After Ulana Khomyuk identifies the isotope that triggered the alarm as Iodine 131, a byproduct of nuclear reactor fuel, her coworker suggests "Ignalina". Ignalina refers to a nuclear power plant in Lithuania operating 2 RBMK-1500 reactors similar to Chernobyl's RBMK-1000 reactors. The decommissioned Ignalina power plant doubles for Chernobyl in this series.
The firefighters' clothing and shoes discarded in the basement of the Pripyat Hospital are still there, exactly where they were abandoned more than 30 years ago. They are still dangerously radioactive.
To evacuate Pripyat, 1,000 buses were brought from Kyiv. The buses were ordered to wait outside the city until the evacuation began, and a single caravan of 1,000 buses entered the city, which is depicted in the series. Citizens were told they would be able to return in three days, which is why so many immediately agreed to go without their pets and belongings. The people of Pripyat never returned, with many settling in a new city built to house them. The personnel who worked at the plant and their families were also sent to a purpose-built city north of Pripyat called Slavutych.
Boris Shcherbina, played by Stellan Skarsgård, reveals that Sweden has discovered what occurred at Chernobyl and has informed the world. Skarsgård, who is Swedish, experienced the effects of Chernobyl in the 1980s and '90s, and remembers years of restrictions. As late as 2019 some produce - mushrooms, reindeer and wild boar in particular - is still screened for Cesium-137 contamination and occasionally declared unfit for sale (at 1,500 Bq / kg) or human consumption (at 10,000 Bq / kg).
The scene in Minsk was a factual account of what occurred there, when there was a spike in the level of radiation. They were further alarmed when nobody answered the phone at Chernobyl.