History UsefulNotes / Chernobyl

As this was still during the years of the Soviet Union, and UsefulNotes/MikhailGorbachev had only been in office for a year at this point, news about the disaster was slow to come out. The day after the disaster the people of Pripyat were just minding their own business as usual, and it was until the second day when action was actually taken: the government forces just up and showed up at Pripyat and told everybody to leave all their belongings behind and evacuate immediately. The radiation spread through Russia, and the Kremlin remained tight-lipped. Then it spread to the Baltic states, and the Kremlin remained tight-lipped. Then the radiation reached the Capitalist bloc in Sweden... and that's where the cat got out of the bag and the Soviet Union had to admit that the accident happened. The international reaction led to a halt of almost all nuclear reactor development worldwide, with some (such as Italy) going so far as to close down their nuclear plants. Many neighboring areas to the plant were made instantly unsafe for habitation, with a 30 km exclusion zone established, with cities in the zone (most notably Pripyat, the city where workers of the plant lived) remaining ghost towns to this day.

As this was still during the years of the Soviet Union, and UsefulNotes/MikhailGorbachev had only been in office for a year at this point, news about the disaster was slow to come out. Even those living near the plant weren't told about it until 2 days after the disaster, at which point they were evacuated with little explanation as to why. The rest of the world didn't find out about it until unusual radiation was detected in Sweden and the Soviet Union had no choice but to admit that the accident happened. The international reaction led to a halt of almost all nuclear reactor development worldwide, with some (such as Italy) going so far as to close down their nuclear plants. Many neighboring areas to the plant were made instantly unsafe for habitation, with a 30 km exclusion zone established, with cities in the zone (most notably Pripyat, the city where workers of the plant lived) remaining ghost towns to this day.

* ForbiddenZone: The Chernobyl exclusion zone

* AbandonedPlayground: The theme park in Pripyat, which was scheduled to open shortly after the disaster.

* GhostCity: Pripyat is one of the most iconic modern examples.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Polandball}}'', Belarus is often depicted as having 3 eyes in reference to the Chernobyl disaster.

The site of what is often regarded as the worst disaster in nuclear power history, the Chernobyl (AKA Chornobyl) Nuclear Power Plant was one of the [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn USSR's]] biggest and most modern nuclear power plants, designed to give power to the city of Kiev, Ukrainian SSR (now {{UsefulNotes/Ukraine}}). The disaster was the first accident to score a 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the scale's highest rating (the only other with this rating is the Fukushima Daiichi disaster) and surrounding areas remain uninhabitable to this day.

-->-- '''Captain MacMillan''' on Pripyat, ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare''

->"''Look at this place. Fifty thousand people used to live here. Now it's a ghost town. I've never seen anything like it.''"
-->-- '''[[ModernWarfare Captain MacMillan]] talking about Pripyat.'''

The site of what is often regarded as the worst disaster in nuclear power history, the Chernobyl (AKA Chornobyl) Nuclear Power Plant was one of the [[SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn USSR's]] biggest and most modern nuclear power plants, designed to give power to the city of Kiev, Ukrainian SSR (now {{UsefulNotes/Ukraine}}). The disaster was the first accident to score a 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the scale's highest rating (the only other with this rating is the Fukushima Daiichi disaster) and surrounding areas remain uninhabitable to this day.

The Soviets also had to contend with the plant remains, given that there was (and will be for the next several thousand years) enough plutonium inside the reactor to potentially poison one hundred million people. Their initial response was to haphazardly have hundreds of thousands of men wearing lead suits briefly push some of the debris on the top of the reactor building down into the reactor for 3 minutes each, since the radiation levels were so high that doing it any longer would be extremely dangerous, even in the best radiation protection suits available. Once this was done, they hastily built a containment structure to temporarily contain what was left in reactor number 4. As radiation remained in the power plant's other reactors, the power plant remained operational until they could safely decommission each reactor, with the plant finally closing down in the year 2000. Since the containment structure was meant to only be a quick and short term solution, there is a giant arch structure being built nearby to (hopefully) replace it and contain the rest of the radiation for a much longer period of time. The disaster led to 31 immediate deaths, with cancer deaths caused by the disaster estimated to be in the thousands. Containment cost the Soviet Union 18 billion rubles,[[note]]The Soviet ruble was on a 1:1 exchange rate with the United States dollar at the time; adjusted for inflation, this would be roughly USD $39,139,489,051 in 2015[[/note]] and the disaster has cost hundreds of billions of dollars in containment and treatment since.

* AbandonedArea: An unfortunate result of the catastrophe. Families were told to pack only essential items with the implication that they would return (obviously, they never did), and as a result, there are still family pictures, furniture, and other assorted items you'd find around the house still lying around relatively untouched, with the exception of most valuables - either the families took them with them, or they were looted in the years since the accident.

* ApocalypseHow: ApocalypseHow/{{Class 0}} - regional catastrophe.

