The Boots That Still Glow | Chernobyl's First Hours
A cinematic documentary short tracking the lethal first hours of the Chernobyl cleanup — following firefighter Vasily Ignatenko and the liquidators who touched Reactor 4's ruins. Their boots still emit radiation from a hospital basement today.
About this video
A cinematic documentary short tracking the lethal first hours of the Chernobyl cleanup — following firefighter Vasily Ignatenko and the liquidators who touched Reactor 4's ruins. Their boots still emit radiation from a hospital basement today.
Full transcript of The Boots That Still Glow | Chernobyl's First Hours
Their boots are locked in a hospital basement. They're still too radioactive to touch. April 26th, 1986. 1:51 in the morning. Vasily Ignatenko was twenty-five years old. He climbed onto the roof of Reactor 4. The air tasted like metal. Graphite blocks around him glowed at 30,000 roentgens per hour. A lethal dose in forty-five seconds. Within hours, the radiation changed his brown eyes to blue. Days later, liquidators worked forty-second shifts — shovelling radioactive fuel with bare hands. They stripped off their gear in Hospital 126's basement and never went back for it. Those boots still trigger Geiger counters through the concrete. Forty seconds cost them everything. Vasily Ignatenko died fourteen days later. The reactor core is still burning underground. How long before the next forty-five seconds?