Zero Hour (2004–…): Season 1, Episode 1 - Disaster at Chernobyl - full transcript

(CLOCK TICKING)

(EXPLOSION)

NARRATOR: At 23 minutes past one,

on the morning of April 26th, 1986,

the world was seconds away
from its worst ever nuclear accident.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

Reactor number four at the
Chernobyl nuclear power station

in the Soviet Union, exploded.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

Five minutes later a phone
call, recorded at the time,

was the first alert of a
tragedy in the making.



(WOMAN SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

(HELICOPTER BLADES WHIRRING)

By morning, the physical
devastation was revealed.

But much worse was to come.

The disaster at Chernobyl
brought death and disease.

It brought the very idea of
nuclear power into question.

And within the Soviet Union,

the trauma of Chernobyl was so great

that many see it as the first step in
the breakup of the Communist regime.

This film tells the story, minute
by minute, second by second,

of the one hour countdown to tragedy.

It's seen through the eyes
of the key actors in the drama.

The workers who were
accidentally led to their deaths.

And the innocent bystanders who looked on.



Based on documented
evidence and eye witness reports,

it has been filmed on location,

inside the surviving areas of the
Chernobyl nuclear power station.

(CLOCK TICKING)

NARRATOR: The control room
at Chernobyl's reactor number four.

It is here that all the key decisions
in the coming hour will be taken.

The future of the reactor, and the world
beyond, is in the hands of three men.

At only 26, Leonid Toptunov
is Senior Control Engineer.

His job is to control the
enormous power in the reactor.

Alexander Akimov is the shift foreman.

The captain of the ship.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

But tonight, he is outranked.

Deputy Chief Engineer
Anatoli Dyatlov is in charge.

Dyatlov is one of the Soviet
Union's top nuclear engineers.

He's also a hard man
operating in a harsh system.

(CLOCK TICKING)

There is a further vital character.

The newly commissioned
reactor number four itself.

One of the Communist regime's
proudest technological achievements.

Tonight, the control room is
preparing for a safety test on the reactor.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

But a fateful argument is brewing

between the two senior
engineers and Dyatlov

about the level of power at
which it is safe to begin the test.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

On this night, Chernobyl is
harboring two deadly secrets.

The first is a potentially fatal flaw

in the reactor's design, which
the engineers are unaware of.

A flaw that makes it highly
unstable when run at low power.

The second secret
concerns the man in charge.

Anatoli Dyatlovs own
history is scarred by the very

technology he is seeking to dominate.

Tonight, Dyatlov and the reactor

will face each other
in a battle of strength

that will destroy them both.

Thirty-one minutes past midnight.

The argument over the power level at which

the safety test on Chernobyl's
reactor number four can begin,

grows ever more serious.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

The test has been demanded by
Russia's atomic energy authorities,

and stems from the Cold
War fear of being attacked

that still grips the Soviet Union.

A few years before, the Israeli Air Force

bombed an Iraqi nuclear
reactor built by the Russians.

Since then, Soviet scientists have demanded

tests on their reactors
to see what would happen

if they came under enemy attack

and their power supply was knocked out.

But Deputy Chief Engineer Anatoli Dyatlov

is deliberately ignoring top level advice

on how the test should be done.

The guidelines state
that the reactor's power

should be between 700 and 1,000
megawatts when the test begins.

Dyatlov wants to do the
test at only 200 megawatts

to preserve the cooling water
that stops the reactor overheating.

He believes there's little risk.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

MALE TRANSLATOR: Unfortunately that night,
there was not a single man in the control room

that he saw as his equal.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

There really wasn't anyone there
who was a stronger character,

or as professionally qualified,

whose opinion he would respect.

(STEINBERG SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

NARRATOR: Dyatlov is not
in fact an unreasonable man.

Rather, he is a creature
of the Communist system

that has raised and promoted him.

He was born a fisherman's son in Siberia

and ran away from home at the age of 14.

He's overcome these unpromising beginnings

to rise through the ranks as an engineer.

