Our Guy in Russia S01E03 - The Road to Chernobyl

Guy Martin leaves Russia and visits Chernobyl in Ukraine - the site of the biggest nuclear disaster in history - to explore the record-breaking engineering solutions designed to make the area safe, 32 years after the nuclear power station exploded. After receiving specialist training about how to avoid contamination, Guy is allowed into the most radioactive place on Earth, a restricted exclusion zone of 1000 square miles. He heads straight for the breached reactor, which is now entombed within a 36,000-tonne shelter called the New Safe Confinement. He climbs to the top of the structure, which is taller than the Statue of Liberty, to carry out a radiation survey, and finds an area that's so radioactive that he's only permitted to stay for 20 seconds. Guy interviews a surviving 'liquidator' - one of the volunteers who helped clean up the immediate aftermath of the explosion - about the ad-hoc protective clothing they were given to wear, which was made of lead.