Ben Fogle’s 30 seconds in the most dangerous spot on earth
He’s rowed the Atlantic and climbed Everest but nothing could prepare the TV star for his latest challenge… inside the Chernobyl nuclear plant
BEN Fogle has undertaken some risky adventures but few were as potentially lifethreatening as standing next to Chernobyl’s damaged reactor number four, whose meltdown in 1986 caused the world’s worst nuclear disaster.
It released 400 times more radioactive material into the atmosphere than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and ultimately claimed thousands of lives – the exact number remains bitterly disputed. Even 35 years later, toxic levels of radiation in the air meant Ben and his team were hustled in and out of the reactor area in a flash.
“We were only given 30 seconds to film,” explains Ben, 47. “My dosimeters [radiation gauges] were beeping like crazy, which was quite disconcerting, because they’re telling you the radiation levels are high.”
Ben’s half-a-minute next to the reactor was also, in a way, historic. “I was probably one of the last people to go inside that shield,” explains Ben. “They’re about to start dismantling the reactor to make it safer. As soon as they open it up, which they’ll do imminently [with robots], radiation will spill out, so it won’t be safe.”
The star, who previously climbed Mount Everest and rowed the Atlantic, visited Chernobyl, in northern Ukraine, for a week last autumn to film a featurelength documentary, Inside Chernobyl With Ben Fogle.
The destroyed plant and its surrounds are a haunting, post-apocalyptic landscape that is the result of the worst mistake in history – on April
26, 1986, a poorly executed technical test at the energy plant caused an explosion and fire that led to the release of massive amounts of radioactive material into the environment.
EVEN 35 years later, film-CITY ing there carries an inherent all going through, outweighed the risk.Tourism is now allowed in risk. The risks are minimal – you just the region, but only under strict have to be very careful.” guidelines. Ben stayed for a week For example, Chernobyl’s heavily while most tours last just two hours. damaged Control Room Four, where
Yet interest in the doomed plant the button was pressed that triggered has never been higher following the meltdown, still has radiation levels 2019’s hit TV mini-series Chernobyl, a staggering 40,000 times higher starring Jared Harris and Emily than normal. Ben was only allowed Watson in a dramatic recreation of in for five minutes. the disaster and subsequent clean-up Underneath the shield next to the operation. reactor, levels are higher still – hence
Ben admits his wife, Marina – the 30-second rule. mother of their children Ludo, 11, “I’ve never had more checks and and Iona, nine – was not keen on him tests for anything than I had before making the documentary. “Marina going beneath the shield,” says Ben. and I had just watched the Sky/HBO “You have to be tested beforehand drama so my trip didn’t sit particularly for the levels of radiation you’ve easily with her,” admits Ben. absorbed over the years to see if your
“But we had heavy health levels will remain safe even and safety precautions. after going under the There were multiple shield. Every time you risks of radiation, but go into a higher-risk we spoke to an expert area at Chernobyl in radiation and I had they give you to do an online another dosimeter course [in radiation – at one time I had risks], but we four dosimeters all decided the benefits beeping away.” of making this But Ben found extraordinary film his brief visit to the that would give hope damaged reactor, to people, and give encased in cement and escapism from what we’re scaffolding, a moving
‘I’ve never had more checks and tests for anything... at one time I had four dosimeters beeping away’
experience. “Standing next to the reactor, I felt surprisingly emotional,” he continues.
“The scale of the reactor and the protective shield take your breath away. I felt great pride in that it showed what humanity can do to recover from such a disaster; pride for the people who responded to the disaster when it happened, many of whom died, as well as the nations that came together to build the giant safety shield over it.”
The shield, officially called Chernobyl New Safe Confinement, contains the molten core of the reactor and tonnes of highly radioactive material; it cost £1.3billion and was financed by 45 donor countries and institutions including the UK.
“Through the despair and misery at Chernobyl, there is actually a rather inspiring story of humanity repairing the damage that they made,” says Ben.
One of the saddest sights at Chernobyl is Pripyat, a ghost city that once housed 50,000 of the plant’s workers and their families. It was evacuated 36 hours after the disaster with families forced to leave most of their possessions behind. Officially, no one has been allowed to return, and Pripyat stands deserted and decaying, the fragments of lives suddenly abandoned still evident even 35 years later. “It was extraordinary and sad and profound to see a city of 250 skyscrapers, the supermarkets and hospitals, all wrapped in sadness,” says Ben.
AND yet in a landscape of such desolation, Ben – known for series like New Lives In The Wild – found a silver lining. Although people are forbidden from entering Pripyat, and it will remain uninhabitable for 20,000 years at least, it’s been impossible to keep wildlife away.
One of the unintentional upsides of the disaster has been the rewilding of the 30km Exclusion Zone around the plant. It has become a haven for wildlife – researchers have found evidence of brown bears, bison, wolves, lynxes, many bird species and endangered Przewalski horses roaming freely.
“I visited a place that at the time of the explosion people said would be a radioactive wasteland for a quarter-billion years or so, and when I went there I saw wolves,” says Ben. “I actually saw a pack of wolves in Pripyat, which just shows that once humans leave, flora and fauna will return. Nature is flourishing in and around Chernobyl, and there’s something moving about witnessing the power of nature despite profound human errors.” And while Chernobyl seems the last
Daily Express place you’d want to bring back from, Ben admits that he dared to.
“Making the documentary, we went to the wilds of the Exclusion Zone to visit elderly Ukrainians who’d moved back there illegally,” he says. “Some of them made jam from fruit grown within the zone.
“I actually brought some strawberry jam back with me. I was assured it was safe to eat. My family were slightly bemused at first, but we’ve been having it with our breakfast!” souvenirs
Inside ChernobylWith Ben Fogle is on Channel 5 tonight at 9pm
TWELVE-YEAR AGE GAP Nicole Kidman, 53, and Jason Momoa, 41, Aquaman 2
When it was announced that Nicole Kidman had joined the cast of Aquaman as the lead character’s mother there were raised eyebrows about her age. The Big Little Lies star and Emmy winner was cast as Jason Momoa’s mother in the 2018 film. But she was only 12 years older than Momoa and, what is more, exactly the same age as the actor’s wife, Lisa Bonet, formerly married to Lenny Kravitz.
ROYLE Family star Sue Johnston hit out at the age gap between men and women when it comes to age-appropriate casting. She will soon be seen playing Sean Bean’s mother – 30 years after playing his wife. Johnston, 77, stars opposite the 61-year-old actor in the new three-part Jimmy McGovern prison drama, Time.
But in 1992 she played Bean’s partner in the Oxford-based crime series, Inspector Morse. “That’s what happens to actresses in the theatre or TV business,” she says.
“Men stay the same and women get to be mothers.”
Casting director Allison Estrin, who has worked on films like Pitch Perfect and Lovelace, says part of the reason women are cast as mothers so young is because there are just more mother parts than father parts.
“Women definitely do get cast younger as moms, even in their early 20s,” she said. “I find men usually don’t start getting cast as dads until at least mid-30s.
“There are the actresses early on who know they’re going to be the character actress, and they kind of age into that.And