He is a Party man, who
tries to follow the rule book,

but he's aware that in the nuclear industry

the rule book and
reality often don't match.

To get things done, short
cuts and improvisation

are sometimes the only answer.

(BUZZER SOUNDING)

Winding the power down

has led to it dropping too fast.

(DYATLOV SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

(BUZZER ALARM CONTINUES)

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

(CLOCK TICKING)

One mile away from Chernobyl

is the dormitory town of Pripyat.

Everyone who lives here
works at the power station.

Though they don't know it,
all these people's destinies

will be dictated by the events
unfolding in control room number four.

Among them, soundly asleep,

is Nicolai Fomin, the Chief
Engineer of Chernobyl,

who left the order for the
safety test to be carried out.

A few hundred yards
away, Natascha Yuvchenko

is being kept awake by
her two-year-old son Kirill.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

From her window, Natascha can see
the lights of the nuclear power station

where her husband,
Engineer Sasha Yuvchenko,

is working a routine nightshift.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

As he passes through the
kilometer long turbine hall,

Sasha's thinking not of work, but
of the upcoming May Day holidays.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

MALE TRANSLATOR: There was something
about that night, something unusual.

For some reason I got all dressed up.

The weather was remarkable,
very warm for spring.

I went off to work in a terrific mood.

But my wife said that all
night our son Kirill was crying.

She didn't sleep a wink.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

(SPEAKING UKRAINIAN)

NARRATOR: Others are also awake.

Among them two fisherman.

One a Chernobyl maintenance man,

casting for fish attracted by the
power plant's warm waste waters.

(CLOCK TICKING)

Twenty-four minutes to 1:00.

A new problem disturbs the concentration

of the increasingly fraught operators.

(ALARM RINGING)

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

Senior Unit Control
Engineer Boris Stolyarchuk,

controls the flow of
water through the reactor.

He's all too used to alarms like this.

(BORIS STOLYARCHUK SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

MALE TRANSLATOR: As for the
water levels in the separator drums,

it was always difficult to
control them at low power.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

All the operators knew
about it so I didn't feel afraid,

then.

(CLOCK TICKING)

NARRATOR: Twenty-two minutes to 1:00.

The reactor has ground to a complete halt.

Dyatlov makes a fateful decision.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

MALE TRANSLATOR: To raise power
after 12:30, the shift actually had to

pull all the control
rods out of the reactor.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

This was like cocking a gun.

NARRATOR: Control rods are the accelerator
and the brakes of the nuclear reactor.

Below the 50-foot reactor lid,

are 1,661 uranium filled fuel rods,

which descend into the reactor's core.

The splitting of the uranium atoms

releases enormous heat from the fuel rods,

which turns water into steam.

The steam drives the giant
turbine, which generates electricity.

To control this power,

211 boron control rods are
spread throughout the reactor's core.

If they're raised, power accelerates.

If they're taken out altogether,

the engineers lose their
ability to apply the brakes.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

Yet that is exactly what
Dyatlov tells his men to do.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

NARRATOR: The men's revolt has failed.

Tregub and Akimov power up the reactor.

(CLOCK TICKING)

Within five minutes they've
got power rising again.

Dyatlov has what he wants.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

The control room staff have
every reason to fall in line.

To be a nuclear engineer is a
prestigious and well paid job.

They and their families live in
the company town of Pripyat.

The shops are well stocked. There's
a new school and amusement park.

PIERS PAUL READ:
Nobody wanted to lose the job

because losing the job would mean

losing the flat in Pripyat
and going elsewhere to some,

probably some ghastly outpost in Siberia.

The fear of getting sacked was a
reason why they didn't speak out

more effectively when they
realized that they were doing

something that could be very dangerous.

NARRATOR: Eight minutes
to 1:00. Another alarm.

(ALARM RINGING)

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

No one outside the control room
knows about the argument going on there.

For workers like Sasha Yuvchenko,

it's just another ordinary night.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

MALE TRANSLATOR: There were
no specific assignments for the shift.

I'd already done one shift and we all
thought the reactor had been shut down.

