Access to this video is a benefit for members through PBS Passport.
Back to Show
Watch Preview
NOVA
Building Chernobyl's MegaTomb
Season 44
Episode 8
In 1986, in the heart of Ukraine, the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded, releasing 400 times more radiation than the Hiroshima Bomb. It was the world’s worst nuclear disaster. Thirty workers died, 50,000 people fled the nearest city, and radioactive fallout made an area larger than Long Island a no-go zone. Hastily, a so-called “sarcophagus” was built to contain the radioactive materials.
Support Provided By
Unlock with PBS Passport
53:34
What are the weirdest worlds in our solar system, and how did they come to be?
Unlock with PBS Passport
53:34
Discover the dramatic forces creating spectacular weather on neighboring planets and moons.
53:38
Explore big discoveries that have revolutionized our understanding of the universe.
53:10
Follow the quest to recover DNA millions of years old for the very first time.
53:15
Explore the engineering behind Paris’s iconic landmark, the tallest structure of its time.
Unlock with PBS Passport
53:17
New evidence reveals the real story of Easter Island and the builders of its stone heads.
53:31
Giant fossils uncovered in the Sahara Desert reveal new secrets of how whales evolved.
Unlock with PBS Passport
53:30
A family turns to science in their struggle to rediscover a history obscured by slavery.