Featured Image Credit: Sky/ Alamy
Topics: TV And Film, Sky
Gregory Robinson
Sky has released a new documentary exploring the Chernobyl disaster through extraordinary unseen footage.
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes tells the story of the nuclear power-plant explosions at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukrainian SSR on 26th April 1986.
The two explosions happened after a routine test at the power plant went wrong. The explosions released more than 400 times more radiation than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II.
It is considered the worst nuclear disaster in history, with an estimated 31 deaths from the immediate effect.
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The site of the Chernobyl disaster is located around 80 miles north of Ukraine’s capital city Kiev. A small town named Pripyat was constructed nearby to accommodate the factory workers and their families.
Emmy Award-winner and James Jones uses newly discovered footage filmed at the nuclear plant during the disaster coupled with deeply personal interviews of those who were there.
The footage was shot at great risk in the weeks after the accident by a “handful” of cameraman who were granted access to film the plant.
The synopsis says: “From a ten-year-old schoolboy to a Russian general, the film details how the lives of millions of people were transformed and how their memories of that fateful night and the aftermath have haunted them since.”
The Chernobyl disaster has been covered extensively in the decades since the turmoil unfolded, including a critically acclaimed dramatic adaptation Chernobyl on HBO and Sky.
One of the most unique parts of Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes is that most of the footage has never been seen outside of the Soviet Union.
Lyudmila Ignatenko, the woman who inspired the character of the same name in Chernobyl, is seen in the documentary where she visits the apartment she shared with husband Vasily Ignatenko, a Soviet firefighter and first responder to the disaster.
The documentary comes days after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine. The site of Chernobyl was occupied by Russian forces as part of the invasion.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia seizing the site of the former nuclear power plant was “one of the most serious threats in Europe today”.
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes airs Monday 28th February at 9pm on Sky Documentaries.