Originally Posted by
Dismal Scientist
But I also got rather annoyed, as it is a work of almost complete fiction masquerading as an accurate historical account.
There were no miners...in reality they used oil drilling technology to pump liquid nitrogen under the reactor, but then realized it was unnecessary and stopped the effort.
I'm afraid I find it rather ironic that so much of the discussion in the media on this series consists of sanctimonious homilies on the terrible consequences of the communist system suppressing the truth, when the series itself contains so many deliberate and misleading untruths as to almost represent propaganda. False news indeed!
The IAEA published all their reports, including a significant revision (INSAG-7) when the depth of the Soviet suppression of the truth became clear. The report referenced all its sources and included a copy of the real Russian report (plus a translation to English) that was never supposed to see the light of day; plus the bogus report that was actually submitted to the IAEA in its place.
As for the miners, well it is all true - nearly 10,000 were recorded as part of the liquidation team, according to the official records. The miners recruited from Tula were certainly amongst the first to the scene, ultimately providing 3400+ miners to the Chernobyl dig. Tula even has a statue that honours their bravery:
Regarding the Soviet cover-ups, Chernobyl was not the first major RBMK accident. The first was in 1975 in Leningrad. This cover-up was so effective that other RBMK operators did not know about it let alone the design weaknesses that were exposed - including the staff at Chernobyl.
In 1986, INSAG issued its report INSAG-1, which discussed the Chernobyl accident and its causes on the basis of information presented to the Post-Accident Review Meeting in Vienna in August 1986 by Soviet authorities. The new information now come to light has affected the views presented in INSAG-1 in such a way as to shift the emphasis to the contributions of particular design features, including the design of the control rods and safety systems, and arrangements for presenting important safety information to the operators. The accident is now seen to have been the result of the concurrence of the following major factors: specific physical characteristics of the reactor; specific design features of the reactor control elements; and the fact that the reactor was brought to a state not specified by procedures or investigated by an independent safety body. Most importantly, the physical characteristics of the reactor made possible its unstable behaviour.
Two earlier accidents at RBMK reactors, one at Leningrad (Unit 1 in 1975) and a fuel failure at Chernobyl (Unit 1 in 1982), had already indicated major weaknesses in the characteristics and operation of RBMK units. The accident at Leningrad Unit 1 is even considered by some to have been a precursor to the Chernobyl accident. However, lessons learned from these accidents prompted at most only very limited design modifications or improvements in operating practices. Because of lack of communication and lack of exchange of information between the different operating organizations, the operating staff at Chernobyl were not aware of the nature and causes of the accident at Leningrad Unit 1.
https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/public...ub913e_web.pdf