I thought the tests had
been done on the earlier shift.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

NARRATOR: Outside
the plant, the night is still.

(CLOCK TICKING)

Three minutes past 1:00.

After the failed revolt, the
control room is now calm, too.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

The men have got the
reactor's power to the level

Deputy Chief Engineer
Dyatlov wants it for the test.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

In the pump room, mechanic Valeri
Khodemchuk, is visited by his friend,

foreman Valeri Perevozchenko.

Khodemchuk has less
than 20 minutes to live.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

(CLOCK TICKING)

Next on Perevozchenko's rounds

is Sasha Yuvchenko in the
maintenance department.

An innocent request will lead them back
to the pump room near the reactor's core.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

(CLOCK TICKING)

(ALARM RINGING)

The water shortage
continues to set off alarms.

But still none of these engineers believes

a serious accident is possible.

For the top man, Nicolai
Fomin, it's simply inconceivable.

READ: Fomin had done a correspondence
course in nuclear engineering,

but he wasn't an
expert in the field at all.

He had risen mainly because of
his standing as the Party Secretary.

Unlike Dyatlov, who was
aware that there were dangers

in these reactors,

Fomin believed everything he'd read,

and so when the issue
of safety arose he'd say,

"Well, the chances of an
accident are completely remote.

"About as remote as you
being hit by a meteorite."

NARRATOR: Even the safety
conscious Alexander Akimov,

who does understand the technology,

has officially estimated the
chances of an accident at Chernobyl

as one in ten million per year.

But Akimov and his colleagues do not
know the reactor as well as they think.

They are the victims of years
of cover up and negligence.

(MAN SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

NARRATOR: From the 1960s,
the expansion of nuclear power

has been a key target
of the Communist regime.

Nothing has been allowed to get in the way.

Not even the KGB.

These recently released KGB documents

show the authorities ignored repeated
warnings between 1979 and '86,

that Chernobyl had serious design flaws.

Chernobyl's Director, Viktor Bryukhanov

and his senior managers rushed to
get reactor number four open early,

so that they and their Party bosses
could win substantial bonuses.

Safety came second.

READ: Bryukhanov, the Director
of the whole power station complex,

was always at his wits end to meet
deadlines to build these reactors.

For example, the roof of the reactors

was meant to have been
built with fire proof materials,

but these fire proof
materials didn't exist.

The roof had to be put on, so
he used combustible materials.

NARRATOR: Accidents
were common and hushed up.

The very test being done on this night

should have been carried out before
reactor number four was even opened.

Now, at Chernobyl, all these
chickens are coming home to roost.

Something deadly serious is
happening in the reactor's core

that no one in the
control room is aware of.

The few boron control
rods still in the reactor

are only partially inserted at the top.

So power is building into a hot
spot at the bottom of the core,

where the sensors don't always detect it.

The reactor is now an
invisible ticking time bomb.

(SHOUTING)

(CLOCK TICKING)

NARRATOR: Twelve minutes past 1:00.

The growing pressure inside
Chernobyl's reactor number four

is matched by the pressure within
the man controlling the night's events.

Deputy Chief Engineer, Anatoli Dyatlov.

Dyatlov remains determined
to push through the safety test,

despite the opposition in the control room.

One reason may be power station politics.

Dyatlov is in trouble with the local
Communist Party for being rude to his workers.

His boss, Nicolai Fomin
is due for promotion.

A successful test could
help Dyatlov get Fomin's job

and remove him from the
engineers on the shop floor.

But Dyatlov also holds a
darker, more personal secret.

Back in the 1960s, he'd worked in Siberia

installing nuclear
reactors into submarines.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

MALE TRANSLATOR:
There was a nuclear accident.

The investigation found that it
happened as a result of Dyatlov's actions,

though it was not shown to be his fault.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

Dyatlov was exposed to 200 rem.

Three lifetime's worth of radiation.

NARRATOR: Soon after the Siberian accident,

Dyatlov's son died of leukemia.

The most common disease children
get from exposure to radiation.

