Nuclear Disasters

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 12.9K Ratings

🗓️ 20 June 2022

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 2011, a 43-foot-high tsunami crashed into a nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan. In the following days, explosions would rip buildings apart, three reactors would go into nuclear meltdown, and the surrounding area would be swamped in radioactive water. It is now considered one of the costliest nuclear disasters ever. But Fukushima was not the first, and it was not the worst.

Acclaimed historian Serhii Plokhy returns to the podcast. Serhii joins Dan to tell the tale of some of the nuclear disasters that shook the world. From the 1957 fire at the Windscale facility in Cumbria which burned for three days and released radioactive fallout, to the 1986 crisis at Chernobyl, Serhii shows how the same story of nuclear ambition, often clouded by political and economic motives, is tragically repeated time and again.

Produced by Hannah Ward

Mixed and Mastered by Dougal Patmore

If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I have unwelcome to Dan Snow's history at cheerful old subject for his day nuclear
0:05.5	accidents.
0:06.5	What we're talking about nuclear power at the moment was it wise of Germany following
0:10.1	the Fukushima nuclear accident of 2011?
0:14.5	Was it wise that they'd close down or their nuclear power stations given that relying on
0:19.4	Russian gas pumped in from the east would have consequences as well?
0:25.2	This is a great time to talk about those nuclear disasters.
0:27.8	This is a great time to talk to Sahe Plucky who's been on this podcast before.
0:31.8	Many times he's a professor of Ukrainian history at Harvard University.
0:35.5	He has written about Chernobyl.
0:37.3	He is now writing about nuclear accidents going all the way back to 1954.
0:42.1	Castle Bravo test by the USA on Bikini Atoll when pulverized coral rained down on
0:49.5	atolls in the Pacific and islanders were not evacuated for three days and many suffered
0:54.4	radiation sickness.
0:55.4	He also talks about the 1957 explosion in a waste tank in Russia.
0:59.8	You'll hear that, which I'd never even heard of.
1:03.0	And the 1957, that was bad year.
1:06.0	Fire the wind scale facility in Cumbria.
1:09.1	When a fire burned for three days and released radioactive fallout spread across UK and
1:15.2	the rest of Europe partly caused by Britain's rush to be considered a great power to develop
1:21.3	a plutonium for nuclear weapons to be a big player in the world and you'll be surprised
1:26.1	to learn the government played down the seriousness of events at that time as well.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from History Hit, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of History Hit and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.