Chernobyl is a television mini-series co-produced by HBO and Sky about the very serious nuclear accident at the V.I. Lenin Nuclear Power Plant, located 18 kilometers northeast of the city of Chernobyl and 16 kilometers from the border between Ukraine and Belarus.
The man-made disaster, among the worst in history, rated a level 7 (out of 7) on the International Nuclear Events Scale[1] (INES). It occurred at 01.23:40 on April 26, 1986. Eighteen seconds earlier, a computerized control system called “Skala” had recorded the start of a reactor Scram (emergency stop), which unintentionally triggered the explosion. The Scram started when one of the staff pressed the “AZ-5” button, which was meant to shut down the reactor. Instead, it caused an explosion.
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