rose to the top of the all-time ranking of IMDb television shows, beating favorites like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones.

But the new drama has apparently not been well received by the Kremlin and a Russian series on the disaster is underway. It would be a patriotic repression in which a spy for America would be on a sabotage mission to Chernobyl.

The catastrophic accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Soviet Union at that time occurred early in the morning of 26 April 1986, when a reactor was being shut down for work. routine maintenance. In contrast to safety regulations, important control systems were shut down, allowing the reactor, which had design flaws, to reach unstable and low power conditions, resulting in surge and explosion.

Thirty-one people died a few weeks after the accident of the first steam explosion, exposure to radiation and thermal burns, and a victim of cardiac arrest, said the United States Nuclear Energy Institute.

A United Nations Committee on Atomic Radiation said that it was the most serious accident that occurred in the nuclear energy sector.

The 10-day fire of the nuclear reactor has released large amounts of radioactive material, which mainly affected the Soviet republics located around the site and, to a lesser extent, the rest of Europe.

Decades after the Chernobyl region and the city of Pripyat were abandoned and turned into a post-apocalyptic wasteland. They have become an attraction for international tourists wishing to search the area of ​​fallout.

In 2016, guides with Geiger counters showed more than 10,000 travelers a year inside an exclusion zone surrounding the power plant that had exploded. They are told not to touch anything or even to sit down and that they are swept away by radioactive dust before leaving.

The projection of the HBO miniseries coincided with a 30% increase in Chernobyl circuit bookings.

READ MORE:
• Tourists flock to the radioactive site of the Chernobyl nuclear explosion

• Back to Chernobyl: How the HBO television series feeds nuclear tourism

What happened to Chernobyl?

One of the four nuclear reactors of the northern power plant of Ukraine – then part of the Soviet Union – exploded in the early morning of April 26, 1986.

The reactors were unstable at lower power levels. The number four reactor was operating at very low power, without proper safety precautions, according to the US Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry organization. There was an uncontrollable surge causing sudden overheating which broke the fuel tubes.

This caused a steam explosion, further damaging the reactor and exposing its heart to the environment. The fire lasted 10 days, releasing a large amount of radiation into the atmosphere.

How many died?

It's still uncertain. The institute has declared 31 dead in a few weeks.

New Scientist said that two people died immediately from the explosion and 29 died at the hospital in the following days. One expert told the magazine that the only well-established deaths were 28 acute radiation syndrome victims and 15 fatal cases of thyroid cancer in children.

Another expert has forecast by 2065 about 16,000 cases of thyroid cancer and 25,000 other cancers.

The Nuclear Energy Institute said that a UN scientific committee last year had announced that the accident was also responsible for nearly 20,000 cases of thyroid cancer among people in the United States. under 18 at the time of the accident.

How was the disaster site managed?
Some 115,000 people were evacuated from the region in 1986. Another 220,000 were subsequently resettled.

The number four crippled reactor was enclosed in a concrete structure. Later, he was buried in a huge steel and concrete sarcophagus. It should last a century.

The number two reactor was shut down after the fire of a building in 1991, the number one in 1996 and the third in 2000.