Chernobyl (TV Mini Series)
Please Remain Calm (2019)
Jared Harris: Valery Legasov
Photos
Quotes
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Valery Legasov : [to himself, on seeing the site for the first time] What have they done?
Boris Shcherbina : Can you see inside?
Valery Legasov : I don't have to. Look. That's graphite on the roof. The whole building's been blown open. The core's exposed!
Boris Shcherbina : I can't see how you can tell that from here.
Valery Legasov : Oh, for God's sakes, look at that glow. That's radiation ionizing the air!
Boris Shcherbina : Well, if we can't see, we don't know.
[to pilot]
Boris Shcherbina : Get us directly over the building!
Valery Legasov : Boris...
Boris Shcherbina : Don't use my name!
Valery Legasov : ...if we fly directly over an open reactor, we'll be dead within a week! Dead!
Commission Heli Pilot : Sir?
Boris Shcherbina : [to pilot] Get us over that building, or I'll have you shot!
Valery Legasov : [to pilot] If you fly directly over that core, I promise you, by tomorrow morning, you'll be *begging* for that bullet.
[after a tense pause, the Pilot changes course, to Shcherbina's fury]
-
Boris Shcherbina : How does a nuclear reactor work?
Valery Legasov : What?
Boris Shcherbina : It's a simple question.
Valery Legasov : It's hardly a simple answer.
Boris Shcherbina : Of course, you presume I'm too stupid to understand. So I'll restate: Tell me how a nuclear reactor works, or I'll have one of these soldiers throw you out of the helicopter.
Valery Legasov : [Glances at soldiers flanking him] A nuclear reactor makes energy with steam. The steam turns a turbine which generates electricity. Where a typical power plant makes steam by burning coal, a nuclear plant... In a nuclear plant, we use something called fission.
[Proceeds to diagram]
Valery Legasov : We take an unstable element like uranium 235, which has too many neutrons. A neutron is, uh...
Boris Shcherbina : The bullet.
Valery Legasov : Yes, the bullet. So, bullets are flying off of the uranium. Now... if we put enough uranium atoms close together, the bullets from one atom will eventually strike another atom. The force of this impact splits that atom apart, releasing a tremendous amount of energy, fission.
Boris Shcherbina : And the graphite?
Valery Legasov : Ah, yes. The neutrons are actually traveling so fast - we call this "flux"- it's relatively unlikely that the uranium atoms will ever hit one another. In RBMK reactors, we surround the fuel rods with graphite to moderate, slow down, the neutron flux.
Boris Shcherbina : Good. I know how a nuclear reactor works. Now I don't need you.
-
Valery Legasov : An RBMK reactor uses uranium 235 as fuel. Every atom of U-235 is like a bullet, traveling at nearly the speed of light, penetrating everything in its path: woods, metal, concrete, flesh. Every gram of U-235 holds over a billion trillion of these bullets. That's in one gram. Now, Chernobyl holds over three million grams, and right now, it is on fire. Winds will carry radioactive particles across the entire continent, rain will bring them down on us. That's three million billion trillion bullets in the... in the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat. Most of these bullets will not stop firing for 100 years. Some of them, not for 50,000 years.
Michail Gorbatchev : Yes, and, uh, this concern stems entirely from the description of a rock?
Valery Legasov : Yes.
-
Boris Shcherbina : Tell me how to put it out.
General Pikalov : We'll use helicopters. Drop water on it like a forest fire...
Valery Legasov : No, you don't understand, this isn't a fire. This is a fissioning reactor core burning at over two thousand degrees. The heat will instantly vaporize the water...
Boris Shcherbina : [insistently] How do we put it out?
Valery Legasov : You are dealing with something that has never occurred on this planet before.
-
Plant Employee : Why are reactors 1 and 2 still operating at all? My friend was a security guard that night, and, uh, she's now dying. And we've all heard about the firemen. And now you want us to swim underneath a burning reactor? Do you even know how contaminated it is?
Valery Legasov : I... I don't have an exact number.
Plant Employee : You don't need an exact number to know if it'll kill us. But you can't even tell us that. Why should we do this, for what, 400 rubles?
Boris Shcherbina : You'll do it because it must be done. You'll do it because nobody else can. And if you don't, millions will die. If you tell me that's not enough, I won't believe you. This is what has always set our people apart. A thousand years of sacrifice in our veins. And every generation must know its own suffering. I spit on the people who did this, and I curse the price I have to pay. But I'm making my peace with it, now you make yours. And go into that water. Because it must be done.
Ananenko : [stands] Ananenko.
Bezpalov : [stands] Bezpalov.
Baranov : [stands] Baranov.
-
Fomin : It's overkill. Pikarov's showing off to make us look bad.
Bryukhanov : It doesn't matter how it looks. Shcherbina's a pure bureaucrat, as stupid as he is pigheaded. We'll tell him the truth in the simplest terms possible. We'll be fine.
[to Pikarov]
Bryukhanov : Pikarov!
[to Shcherbina]
Bryukhanov : Comrade Shcherbina, Chief Engineer Fomin. Colonel General Pikarov and I are honored at your arrival.
Fomin : Deeply, deeply, honored.
Bryukhanov : Naturally, we regret the circumstances of your visit, but as you can see, we are making excellent progress in containing the damage. We have begun our own inquiry into the cause of the accident, and I have a list of individuals who we believe are accountable.
[Shcherbina summons Legasov]
Bryukhanov : Professor Legasov, I understand you have been saying saying dangerous things.
Fomin : Very dangerous things. Apparently, our reactor core exploded. Please, tell me how an RBMK reactor explodes.
Valery Legasov : I'm not prepared to explain it at this time.
