Sky is showing documentary on the real Chernobyl tonight

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By VT

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HBO knocked it out of the park by any metric with the release of their new show, Chernobyl, which covered the catastrophic 1986 nuclear accident and its aftermath.

Not only was it a hit with critics, but users on IMDb voted it the best show of all time - overtaking the likes of Game of Throne, The Wire and Breaking Bad to land the top spot.

Here's the trailer for the hit show:

For those who have already watched every episode of the show (or those who can't bear the tension of the series), there's a documentary airing tonight that goes into what really happened.

However accurate the show may be, there are always going to be a few details changed or left out entirely in an adaptation. Anyone wanting to see the incident for what it really was, and hear the accounts of the real people involved, only have to turn to Sky Atlantic this evening to watch the documentary The Real Chernobyl.

Kiev region, ukrainian ssr, ussr, the chernobyl reactor after the explosion, april 26, 1986.
Credit: 1522

The doc features interviews with those who worked at the plant, as well as the divers, firefighters and families evacuated from Pripyat at the time.

One of the interviewees was Oleksiy Breus, control room operator at the plant. He was on the bus to work hours after the incident with no knowledge of what had happened. "It looked like it would be a mass grave," he told Sky. "I was sure that the whole [night] shift had died there."

"As I was coming close to the station, I saw from the bus that the block was destroyed. I always say that my hair stood on its end when I saw that. I didn't understand why me and other workers were brought there. But it turned out that there was still much work to be done.

"The guarding sergeant gave each of us a pill of potassium iodide. I took it immediately. It was a special medicine made to protect the thyroid gland from radiation. All my life I remember him with gratitude.

Promo for the final episode of Chernobyl:

"I was stepping over lumps of black graphite. I didn't want to admit to what I saw, just like many other people - that it was black graphite. [The operators had] to save those injured by fire, debris, hot water and steam and radiation. We were to find them, carry them out and deliver them to the medical personnel and go look for others.

"We saved and brought everybody out, except for one person. He is still somewhere there. Inside the reactor."

For what will undoubtedly be a fascinating look into the harrowing event, you can find The Real Chernobyl on Sky Atlantic tonight at 9 pm.