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Post by Admin on May 7, 2019 17:44:20 GMT
It was the site of the world's worst nuclear accident. In 1986, a reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in then Soviet-controlled Ukraine exploded, sending a radioactive plume across Europe. The effects were devastating and the disaster's impact was felt across the world. The story of the accident - and its human cost - is being brought to the small screen in a Sky-Atlantic drama starring Jared Harris, Emily Watson, Stellan Skarsgård and Jessie Buckley. Written by Craig Mazin (who also wrote the Hangover film sequels) and directed by Johan Renck (who also directed episodes of Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead), Chernobyl aims to "bring to life the true story of the unprecedented tragedy". The film follows the fall-out of the explosion and examines both the lives of those in power who tried to hide the truth and those on the outside who hoped to uncover it. Oscar-nominated actress Watson portrays Ulana Khomyuk, a Soviet nuclear physicist intent on finding out how and why the Chernobyl disaster happened.
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Post by Admin on May 10, 2019 17:39:36 GMT
About 30,000 people were near Chernobyl's reactor when it exploded on April 26, 1986. Those exposed to the radiation are thought to have received about 45 rem (rem is a unit of radiation dosage), on average, which is similar to the average dose received by survivors after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, according to the book "Physics for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines" (W. W. Norton & Company, 2008) by Richard Muller, a professor emeritus of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. However, a 2006 estimate from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is associated with the United Nations, calculated much higher cancer fatalities. The IAEA looked at the total distribution of the radiation, which reached across Europe and even to the United States, and estimated that the cumulative radiation dose from Chernobyl was about 10 million rem, which would have led to an additional 4,000 cancer deaths from the accident, Muller wrote. The initial blast was enormous, but the greatest harm from the radiation happened within the first few weeks. You can think of radiation as fragments that fly outward as a nucleus explodes, like shrapnel from a bomb, Muller wrote. Just like popped bubble wrap, each nucleus can explode and release radiation only once. Just 15 minutes after the Chernobyl explosion "the radioactivity had dropped to one-quarter of its initial value; after 1 day, to one-fifteenth; after 3 months, to less than 1%," Muller wrote. Chernobyl didn't have an important safety measure in place: a containment building. A containment structure is a gas-tight shell that surrounds a nuclear reactor. This shell, which is usually dome-shaped and made of steel-reinforced concrete, is designed to confine fission products that may be released into the atmosphere during an accident, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. If there had been a containment building at Chernobyl, according to Muller's book, "the accident may very well have caused virtually no deaths."
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Post by Admin on May 14, 2019 17:50:01 GMT
“300 million billion trillion bullets” is the kind of phrase that, regardless of context, conjures up its own feelings of dread. When placed in the context of a race against time to stop the lethal effects of a power plant on the verge of a meltdown, it’s a collection of words that by themselves are enough to bring about action. Yet, in “Please Remain Calm,” Episode 2 of the HBO series “Chernobyl,” that’s more the culmination of an understanding of the volatility of nuclear fission rather than an oversimplified substitute. Valery Legasov (Jared Harris) delivers his dire report to a room filled with upper-level Soviet government ministers, but it’s only when he provides an entry-level explanation of what comprises a nuclear reactor that he’s able to drive home the severity of their situation. “I had to argue with myself all the time,” series writer and creator Craig Mazin explained. “I really tried to create something where you only got as much science as you could take before you then returned to the people and back to emotion. And now their emotions are in context. You understand why it’s bad that these things are happening,” Mazin said. That’s the underlying message after Legasov gives Boris Shcherbina (Stellan Skarsgard) a quick Nuclear Reactor Core 101 lesson in midair on their way to the firefighting staging area. It’s helpful to give the audience extra understanding of the mechanics of the efforts to contain the blast, but even the most carefully crafted explanations can’t achieve the desired effect unless the men delivering these details fully absorb it themselves. “It was important for Jared and Stellan to really understand it. And they do. These are smart guys and they got it. Ultimately it doesn’t matter how convincing I am, if we don’t believe that they understand it, it doesn’t matter,” Mazin said.
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Post by Admin on May 21, 2019 17:36:10 GMT
Everyone knows of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, but hardly anyone knows what actually happened, and series creator Craig Mazin hopes to tell the true story with his HBO miniseries, Chernobyl. The true story of Chernobyl is a complicated one, seeing as the Soviet Union initially attempted to withhold as much information as possible, even causing the delayed evacuation of nearby citizens - all of which is addressed in the Chernobyl miniseries. But there's more to the story, of course. While HBO's Chernobyl certainly wasn't filmed at the Chernobyl site itself or in the neighboring city of Pripyat, it was shot in Lithuania and Ukraine and did utilize real structures that were built during the Soviet Union's reign. Furthermore, there are numerous aspects of the Chernobyl miniseries that viewers may call into questions, such as the choice not to use Russian accents, but everything from the ground-up was a conscious decision by the people involved with the project.
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Post by Admin on May 24, 2019 17:45:24 GMT
The 1986 nuclear disaster at Chernobyl is undoubtedly one of the most tragic and terrifying accidents in recent history. Bringing to life the key players in the event, HBO's miniseries Chernobyl has been opening up the conversation around how people navigated the crisis. The incident dislocated hundreds of thousands and killed dozens in addition to leaving behind devastating impacts on the environment and public health. The northern Ukrainian city of Pripyat, which borders the Chernobyl plant, has become something of a ghost town over the last few decades. Following the disaster, officials designated a 1,000-square-mile exclusion zone where radioactive contamination is said to be the highest. Despite the dangers that this area may impose on human health, many tourists have visited Chernobyl out of curiosity.
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