Documenting the fallout

In 1984, anxiety over nuclear war was at its peak. American President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defence Initiative (Star Wars), intended to protect the USA from attack by ballistic strategic nuclear weapons, was in development. The landmark TV film Threads, about the effects of a nuclear holocaust on Sheffield and eventual long-term effects of nuclear war on civilisation, disturbed the nation. The British New Wave band, Ultravox, released Dancing With Tears In My Eyes. The music video depicts band frontman Midge Ure driving home after discovering that a nuclear explosion is imminent. The video ends with the power plant exploding. I was 12 and terrified.

And then it happened. At 1:23:58am (Moscow time) on 26 April 1986, a catastrophic nuclear accident occurred at the No 4 nuclear reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in northern Ukraine. The reactor exploded and burned, spewing radioactive material. It was the worst nuclear accident