01:23:45: W H Y H B O ’ S ‘CHERNOBYL’ FREAKED ME OUT HARRIET ATKINS DISCUSSES HER CLIMATE FEARS REFLECTED BACK HER IMBEDDED IN A HISTORICAL CATASTROPHE. I do fear death. Of course I do, I’m human. But I have accepted that, despite its inconvenience, my time on earth will eventually end. My own personal death is no longer my primary concern, I wish I had that luxury. My conscience has rather been consumed with a goosebump inducing awareness of our collective impending doom, and the prevailing feeling of an inability to prevent it. I want to act, to fix the problems of our time, but have no idea how. Like the rest of my generation, I take pleasure in hiding from the real world by allowing the warm embrace of television to consume the in between moments of my day. It is because of this, that I’m sure you will empathise with my disappointment at finding insight in the new mini-series ‘Chernobyl’. My true crime loving, historical drama obsessed self (that also hankers a secret wish for Emily Watson to adopt me) expected the show to bring nothing but fascinated delight. But alas, I learnt something. Ew.
38 || FEATURES
At 01:23:45 on the 26th of April 1986, during a safety test the Number 4 Reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded. Due to the Soviet Union’s strict censorship, the reactor was flawed. A series of horrible mistakes lead to the worst nuclear accident of history. It killed 31 people immediately; 125,000 by 2005 and had direct health consequences for a total of 784,350 soviet citizens. The fallout had disastrous effects and the potential for even worse to come. Many of the individuals called in to help knew what this would mean for their personal health but continued anyway because they understood what the alternative was. They sacrificed their own lives to clean up the mistakes of their own government. They had trusted that their government would look after them, that they would prioritise the future of the citizens of their country over making their budget requirements.
