INSIDE CHERNOBYL’S MEGA TOMB, BBC4, 9pm
AS you read this I’m on a research trip to Chernobyl. The disaster and its terrible effects on the people, the neighbouring countries, and indeed the entire Soviet Union has always fascinated me, but this brilliant documentary shows that the current clean-up of Chernobyl has its own dark fascination.
After the disaster the Soviets hurriedly encased the poisonous nuclear plant in a “sarcophagus”. This held in the worst of the pollution but it soon began to degrade and there was a threat it would collapse, releasing more radiation. So an international team of experts and fearless workers has been assembled to create a “mega tomb” that will firmly encase the reactor and lock the horrors safely inside.
We see how they are constructing a massive arch that will slide into place over the reactor, while robots are sent inside to dismantle the remains of the ageing sarcophagus.
BLITZ: THE BOMBS THAT CHANGED BRITAIN, BBC2, 9pm
THE worst period of the Blitz began in September 1940, and in March 1941 the awful horror came to Clydebank.
Bankies might have felt relatively safe, being several miles away from Glasgow, but the Luftwaffe had marked Clydebank as a town of great industrial importance.
Until this terrible month, the war had “brought jobs, not bombs” to the town and the area was prospering, producing everything from ships to Singer sewing machines.
The busy workers were packed into the tenements of the town, and we hear from people who lived in Jellicoe, Scott and Kitchener Streets, and were just children when the Luftwaffe arrived.
This episode focuses on a bomb that fell on 78 Jellicoe Street and killed 15 members of the Rocks family, and we see how it affected the tight-knit community.
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