* A part of ''Film/TransformersDarkOfTheMoon'' takes place here where they discover some tech taken from the ark (the Autobots' ship) and Shockwave (who, according to the prequel comics, had been sealed underneath Chernobyl for years) shows up attacking the men investigating the tech.

* ''[[Videogame/{{STALKER}} S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow Of Chernobyl]]'' takes place in a world where a second explosion occurs at the power plant and results in the Zone (as the game calls the area) becoming a bizarre place of anomalies and mutants. Taken further with the sequel having the subtitle "Call Of Pripyat".

* ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty4ModernWarfare'' has two levels that take place here. Told in flashback not long after the meltdown, it involves sneaking through the containment and hot zones lovingly crafted and recreated to the smallest detail from the real place.
* In ''MetalGearSolid'', a codec reveals that Nastasha Romanenko used to live near the Chernobyl plant (implied to have been Pripyat) and her parents both died in the work to contain the disaster. This is the source of her strong anti-nuclear weapon stance.
* The ''VideoGame/StrikeSeries'' entry Soviet Strike plays up the horror movie aspect of the setting while addressing the very real disaster through stock footage of the aftermath and potential terrorist threat of trying to gain access to the nuclear materials of the melted down reactor.

The Soviets also had to contend with the plant remains, given that there was (and will be for the next several thousand years) enough plutonium inside the reactor to potentially poison one hundred million people. Their initial response was to haphazardly have hundreds of thousands of men wearing lead suits briefly push some of the debris on the top of the reactor building down into the reactor for 3 minutes each, since the radiation levels were so high that doing it any longer would be extremely dangerous, even in the best radiation protection suits available. Once this was done, they hastily built a containment structure to temporarily contain what was left in reactor number 4. As radiation remained in the power plant's other reactors, the power plant remained operational until they could safely decommission each reactor, with the plant finally closing down in the year 2000. Since the containment structure was meant to only be a quick and short term solution, there is a giant arch structure being built nearby to (hopefully) replace it and contain the rest of the radiation for a much longer period of time. The disaster lead to 31 immediate deaths, with cancer deaths caused by the disaster estimated to be in the thousands. Containment cost the Soviet Union 18 billion rubles,[[note]]The Soviet ruble was on a 1:1 exchange rate with the United States dollar at the time; adjusted for inflation, this would be roughly USD $39,139,489,051 in 2015[[/note]] and the disaster has cost hundreds of billions of dollars in containment and treatment since.

!!Chernobyl provides examples of:

The Soviets also had to contend with the plant remains. Their initial response was to haphazardly have hundreds of thousands of men wearing lead suits briefly push some of the debris on the top of the reactor building down into the reactor for 3 minutes each (radiation levels were so high that doing it any longer would be extremely dangerous, even in the best radiation protection suits available). Once this was done, they hastily built a containment structure to temporarily contain what was left in reactor number 4. As radiation remained in the power plant's other reactors, the power plant remained operational until they could safely decommission each reactor, with the plant finally closing down in the year 2000. Since the containment structure was meant to only be a quick and short term solution, there is a giant arch structure being built nearby to (hopefully) replace it and contain the rest of the radiation for a much longer period of time. The disaster lead to 31 immediate deaths, with cancer deaths caused by the disaster estimated to be in the thousands. Containment cost the Soviet Union 18 billion rubles (Equivalent to US dollars at the time) and the disaster has cost hundreds of billions of dollars since.

Contrary to popular belief, the plant and its exclusion zone are not as unsafe as you might think. While travel into the exclusion zone is strictly controlled and usually available only through tour groups, the ghost towns of Pripyat (the more famous ghost town and closest to the plant) and Chernobyl are safe to visit and are fairly well preserved Soviet ghost towns, though staying there longer than with the tour groups would be unwise, and you would do well to listen to your tour guide's instructions while you're there. The exclusion zone has also become an unintentional wildlife preserve, with many scientists studying the effects of radiation on such life, though, with few exceptions, animals in the area don't seem affected by it much.

* AbandonedArea / AbandonedPlayground: An unfortunate result of the catastrophe. The theme park in Pripyat was scheduled to open shortly after the accident happened too.

As this was still during the years of the Soviet Union, and UsefulNotes/MikhailGorbachev had only been in office for a year at this point, news about the disaster was slow to come out. Even those living near the plant weren't told about it until 2 days after the disaster, at which point they were evacuated with little explanation as to why. The rest of the world didn't find out about it until unusual radiation was detected in Sweden and the Soviet Union had no choice but to admit that the accident happened. The international reaction led to a halt of almost all nuclear reactor development worldwide, with some (such as Italy) going so far as to cloe down their nuclear plants. Many neighboring areas to the plant were made instantly unsafe for habitation, with a 30 km exclusion zone established, with cities in the zone (most notably Pripyat, the city where workers of the plant lived) remaining ghost towns to this day.

