NUCLEAR FALLOUT
Unseen film footage reveals the true horror of the CHERNOBYL DISASTER
THE CHERNOBYL NUCLEAR disaster of 26 April 1986 has been the subject of several documentaries and dramas, including Sky’s award-winning 2019 series
Chernobyl, starring Jared Harris and Emily Watson.
Now, a new feature-length film,
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes, reveals the catastrophic accident as never before, thanks to extraordinary footage discovered hidden in former Soviet Union archives.
The documentary also features an interview with Lyudmilla Ignatenko, who was played by Jessie Buckley in the Sky drama. Her husband, Vasily, was one of the firefighters who tackled the explosion at the nuclear reactor.
HUMAN TRAGEDY
‘Chernobyl was such a beautiful town on the edge of a river. Life was relaxed, it felt safe – until that night,’ says Ignatenko. ‘I remember seeing the blaze and the smoke rising in the shape of a mushroom cloud. Every firefighter ended up in hospital, including Vasily.
‘At first we thought everything would be OK, but he got much worse. He developed radiation wounds, his body rejected food and his voice got weaker. He died 17 days after the disaster.’
Archive film shows an emotional Ignatenko returning to her flat, having been requested by then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
The programme also includes an interview with General Nikolai Tarakanov, who led the operation to remove radioactive debris from Chernobyl, as well as harrowing footage of the disaster itself.
Ignatenko was also pregnant at the time of the disaster. Her baby, Natasha, lived for just five hours.
‘At the time I was told that she absorbed all the radiation I was inhaling,’ she says. ‘Vasily and
I had lots of plans for the future, and we couldn’t imagine the possibility of any threat to that. But everything changed in one night.’