La bataille de Tchernobyl
- Episode aired 2006
- 1h 34m
IMDb RATING
8.2/10
1.6K
YOUR RATING
Documentary about the nuclear disaster of Chernobyl.Documentary about the nuclear disaster of Chernobyl.Documentary about the nuclear disaster of Chernobyl.
Photos
Storyline
Did you know
- GoofsThere was at no stage the risk of any thermonuclear explosion or any explosion even approaching the megaton range during or after the Chernobyl disaster. There was no risk of a nuclear explosion of any kind, at any stage, not even in the low kiloton range. And every actual expert involved in the recovery at the time of the accident had to be fully aware of this because it is physically impossible for a nuclear explosion to occur by accident within the molten remains of a former reactor core. You need highly enriched fission fuel to achieve that, which was not present in the core even before the accident. If anything, the fuel was being diluted by molten concrete and non-fissionable reactor metals in the accident. But even if it had all been 100% weapons-grade material, you would also need a complex mechanism functioning with extreme precision to not only create a supercritical mass but keep it assembled and highly compressed for long enough to release the explosion energy before it blows itself apart. This simply cannot occur by accident and every person with a modicum of scientific literacy knew that even at the time.
- Quotes
Narrator: A huge explosion throws the 1200 ton reactor-lid into the air. A cloud of radioactive gas spreads hundreds of meters from the power plant. From the huge hole flames with radioactive particles of uranium and graphite shoot almost 1000 meters up into the night sky.
Youri Korneev (machinist, reactor block 4): You could see bright, luminous colors: orange, red, sky-blue. Actually it was beautiful to behold... like a rainbow.
Featured review
A Real Life Horror Story
If ever there was a film that documented the horrors of nuclear weapons "The Battle Of Chernobyl" is surely it. What makes this film so potent are the images: photos yes, but also a surprising number of retro news and secret camera footage from the nuclear power plant site and surrounding area, as the catastrophe unfolded in April of 1986, in Ukraine.
One of the most haunting components here is the story of Pripyat, a bustling city of almost fifty thousand people in 1986; everyone had to be evacuated. And none of the residents ever returned to live there; the structures remain, but Pripyat is now a ghost town, as are hundreds of small villages in the region, thirty years after the nuclear explosion.
One of the big problems with radioactive material is that not only can it be lethal to humans, but it is also invisible, and it remains for a very long time. This film documents the government's secrecy and lies in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy and in later years, and then the denial that now exists among people living in Ukraine and neighboring Belarus that bore the brunt of the radiation fallout.
In addition to the images, a narrator (Tim Birkett) describes the events; interviews include comments by Gorbachev and Hans Blix, along with Soviet technical experts and medical personnel that dealt firsthand with the disaster.
The Chernobyl apocalypse continues ten years after this film was released. People in Ukraine and Belarus, and even in parts of Western Europe, are still exposed to some radiation. Mercifully, in November, 2016, a giant arched shelter, decades in the making, was slid into place over the original, hastily built, cement and steel sarcophagus, to more adequately contain the still leaking radiation at the plant site.
Yet, for several hundreds more years at least, a one thousand square mile area surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear power plant will be off-limits to human habitation, a no-mans land of invisible but deadly radioactivity.
One of the most haunting components here is the story of Pripyat, a bustling city of almost fifty thousand people in 1986; everyone had to be evacuated. And none of the residents ever returned to live there; the structures remain, but Pripyat is now a ghost town, as are hundreds of small villages in the region, thirty years after the nuclear explosion.
One of the big problems with radioactive material is that not only can it be lethal to humans, but it is also invisible, and it remains for a very long time. This film documents the government's secrecy and lies in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy and in later years, and then the denial that now exists among people living in Ukraine and neighboring Belarus that bore the brunt of the radiation fallout.
In addition to the images, a narrator (Tim Birkett) describes the events; interviews include comments by Gorbachev and Hans Blix, along with Soviet technical experts and medical personnel that dealt firsthand with the disaster.
The Chernobyl apocalypse continues ten years after this film was released. People in Ukraine and Belarus, and even in parts of Western Europe, are still exposed to some radiation. Mercifully, in November, 2016, a giant arched shelter, decades in the making, was slid into place over the original, hastily built, cement and steel sarcophagus, to more adequately contain the still leaking radiation at the plant site.
Yet, for several hundreds more years at least, a one thousand square mile area surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear power plant will be off-limits to human habitation, a no-mans land of invisible but deadly radioactivity.
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- Lechuguilla
- Dec 1, 2016
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Official site
- Language
- Also known as
- The Battle of Chernobyl
- Filming locations
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime1 hour 34 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1
- 16 : 9
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