As this was still during the years of the Soviet Union, and UsefulNotes/MikhailGorbachev had only been in office for a year at this point, news about the disaster was slow to come out. Even those living near the plant weren't told about it until 2 days after the disaster, at which point they were evacuated with little explanation as to why. The rest of the world didn't find out about it until unusual radiation was detected in Sweden and the Soviet Union had no choice but to admit that the accident happened. The international reaction led to a halt of almost all nuclear reactor development worldwide, with some nations (such as Italy) closing down all their nuclear plants. Many neighboring areas to the plant were made instantly unsafe for habitation, with a 30 km exclusion zone established, with cities in the zone (most notably Pripyat, the city where workers of the plant lived) remaining ghost towns to this day.

* In ''MetalGearSolid'', a codec reveals that Nastasha Romanenko used to live near the Chernobyl plant (implied to be Pipyat) and her parents both died in the work to contain the disaster. This is the source of her strong anti-nuclear weapon stance.

* In ''MetalGearSolid'', a codec reveals that Nastasha Romanenko used to live near the Chernobyl plant (implied to be Pipyat) and her parents both died in the work to contain the disaster. This is the source of her strong anti-nulear weapon stance.

* In MetalGearSolid, a codec reveals that Nastasha Romanenko used to live near the Chernobyl plant (implied to be Pipyat) and her parents both died in the work to contain the disaster. This is the source of her strong anti-nulear weapon stance.

As this was still during the years of the Soviet Union, and UsefulNotes/MikhailGorbachev had only been in office for a year at this point, news about the disaster was slow to come out. Even those living near the plant weren't told about it until 2 days after the disaster, at which point they were evacuated with little explanation as to why. The rest of the world didn't find out about it until unusual radiation was detected in Sweden and the Soviet Union had no choice but to admit that the accident happened. The international reaction lead to a halt of almost all nuclear reactor development worldwide, with some nations (such as Italy) closing down all their nuclear plants. Many neighboring areas to the plant were made instantly unsafe for habitation, with a 30 km exclusion zone established, with cities in the zone (most notably Pripyat, the city where workers of the plant lived) remaining ghost towns to this day.

* In the ''TheXFiles'' episode "The Host", Scully concludes that the Flukeman creature was created due to radioactive sewage from Chernobyl.

As this was still during the years of the Soviet Union, and MikhailGorbachev had only been in office for a year at this point, news about the disaster was slow to come out. Even those living near the plant weren't told about it until 2 days after the disaster, at which point they were evacuated with little explanation as to why. The rest of the world didn't find out about it until unusual radiation was detected in Sweden and the Soviet Union had no choice but to admit that the accident happened. The international reaction lead to a halt of almost all nuclear reactor development worldwide, with some nations (such as Italy) closing down all their nuclear plants. Many neighboring areas to the plant were made instantly unsafe for habitation, with a 30 km exclusion zone established, with cities in the zone (most notably Pripyat, the city where workers of the plant lived) remaining ghost towns to this day.

* One episode of ''RiverMonsters'' was shot in Pripyat and near Reactor #4, as Jeremy Wade was searching for supposed giant mutated fish. In the end, he caught nothing that was close to a mutant monster.

The disaster, which happened in April 1986, was the result of [[DisasterDominoes several factors]]. The RMBK designs of the Soviet Union were inherently flawed in that they could heat up very quickly. Reactor number 4 (the newest of the reactors and the one which the accident occurred) had a strong containment structure on the side, but its roof wasn't as strong. The plant personnel were also carrying out a dangerous test with reactor 4 for power outage protocols at night (since they didn't want to interfere with citizens' electricity usage) with inexperienced workers. As they tried to maintain a delicate balance between cooling the reactor and powering it, things slowly got more and more out of hand. Then, [[FromBadToWorse communication between both sides got cut off]]. The explosion occurred when after several desperate corrections, the side controlling the graphite power rods (which had already taken out a dangerously large number of them to begin with) put too many back into the reactor all at once, triggering the disaster. The explosion wasn't like, say, a nuclear bomb explosion, but more comparable to a volcanic eruption.

* One episode of RiverMonsters was shot in Pripyat and near Reactor #4, as Jeremy Wade was searching for supposed giant mutated fish. In the end, he caught nothing that was close to a mutant monster.
* In the Series/{{Millennium}} episode, "Maranatha", it featured a Monster of the Week who was actually responsible for the Chernobyl disaster, as he was a religious psychotic who wanted to start the Apocalypse by creating wormwood.
* In the TheXFiles episode "The Host", Scully concludes that the Flukeman creature was created due to radioactive sewage from Chernobyl.

* In the TheX-Files episode "The Host", Scully concludes that the Flukeman creature was created due to radioactive sewage from Chernobyl.

* One episode of River Monsters was shot in Pripyat and near Reactor #4, as Jeremy Wade was searching for supposed giant mutated fish. In the end, he caught nothing that was close to a mutant monster.

* In the The X-Files episode "The Host", Scully concludes that the Flukeman creature was created due to radioactive sewage from Chernobyl.

* Referenced several times in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', usually made in light that some kind of terrible accident was (barely) averted at the Springfield nuclear power plant.