Radioactive Ghosts – The lessons of Chernobyl 40 years on

The Bunker – News without the nonsense

Podmasters

Politics, Government, Society & Culture, News

4.6 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 9 April 2026

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A culture of fear, blame, obedience and corner-cutting sets in chain a devastating course of events. Millions are displaced, many die and the effects last for decades. Sounds familiar? On 26 April 1986, reactor no.‍4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near Pripyat in modern Ukraine exploded, spreading radioactive contaminants across the Soviet Union and Europe. The disaster would eventually cost $700bn and hasten the fall of the USSR. Adam Higginbotham is the author of the definitive work on the accident, Midnight in Chernobyl. He tells Andrew Harrison how the culture that led to Chernobyl wasn’t confined to Soviet Russia – and how Putin’s war on Ukraine risks stirring up Chernobyl’s radioactive poisons all over again • Buy Midnight in Chernobyl and/or Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space through our affiliate bookshop and you’ll help fund the podcast by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org’s fees help support independent bookshops too. www.patreon.com/bunkercast Written and presented by Group Editor Andrew Harrison. Audio production: Tom Taylor & Dom Delargy. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Artwork by James Parrett. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production. www.podmasters.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is a paid message from GoFundMe.
0:02.9	My name is Ashley Kane.
0:04.6	I'm the daddy of a little girl in heaven and a father to two boys on earth.
0:09.9	I've got an incredible relationship with GoFundMe, both personally and via our daughter's foundation, the Azalea Foundation.
0:17.4	GoFundMe has allowed me, the foundation, and thousands of people out there to give hope to others in need.
0:25.5	You'd actually be surprised how many people out there are willing to show love and support you in your time of need.
0:33.3	My advice for anyone that needs to stop a GoFundMe will be do it.
0:38.6	You don't need to feel shame.
0:40.1	You don't need to feel guilt.
0:41.3	You don't need to feel embarrassment.
0:43.1	If you need GoFundMe, use GoFundMe.
0:46.8	Start your GoFundMe today at gofundme.com.
0:50.7	That's gofundme.com.
0:56.7	This message reflects one. That's go fund me.com. G-O-F-U-N-D-M-E.com.
0:59.8	This message reflects one person's experience.
1:14.0	Hello and welcome back to the bunker, your daily ration of news without the nonsense from the makers of, oh God, what now?
1:14.9	I'm Andrew Harrison.
1:19.7	Today, where were you in April and May, 1986?
1:30.5	I know where I was. I was at the University of Leeds, and that spring, our student paper, the lead student, got a tip from university researchers that sheep farms in Yorkshire were suddenly showing unusually high levels of radiation. We didn't connect the dots at the time.
1:36.6	The cores lay 2,000 miles away. It was the world's worst nuclear accident, Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant,
1:42.9	26 of April, 1986.
1:45.2	A botched low power test for the reactor combined with fatal design flaws in reactor four,
	...

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