The Battle of Chernobyl plot
"A disaster that shall never be forgotten."
Documentary by Thomas Johnson about the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. On April 26, 1986, the fourth reactor of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the then Soviet state of Ukraine exploded, not far from the border with Belarus. The explosion set off a chain reaction that threatened to cause a second detonation. For eight months, 800,000 soldiers, miners and civilians worked around the clock to "stop" the radioactivity by building a "sarcophagus" around the destroyed reactor. It was eight months in hell and those involved will never forget that ordeal. This documentary tells the story of twenty years of struggle against a deadly and invisible enemy. That struggle began in the utter chaos of the first days after the disaster: the confusion, disbelief, the limited and inaccurate communication of the authorities, both in the Soviet Union and in the West. It was only after valuable time was lost that the various agencies began to work together.