What Happened at Chernobyl - BBC World Service documentary for BBC One and iPlayer examines the world’s worst nuclear accident, forty years on
As the world marks 40 years since the 1986 explosion at Chernobyl nuclear power plant, BBC One and BBC iPlayer will broadcast a documentary from BBC World Service, What Happened at Chernobyl.
The explosion at Chernobyl triggered a public health emergency across Europe. Today, the site’s strategic location continues to be a flashpoint in Russia’s war with Ukraine.
Forty years on from the disaster, BBC journalist Jordan Dunbar travels to Chernobyl to explore the events that led to one of the most catastrophic man-made environmental disasters in history and what we can learn from them today.
The events of April 26, 1986 had far-reaching effects: leading to the contamination of large parts of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia and ultimately hastening the collapse of the USSR.
In What Happened At Chernobyl, Jordan Dunbar talks to people there on that fateful day who have never spoken to international media before. And he hears from two ‘liquidators’ tasked with the incredibly dangerous job of cleaning up the aftermath of the disaster, as they meet and relive the extraordinary events they experienced.
Jordan examines why so much of what happened was hidden from the world.
The Last Dancefloor in Chernobyl, a radio documentary for BBC World Service also presented by Jordan, tells the story of DJ Alex, Serhiy and Iryna and what happens to them after the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
Serhiy first laid eyes on Iryna under the swirling lights of the best disco in Ukraine. Serhiy worked up the courage to ask Iryna out and once they started dating, Club Edison 2 became a favourite haunt.
The man behind the decks was DJ Alexander Demidov, a legend on the night life scene. It was 1986 and although he had to have his playlist approved by the Soviet state, he would play foreign records that had been illegally smuggled in for a rapturous crowd hungry for anything from ‘the West’.
But disaster loomed. On the night before their wedding, Iryna and Serhiy heard a huge boom from the nearby Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The authorities told them their wedding must go ahead. As engineers and firefighters battled the worst nuclear accident the world’s ever seen, the couple smiled for photographs, sensing something was very wrong. When evacuation orders spread, Iryna was still in her wedding dress and had to run barefoot through the streets, leaving behind her home, her possessions, and the city where their love had begun.
The Last Dancefloor of Chernobyl tells the story of Iryna, Serhiy and DJ Alex, from their promising young lives in Pripyat, a city that offered them everything, to rebuilding their lives after disaster. This is a story of love and music, of ordinary people caught up in history, and of a love strong enough to survive what felt like the sudden end of their world.
What Happened at Chernobyl, from the BBC World Service, will air on BBC One in the UK on Monday 20 April. It will be available in the UK on BBC iPlayer and internationally on the BBC World Service YouTube channel from Monday 20 April. It will also air on the BBC News TV channel.
The Last Dancefloor in Chernobyl will be broadcast on BBC World Service English on Saturday 25 April. It will also be available on BBC Sounds and other podcast platforms. Search for The Documentary Podcast.
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