The Battle of Chernobyl

00:00:21 A day that will remain forever engraved in their memory.

00:04:09 By early morning the clouds are already being contaminated by the radioactive column rising one thousand meters into the sky.

00:07:18 At first, I was told there hadn't been an explosion.

00:11:23 At the nuclear institute, the figures provoke a shock.

00:14:30 People have to leave everything they own, their entire lives, behind.

00:18:15 And she told me that they had measured very much increased radioactivity near our power plants in Forsemark in Eastern Sweden.

00:22:06 Something needed to be done as quickly as possible.

00:25:31 For 15 years, only the first victims will be acknowledged by the authorities.

00:30:07 Here, you see nothing.

00:33:16 The country's top experts are called into action.

00:36:50 Although it has been covered over, the fire still isn't out.

00:40:14 Their mission: to approach the reactor through what is now the only possible path - underground.

00:44:23 The underground room is finally filled with cement to solidify the structure.

00:48:28 Their mission: clean up - liquidate - the radioactivity.

00:52:43 That's where it finds a way in and knocks you out.

00:57:39 They've been blown from the reactor during the explosion.

01:02:43 only allows bio-robots 45 seconds on the roof only enough time for a couple shovelfuls.

01:07:16 Our health is shot, we've lost everything.

01:11:17 The first battle of Chernobyl has ended in a victory that heralded the end of the USSR.

01:15:46 We know all that, and we know the invisible enemy is eating away inside of us like a worm.

01:20:25 who went as far as to deny that the radioactive cloud passed over their country.

01:24:57 there seem to be hundred of children who suffered the effect of radiation.

01:29:20 Meanwhile, beneath the aging sarcophagus of reactor number 4 the poison remains deadly.

02:00:01 - in memory of the liquidators -