It is said the tragedy changed him.

Made him more driven, more willful.

Tonight his will is set against

the very nuclear power
that may have taken his child.

(CLOCK TICKING)

1:17 a.m.

Less than six minutes to
the start of the safety test.

Dyatlov is confident.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

But the hot spot continues to build
unseen at the bottom of the core.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

(CLOCK TICKING)

Outside the control room, life
and gossip carry on as normal.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

(PHONE RINGING)

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

(CLOCK TICKING)

Perevozchenko's route to the control
room will lead him past the reactor.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

(SASHA SPEAKING IN RUSSIAN)

(CLOCK TICKING)

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

The test will shut off the power to
the massive turbine and let it coast.

Back up diesel generators will take over.

But there's a 40 second
gap before they kick in.

Question is, how
effectively the slowing turbine

will keep the water pumps going
until the diesel generators take over?

Without that water the reactor
could boil dry like an immense kettle.

But to Dyatlov, who
continues to have no idea

of the hot spot that has already built up,

the risk remains purely theoretical.

The power to the turbine is turned off.

(CLOCK TICKING)

Over the next minute a terrifying
chain of parallel events will unfold.

As the turbine winds down, the pumps
push less water through the reactor's core.

(TURBINE WINDING DOWN)

More and more steam is
generated from less and less water.

(SIZZLING)

(STEAM HISSING)

Steam pressure builds at
the core's invisible hot spot

with every passing second.

(SIZZLING AND CRACKLING)

As the steam pressure rises,
it spreads to the pump room.

Ow!

(METAL CLANGING)

Perevozchenko enters the huge reactor hall

directly above the reactors lid

to see something never witnessed before.

(STEAM HISSING)

Steam pressure inside the
core is lifting the 350 kilo caps

to the fuel rods out of their sockets.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

NARRATOR: Pressing
the emergency AZ-5 button

automatically lowers the boron
control rods to reduce power.

But it has an unforeseen and fatal effect.

(ALARM BUZZING)

READ: The boron rods were
in fact tipped with graphite,

and that short moment when they
are first inserted into the reactor,

the graphite in fact leads to a surge
in the power, not a reduction of power.

MALE TRANSLATOR: From when the
AZ-5 button was pushed until the explosion,

the power increased hundreds of times.

(ALARMS RINGING)

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

(STEAM HISSING)

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

(HUMMING)

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

(CLOCK TICKING)

NARRATOR: The disaster is now seconds away.

Steam pressure at the reactor's
hot spot can't be contained.

Fifty control and fuel
rods shafts are torn apart.

(CLOCK TICKING)

Power rockets, turning
the whole reactor into

a volcanic steam pressure cooker.

(LOUD EXPLOSION)

(EXPLOSION)

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

(SPEAKING UKRAINIAN)

(ALARMS RINGING)

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

MALE TRANSLATOR: After the
first explosion, I thought the problem

was a hydraulic blast in the diarators.

I wanted to try to switch
the setting to compensate,

but then the second explosion happened.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

MALE TRANSLATOR: Seconds
after the first blast, we heard the second,

a massive explosion.

I didn't know what it was.
We only felt the blast wave.

It smashed my door.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

(LOUD EXPLOSION)

NARRATOR: With the 500 ton safety cap
blown off and air being sucked in below,

the reactor becomes a giant blow torch.

Blasting 50 tons of nuclear
fuel into the atmosphere.

Ten times Hiroshima.

Seven hundred tons of radioactive
graphite are blown around the plant.

(AIR BLOWING)

Clouds of dust are sucked
into the control room,

accompanied by a strange smell.

Gases released from the
core leave a metallic taste,

like ozone after a thunderstorm.

It is in fact the stench of death.

The dust is the cloak of
the invisible killer of radiation.

(AIR BLOWING)

The control room operators
are far enough away

from the reactor's core
to survive the explosion.

But some will wish they had not.

Many will face days,
weeks, even years of agony,

as radiation burns them
to death from the inside.