Fomin : As I presumed, he has no answer.
Bryukhanov : It's disgraceful, really. To spread disinformation at a time like this.
Boris Shcherbina : Why did I see graphite on the roof? Graphite is only found in the core where it is used as a neutron flux moderator. Correct?
Bryukhanov : Fomin, why did the Deputy Chairman see graphite on the roof?
Fomin : Well, that... that can't be. Comrade Shcherbina, my apologies, but graphite... that's not possible. Perhaps you saw burnt concrete.
Boris Shcherbina : Now there you made a mistake, because I may not know much about nuclear reactors, but I know a lot about concrete.
Fomin : Comrade, I assure you...
Boris Shcherbina : I understand. You think Legasov is wrong. How shall we prove it?
General Pikalov : Our high-range dosimeter just arrived. We could cover one of our trucks with lead shielding, mount the dosimeter on the front.
Valery Legasov : Have one of your men get as close to the fire as he can. Give him every bit of protection you have. But understand that even with lead shielding, it may not be enough.
General Pikalov : Then I'll do it myself.
-
Valery Legasov : There is some good news. The air drops are working to douse the fire. There has been a reduction in radionuclide emissions, but the fire will nto be extinguished for at least another two weeks. There is also an additional problem. Nuclear fuel doesn't turn cold simply because it is not on fire. In fact, the temperature will likely rise as a result of the blanket of sand we've dropped. The uranium will melt the sand creating a kind of lava which will begin to melt down through the shield below.
Michail Gorbatchev : You have made lava?
Valery Legasov : I anticipated this. I believe there was time to reinforce this lower concrete pad before the lava reached the earth and contaminated the ground water. But as it turned out, I was worried about the wrong thing. Uh, um... It was my understanding that these large water tanks under the tank were essentially empty. This is Ulana Khomyuk of the Byelorussian Institute. Thanks to her insight, we are now aware that the tanks are, in fact, full.
Michail Gorbatchev : Of water. Why is that a problem, professor?
Ulana Khomyuk : When the lava enters these tanks, it will instantly superheat and vaporize approximately 7,000 cubic meters of water, causing a significant thermal explosion.
Michail Gorbatchev : How significant?
Ulana Khomyuk : We estimate between two and four megatons. Everything within a 30 kilometer radius will be completely destroyed, including the three remaining reactors at Chernobyl. The entirety of the radioactive material in all fo the cores will be ejected at force and dispersed by a massive shock wave, which will extend approximately 200 kilometers and likely be fatal to the entire population of Kiev, as well as a portion of Minsk. The release of radiation will be severe, and will impact all of Soviet Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Byelorussia, as well as Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, most of East Germany.
Michail Gorbatchev : What do you mean "impact?"
Valery Legasov : For much of the area, a nearly permanent disruption of the food and water supply, a steep increase in the rates of cancer and birth defects. I don't know how many deaths there will be, but many. For Byelorussia and the Ukraine, "impact" means completely uninhabitable for a minimum of 100 years.
Michail Gorbatchev : There are more than 50 million people living in Byelorussia and Ukraine.
Valery Legasov : Sixty, yes.
Michail Gorbatchev : And how long before this happens?
Valery Legasov : Approximately 48 to 72 hours.
-
Valery Legasov : But... we may have a solution. We can pump the water from the tanks. Unfortunately, the tanks are sealed by a sluice gate, and the gate can only be opened manually from within the duct system itself. So we need to find three plant workers who know the facility well enough to enter the basement here, find their way through all these ductways, get to the sluice gate valve here, and give us the access we need to pump out the tanks. Of course we will need your permission.
Mikhail Gorbachev : My permission for what?
Valery Legasov : Uh, the water in the ducts... the level of radioactive contamination...
Ulana Khomyuk : They'll likely be dead in a week.
Valery Legasov : We're asking for your permission to kill three men.
[silence]
Mikhail Gorbachev : Comrade Legasov... all victories inevitably come at a cost.
-
Local Wife : Moscow?
[Legasov nods]
Local Wife : Are you here because of the fire?
[Legasov nods again]
Local Wife : Anything we should be worried about?
Valery Legasov : [sighs] ... No.
-
Boris Shcherbina : And as for the radiation...
Valery Legasov : Yes, 3.6 roentgen, which, by the way, is not the equivalent of one chest X-ray, but rather four *hundred* chest X-rays. That number has been bothering me for a different reason, though. It's also the maximum reading on low-limit dosimeters. They gave us the number they had. I think the true number is much, much higher. If I'm right, this fireman was holding the equivalent of four *million* chest X-rays in his hand.
-
[General Pikalov returns from driving the dosimeter truck close to the fire]
General Pikalov : It's not three roentgen. It's fifteen thousand.
[Legasov closes his eyes]
Bryukhanov : Comrade Shcherbina...
[Shcherbina just looks at him, and he shuts up instantly]
Boris Shcherbina : What does that number mean?
Valery Legasov : It means the core is open. It means the fire we're watching with our own eyes is giving off nearly twice the radiation released by the bomb in Hiroshima. And that's every single hour. Hour after hour.
[checks his watch]
Valery Legasov : Twenty hours since the explosion. Forty bombs' worth by now. Forty-eight more tomorrow. And it will not stop. Not in a week. Not in a month. It will burn and spread its poison until the entire *continent* is dead.
[silence]
Boris Shcherbina : [to soldier] Please escort Comrades Bryukhanov and Fomin to the local Party headquarters.
[to Bryukhanov and Fomin]
Boris Shcherbina : Thank you for your service.
Bryukhanov : Comrade...
Boris Shcherbina : You're excused.
Fomin : [as they are dragged away] Dyatlov was in charge. It was Dyatlov!
