A documentary film about the consequences of Chernobyl, filmed in 1999 by the German documentary filmmaker Nikolaus Geierhalter on the territory of Pripyat and the areas adjacent to the city. In the film, Geierhalter touched upon both the everyday life of the settlements of the Exclusion Zone, and the difficult fates of people who survived Chernobyl and did not leave their land.
On April 26, 1986, an accident occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which became the largest disaster in the history of mankind in the field of nuclear energy. According to official statistics, 31 people died during the first three months after the explosion, but 30 years later, it is almost impossible to calculate the exact number of victims of the Chernobyl accident.
All over the world, Chernobyl has become synonymous with nuclear disaster. One would think that the explosions razed the station to the ground. However, the last reactor was shut down only 15 years after the accident. Radiation contamination has spread far beyond the exclusion zone with a radius of 30 kilometers - it has affected all of Europe. Radioactive fallout fell even in Ireland.
It would seem that breaking news about the accident should have been picked up by all the local media. But at first, people were not told anything at all. The disaster took place on the night from Friday to Saturday. The protracted experiment to turn off the power supply was poorly thought out and went completely wrong. In simple terms, the nuclear power plant staff removed the fuel rods responsible for controlling the reactor. However, it was not possible to return them to their place in time, and since the emergency system was turned off, a disaster occurred.
One might get the impression that most of the victims of the disaster died from the explosions in the reactor. In fact, the explosions claimed only one life. Much more deadly was the release of radiation amid the silence of officials. Firefighters rushed to the scene of the accident, who were not warned about radioactive radiation hundreds of times worse than Hiroshima. They later died in agony.
Residents of Pripyat, a satellite city of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, went about their usual business for a day and a half after the accident. The evacuation was carried out 36 hours after the disaster. Nobody gave even elementary recommendations on radiation safety, while it was necessary to leave from there as soon as possible. Those who lived within a 30-kilometer radius of the nuclear power plant were evacuated in the following days. Now their homes are in the exclusion zone.