How Accurate Was the Chernobyl Series on HBO? – Emergency Management Degree Program Guide

August 6, 2019July 31, 2020

The catastrophic explosion in Chernobyl is rooted in history but how accurate was the Chernobyl series on HBO? When adapting the story of a historical event to a series, some details must be altered in order to fit time and budget restraints. It’s also impossible to know other details that may have gone undocumented. By learning several key facts about the actual event, viewers can have a bit more insight when separating fact from dramatization.

True Depictions

HBO’s Chernobyl correctly represented how citizens in the neighboring cities weren’t informed about what had happened and evacuation was delayed. The Soviet government thought that it was possible to handle the situation quietly and waited nearly 36 hours to evacuate. This delayed response was partially due to plant manager Bryukhanov and chief engineer Fomin’s denial that anything had gone wrong. Due to violating safety regulations that likely cause the event, they were both sentenced to ten years in prison.

Despite the irony, the Chernobyl disaster happened during a safety test for the reactor that exploded. According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, the reactors were already highly unstable before they began testing. The chief engineer chose to ignore the objection of the plant workers and 01:23:45 is the actual time that they tried to perform an emergency shut down of the reactor, which is how the episode got its title. In the series, Lyudmilla Ignatenko’s story is also quite accurate. She did lie about being pregnant and paid off an employee at the hospital so that she could visit her dying husband.

False or Dramatized Depictions

Although it’s true that the Soviets used helicopters to drop sand and boron in an effort to contain the flames, the series does show a plane crash that didn’t actually happen during this event. The real crash didn’t happen until around six months after the initial disaster. The show also depicts miners, that dug the tunnels under reactor three, stripping down to face the heat. Although this did happen, the show exaggerates how much clothing was taken off.

The Chernobyl nuclear power plants were located in Northern Ukraine but accents that the actors used were not from that area. The director made the decision to let the actors use their native accents out of fear that fake accents would come across as too comedic. Ulana Khomyuk is not a real person but a composite character that represents numerous scientists that were brought in on the project. Although this is a justifiable decision, the idea that a single person identified the cause of the event is false.

Any depiction of a historical event is going to differ from actual reality but HBO’s Chernobyl follows the story closely. At its core, the show pulls its material from actual events while adding a bit extra to engage audiences. Although several minor variables were changed to be more easily translated to television, the Chernobyl series on HBO is fairly accurate.