Best 5 Documentaries about Chernobyl Disaster

Intro: Documentaries about Chernobyl Disaster

On 26 April 1986, an explosion and fire at the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine caused a radioactive leak. Thousands of people had to be evacuated and over 100,000 people were affected by the radiation fallout. It was one of the worst nuclear disasters in history.

The city of Pripyat was developed near Chernobyl for those who would work to run the plant. In 1986, when the disaster occurred, it took just a few hours for everyone in Pripyat to evacuate from their homes, leaving them behind forever. The town has been abandoned ever since and is now a ghost town.

Today, a 30 km exclusion zone surrounds Chernobyl where residents are not allowed to live or farm in order to avoid any further contamination of land or water sources. Radiation levels have decreased but still pose a threat to human life, so residents cannot return home permanently.
This is what happened when the Chernobyl disaster happened and how it's impacting today's world.

1. What Really Happened at Chernobyl - National Geographic Chernobyl Documentary

This National Geographic documentary delves into the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 to explore the consequences, the cause and the legacy of this man-made catastrophe.

The Chernobyl nuclear disaster was one of the worst man-made disasters in world history. It occurred on April 26, 1986. The initial death toll was just 31 people, but it would go on to have a wide-ranging impact, including increased rates of thyroid cancer and leukemia.
The accident took place when the power plant's fourth reactor suffered a sudden power spike, leading to an explosion. This resulted in a chain reaction that caused over 200 tons of uranium fuel to be released into the environment, damaging the reactor itself and sending radioactive particles into the air. The fire burned for 10 days until it finally died out.
Chernobyl is still considered one of the most radioactive locations in the world today--and this is all thanks to what really happened there in 1986.
Using archive footage, stills and interviews with scientists, engineers, soldiers and survivors, this film tells the full story of the human cost of nuclear power.

2. The Real Chernobyl

The success of the Sky Atlantic drama series “Chernobyl” inspired a new documentary. The show follows those involved in dealing with the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster and what happened that night, as well as how Soviet citizens reacted to it.
The show has been praised by experts and viewers alike, but what about those who lived through it? In this special documentary, we head to Ukraine to meet some of them - including the men who worked at Chernobyl's plant that night or were called into duty from all over Europe; then there are "the firemen" (we should say firefighters), "the divers," pilots responsible for dropping sand on reactor 4; those families evacuated from Pripyat, now a ghost town...

3. Chernobyl: 35 years after the nuclear disaster

The Chernobyl disaster is one of the world's worst nuclear accidents. It happened on April 26, 1986 and left a lasting impact on those who were affected for decades to come. Thirty-five years later, a group arrives at Pripyat in Ukrainian as they return to commemorate those affected through their visit of the ghost city that remains today from this horrific event.

The documentary is about a senior engineer who worked on the reactor, a maternity doctor from the hospital in Pripyat and an 11-year old girl evacuates from Pripyat. These people survived, as did a firefighter who served at Reactor Block 4 and army officer responsible for removing radioactive debris from the roof of Reactor block 4. The documentary follows these individuals back to their deserted homes for the first time since 1986. Their memories come together like pieces of a puzzle that shows what happened during those fateful events in 1986 when firefighters and soldiers risked their lives to stabilize the site, so they can prevent greater radiation contamination which could happen if not dealt with quickly enough by turning it into concrete blocks preventing any chance whatsoever for leakage outwards towards Europe or other parts around world where it would have grave consequences happening now because this was never done before then there's still leaks today even though all are sealed up but many died trying to do so fighting lethal doses which will cause major cancerous cells being created throughout your body just because you were exposed too high levels without shield protection needed doing job assigned, while using archive material never seen before taken homes inside the city itself hidden away waiting until disaster finally does occur again risking everyone else again making same mistakes knowing better yet behind closed doors.

4. The Battle of Chernobyl

The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. A sudden power output surge caused an explosion and fire, which released large quantities of radioactive particles into the atmosphere. The fallout from this incident is regarded as one of the worst environmental disasters in history. It is estimated to have directly killed 31 people (the majority being rescue workers), with many more dying indirectly due to exposure over time periods ranging from months to decades after exposure
The most significant long-term health effects are believed by some epidemiologists and doctors specializing in radiation protection such as Drs Yuri Bandazhevsky or Alexey Yablokov, among others, to be a dramatic increase for thyroid cancer rates within children who were exposed during infancy; increases for leukemia rates within those exposed as infants; increased risks of breast cancer mortality among women aged 30–50 years old living near Chernobyl at the time but not yet born when it happened; higher than normal incidence rate ratios observed for all cancers combined across demographic groups including gender, age groupings 15-49 years old versus 50+years old etc.; significantly elevated levels of psychological stress found among adults who lived through it first-hand plus their descendants 20 years later.

5. Chernobyl: The Invisible Enemy

An RBMK-type nuclear reactor accident started during a safety test. The simulation was an electrical power outage to create a procedure for maintaining cooling water circulation until back-up generators could provide back-up power. Four such tests had been conducted since 1982, but they failed to provide the solution that was needed on this fifth attempt. Unexpectedly, there was a 10-hour delay, which meant that unprepared operators were on duty when the reactor's power unexpectedly dropped close to zero and thus put it into an unstable condition.

There was a severe danger in this situation that wasn't made evident to the operators. The test continued and once it finished they started the reactor shutdown, but unstable conditions and flaws in design caused an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction instead of a planned one. A large amount of energy suddenly released with two explosions from the ruptured core of the reactor which had been destroyed by them as well as building collapse from another steam explosion or small nuclear explosion just like what you see on TV's Inspector Gadget. This event followed by open-air reactor core fire that had created considerable airborne radioactive contamination for 9 days before finally being contained on 4 May 1986.

The fire gradually released the same amount of contamination as the initial explosion. A 10-km radius exclusion zone had to be created, displacing about 49,000 people from Pripyat 36 hours after the accident. The exclusion zone was later increased when 68,000 more people were also displaced in a wider area.