As I'm sure youve realized by now, nearly all of this is true (though they dramatized quite a bit). A very good friend of mine was growing up in Romania (part of the USSR, next to Ukraine) when this happened. She remembers when they were told they couldn't play outside for a week and had to stay indoors because of this. She's now in her 40s and gets regular blood screenings for cancer, and has to get pulmonary screenings once a year to make sure her lungs stay strong and don't have any ill effects because of the radiation she was exposed to at such a young age.
2023-03-28 02:17:58 +0000 UTC
The episode name - '1:23:45' - was the minute the reactor blew. It was also the exact time - two years later - when Valery Legasov hung himself after hiding the tapes.
2021-09-13 04:08:39 +0000 UTC
Back then - especially in the highly-segregated USSR, 99% of common folk had no clue about radiation or meltdowns and the like. Also back then and there, you didn't really have the option of telling your boss 'no'.
I was 28 when this happened. We had no clue how close our civilization - and the world as we know it - came to ending that morning.
