Chernobyl- a summary of the HBO mini series and the book by Svetlana Alexievich
The easiest and most apt description of Chernobyl accident is that a nuclear bomb blast happened in Chernobyl on a place totally unprepared for any such contingency!
The mini series is one of the most accurate depiction albeit with some creative liberties of what transpired during the events which lead to the nuclear explosion and the half baked attempt by the government of the time to clean up (read cover up!) the incident.
Starting with innumerable factors which lead to the final explosion-
-the blatant violation of permission given to a nuclear power plant inspite of not having done all the safety test
-the extreme mountain sized ego of the person in command of the reactor in the conduct of the test reflecting the ego of his supervisor and so on!
-the test was conducted after a ten hour delay in the night! With people who know something already having sleep deprivation while those in the night shift don’t have a clue of the procedure of safety testing! (Though the refused to admit it in front of a superior!)
-people in failure living in denial of failure and reporting to the authorities that it was a small well contained explosion!
-If it was not for some bravehearts who dared to tell the truth and do the right thing then it would have been an even greater catastrophe!
-the government apathy in getting the cheapest and inferior equipment and keeping important secrets which would have saved lives!
-the non working fail safe switch which was reported earlier but it was carpeted and ignored!
-even then the reactor like a sling shot should not have been pushed to the brink of depending on the failsafe…
Then as always you have the realisation of global condemnation and reluctantly you start the clean up!
Start with acceptance! The concrete like structure is graphite! A part of the core!
The radiation level is not 3.6(which itself is high!) But much much more!- here also the good dossimeter is under lock and key! (It’s a cruel socialist joke that’s all!)
The first to report rescue were the fireman who tried to put out the fire but in vain. All of them die later on
Then you have the helicopter pilots who put boron and sand and many die though they get some respite.
Then you have the three bravehearts who risked everything to open the water valves and preventing even major catastrophe!
Then where the German robots fail you have the bio robots (in HBO) OR the green robot (in the book)! Yes, humans with time limits of less than 2 minutes to take a shovel and push the graphite from the roof to the core below! Most got radiation poisoning…
All the pets including cats, dogs, cows were killed the buried in concrete
All humans who died also got the same treatment…
The tragic story of the woman who lost her fire fighter husband and subsequently child has been described in both very tenderly. That she begets another kid later on is a small silver lining on the big mushroom cloud…
Then you have the government cover up, blame game, arrests, politicians who have no knowledge on what happened and what to do! And the constant back scratching is the reality and nothing else!
The book gets monologues from many and makes the feel more human while the mini series concentrated on the cause and affect of the explosion with lots of overlaps.
Though the book is accurate, the mini series had some inaccuracies like
-no character who uncovered the truth single handedly but it was a team (though this has been mentioned in the end credit)
-no one would say am in charge in Russia!
-talk or you will be shot! That was the warning to Valery Legasov though it does not work that way!
-the blame has been completely placed on Dyatolov who is portrayed as the villian without listening to what he had to say and what actually happened. He apparently wrote a book on his version too!
On the whole though the series has been fairly accurate
The final incident which actually made the series possible and made the government wake up and take notice was the suicide of Valery Legasov. Before that he had recorded audio cassettes on what happened and this was received by the scientific community and made the Russian government machinery realise that stringent measures has to be taken if this problem has to be dealt with properly.
Finally even Gorbachev mentioned that this incident is one of the chief reasons of the failure of the USSR…
All in all the very highly rated series is a grim reminder of government apathy and cutting corners with a dose of pseudo nationalism whenever sanity tries to creep in!
Don’t miss it for the world and read the book for a recap and more feel!
ramadocblog 