(COUGHING)

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

MALE TRANSLATOR: What struck
me was what had happened to my wall.

It's cast concrete, a meter thick.

I saw it in the corner of my room bending,

as if it was made of rubber, like this.

It got dark immediately.
The lights went out.

Steam wrapped around everything.

Dust, steam, darkness.

And a horrible hissing noise.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

MALE TRANSLATOR: I thought it
could be an earthquake, or maybe war.

The reactor was the last thing on my mind.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

(YUVCHENKO SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

MALE TRANSLATOR: That was
my operator, Viktor Dektorenko.

I only recognized him by his voice.

His face was burnt, all covered in blood.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

Viktor was still in shock.

He said to me that he had been near
the pumps together with Rusenovsky,

the second pump operator.

And that he stayed there
and I should help them.

When I reached him he was shivering,

you know, when a man is in shock.

He just indicated with
his hands and said...

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

But what did I find?
Ruins, that's all I saw.

If he had been there he would
have been buried under the pillars.

In place of the ceiling there was only sky.

A sky full of stars.

(AIR BLOWING)

(BEEP)

(WOMAN SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

(MAN 1 SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

(WOMAN SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

(MAN 1 SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

(WOMAN SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

(MAN 2 SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

(MAN 2 SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

MALE TRANSLATOR: At
3:00 am. I was vomiting violently.

It was the first sign
of radiation sickness.

At 6:00 o'clock, I couldn't even
get to the first aid post by myself.

They helped me there,
put me in an ambulance,

and took me to the medical station.

NARRATOR: Sasha Yuvchenko will survive.

Others are dying.

The radioactivity pours out of the
reactor to be blown across Belorussia,

towards the heart of Europe.

(BEEPING)

The real nightmare is still to come.

(HELICOPTER HOVERING)

By the morning of April 26th,

the KGB was filming the devastated scene

of the worst nuclear accident in history.

Whoever shot this de-classified KGB footage

absorbed a massive dose of radiation.

The next day the people of Pripyat

were officially told the worst.

(ANNOUNCER SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

(YUVCHENKO SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

MALE TRANSLATOR: The following
night I was taken to Moscow by plane.

Doctors selected the first group.

Only five people survived
from those who were on board.

Then my family was
evacuated with the entire city.

(HELICOPTERS WHIRRING)

NARRATOR: It would take a full week

for all 135,000 people to be evacuated.

The radiation count was so high

that flashes from it burned
straight onto this film.

(PEOPLE COUGHING)

A 30 kilometer zone of
exclusion was declared.

A zone frozen in time
like a modern Pompeii.

Over 600,000 Soviet men and women

were brought in to
contain the radioactivity.

They worked in hellish, often chaotic
conditions with extraordinary bravery,

in order to safeguard
the rest of the world.

Many of them had no
protective clothing whatsoever.

Everything they touched
burned with radioactivity.

The poisonous cloud spread beyond borders,

across much of the northern hemisphere.

Washed into the earth by the rain,

the radioactive dust
lives on in plants, animals,

in human beings.

Within the Soviet Union, in the
changing times of a new openness,

the political effect was profound.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

READ: I think in both a
symbolic and a very real way,

Chernobyl was the beginning
of the end for the Soviet Union.

I think in a symbolic way,

the sort of meltdown, the explosion

was caused by all the inherent
contradictions in the Soviet system,

and therefore it's... It's a
very good paradigm if you like,

symbol of what was to happen.

I think Chernobyl should always
be remembered as an instance of

the hubris of the human race thinking that

science can solve everything.

And that was the hubris
of the Soviet Union, too.

That really we must be more

patient and more aware of human frailty

and that humans aren't machines

that can work as precisely
as we would hope.

NARRATOR: Mistrust of
the authorities was one of

the by-products of the Chernobyl disaster.

Conspiracy theories of KGB plots,

Russian experiments on Ukrainians,

and even alien
intervention by flying saucers

are among over 100 existing
theories of why Chernobyl happened.

