Liam Daniel/HBO
- HBO’s "Chernobyl" series tells the story of the world’s worst nuclear power plant accident, which took place near the city of Pripyat (once part of the Soviet Union).
- Most of the characters who appear in the show existed in real life — and a few have been willing to share their stories.
- We’ve rounded up actual accounts of the moment when disaster struck on April 26, 1986.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
HBO’s "Chernobyl" series paints a fairly accurate portrait of the 1986 nuclear disaster, which sent plumes of radioactive material coursing through Pripyat, a city that was once part of the Soviet Union.
As the series shows, the disaster was the result of a flawed design and human error, which caused the core of a nuclear reactor to open into the atmosphere.
Read more: 16 people who helped with the Chernobyl cleanup share their devastating first-hand accounts
With a few exceptions, most of the characters in the series were involved in the real-life accident. Some lived to tell their tales, while others did not.
A few of those who survived were willing to recall the moment when they either found out about the explosion or witnessed it with their own eyes. Here are their firsthand accounts, told in the years since.
Chernobyl’s chief scientific investigator said the disaster took place on a "beautiful" Saturday.
Liam Daniel/HBO
Valery Legasov, Chernobyl’s chief scientific investigator, recorded his personal account of the disaster on cassette tapes before hanging himself on April 26, 1988 — the second anniversary of the accident.
His recordings recall the moment he first learned of the explosion on a "beautiful" Saturday. That morning, he contemplated finishing some work at Moscow State University or spending time with his wife, but instead he went to the Ministry of Atomic Energy, where he was briefed about the accident from a superior, Nikolai Ermakov.
Legasov said the news was delivered calmly.
Liam Daniel/HBO
Legasov said Ermakov reported about the accident "calmly, though with disappointment," and continued to praise the nuclear power industry.
After the briefing, Legasov learned that he had been appointed to a government commission. He was told to report to Vnukovo International Airport by four o’clock for his flight to Chernobyl.
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was reportedly woken up by a phone call.
Thomson Reuters
The Soviet Union’s eighth and final leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, learned of the disaster via a phone call at around 5 a.m.
Though historical accounts say he was woken out of his sleep, Gorbachev reportedly didn’t feel the need to awaken others for an emergency meeting. Instead, he gave the go-ahead for a government commission led by Boris Shcherbina.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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SEE ALSO: 12 ways HBO changed the Chernobyl story
Source: Business Insider – feedback@businessinsider.com (Aria Bendix)