The truth was more simple

and Chernobyl was not the only casualty.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

MALE TRANSLATOR: Even after
Chernobyl there were repeated disasters

such as the loss of the Kursk submarine.

Even now, military catastrophes
happen in the Ukraine.

Missiles hit cities,
aircraft crash into people.

Such is the price of a lack of
self-discipline and respect for safety rules.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

NARRATOR: Even now, with
reactor number 4 destroyed,

most of the world believes the Chernobyl
nuclear power station was closed down.

In fact reactor number 3,
where this film was made,

has only recently been decommissioned.

The reactor's core is still alive.

Chernobyl's reactors, numbers 1 and 2

continue to work to this day

almost as if nothing had happened.

(HELICOPTER WHIRRING)

Chernobyl's death-toll, through horrifying,

has turned out to be
smaller than many first feared.

The scientific consensus

is that it will cause some
10,000 cancers in Russia

and 25,000 worldwide,
over a 70 year period.

As yet, the only proven rise in disease

is in thyroid cancers in children.

It is in individual human lives
that the cost is most visible.

The fishermen spent the night watching
the firemen fight the radioactive blaze,

until they started to feel ill.

Within hours their skin went black.

A nuclear tan that
foreshadowed their deaths.

(COUGHING)

Thirty workers, including
fire crew on the site,

died from acute radiation poisoning.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

Valeri Khodemchuk was
vaporized in the explosion

while at his post in the pump room.

Valeri Perevozchenko died
six weeks later of radiation burns

suffered trying to find
his friend Khodemchuk.

Alexander Akimov died 15 days

after the explosion
from radiation poisoning.

As long as he could speak he said,

"I did everything right.

"I don't understand why it happened."

Leonid Toptunov died
three days after Akimov.

He too protested his
innocence to the grave,

saying he'd done everything he could.

The Chief Engineer of
Chernobyl, Nicolai Fomin,

was sentenced to 10 years hard labor,

but was soon released
due to a mental breakdown.

He's now said to drift
in and out of lucidity.

Miraculously, Sasha Yuvchenko survived,

as did his wife Natasha
and their son Kirill.

But that night lives on in
his memory and in his body.

MALE TRANSLATOR: I had 15
skin graft operations in the first year.

The burns didn't show themselves at once.

They appeared after I got
to the hospital in Moscow.

They ripened.

When I was in the recovery
unit my skin was all black.

When they pulled back the sheets
my skin peeled off like Xerox powder.

I have to be careful now.

For instance, I can drive
a car, but I can't do repairs.

I can't touch petrol or oil.

The wounds won't heal.

The blood won't congeal properly.

There are other things
but you get used to them.

You just live with it.

You have to.

NARRATOR: Anatoli Dyatlov
received a massive 390 rem of radiation.

But even this five lifetime's
worth of radiation didn't kill him.

He lived on 'til 1995, when
he died of a heart attack.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

MALE TRANSLATOR: I believe
that the team on duty that night

in reactor 4,

led by shift foreman Alexander Akimov,

was probably the best and most competent.

I also believe that any shift,
no matter who they were,

under the leadership of Anatoli Dyatlov,

in all that hysteria that
surrounded the experiment,

would have led to an explosion.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

MALE TRANSLATOR: Obviously, none of
those who worked that night was a criminal.

Nobody wanted to harm their
relatives, themselves, or their friends.

But here was a situation
where the whole team did not

objectively assess the
situation and call off the test,

that in the end led to the death of people,

to the destruction of the plant,

and to consequences
that are now known to us.

I am absolutely sure that
Dyatlov did not want that either.

NARRATOR: Dyatlov served
four years of his 10 year sentence,

and in a remarkable interview
given shortly before he died

he argued, that in the battle
between himself and the reactor,

only one side could be blamed.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)

MALE TRANSLATOR: The reactor
shouldn't have been in operation.

The real blame lies with
the atomic energy authorities.

Not having the correct documentation
when and where it was needed,

made the explosion
of the reactor inevitable.

The reactor marched straight to its doom.

(SPEAKING RUSSIAN)