National - Event Notice
Thursday January 01 1970

Fallout: Drama documentary about nuclear accident in Sellafield

national | environment | event notice

Thursday April 20, 2006 13:58

by Terence

Dramatises how Ireland might react to a major nuke accident across the water.

This is a 2 part drama documentary with the first showing on
RTE 1: Sun 23rd at 9:35 pm and part 2 on RTE 1: Mon 23rd at 9:35 pm

This promises to be a reasonably realistic account of how a major accident would unfold in Sellafield and the reactions in Ireland by the people and the government. The first we would hear of it would come as a newsflash over the radio and it poses the question to us all, as to how would we react and what would we do.

We should remember of course there are many precedents for accidents at Sellafield and in particular the most serious was the Windscale fire on Oct 10th 1957 which spread radioactive Iodine over the UK and NorthEast Ireland where it has been suggested the high rate of Down Syndrome in kids born around then in that area, may be related.

This programme comes in a timely manner just as the pro-nuclear campaign to suggest building a few nuclear power stations has got underway recently and on the back of the 20 year anniversary of the explosion on Chernoby where 6 million people continue to be affected in the surrounding areas of Belarus and Ukraine. Belarus which is close to the size of Ireland has contamination spread over up to 90% of it's area and the main contaminant is cesium which chemically is like potassium and is taken up by many organs in the body. As a result there are widespread restrictions on what people can do and eat so as to reduce their radiation exposure and should something equivalent happen in Ireland & UK, similar would mostly likely apply here.

Here's a summary of what is Part 1 and Part 2 from the RTE website:

Part One concentrates on the immediate aftermath of the accident. Initially, the story is told in the style of unfolding news coverage as well as captured by a documentary crew: a mixture of news footage, studio footage, and camera phone footage from eye-witnesses. Thus, we get a sense of the immediate aftermath as it unfolds in the media as the average citizen would experience the crisis.

Part Two is set one year after the fictional Sellafield accident. The focus is now on longer term economic, social and human repercussions. We revisit and get closer to some of the characters we met in Part One. Through these characters, as well as through 'official reactions' and commentary from economic, psychological and medical experts, we examine the economic and social impact of the disaster on Irish society over the course of the year.

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Comments (12 of 12)

Nuclear support Group?

by Green Ink

Thu Apr 20, 2006 23:13

Did anyone hear the "public" reactions to the discussion on the Today with Tom McGurk this morning? One person rang in to say the Fallout show was biased against nuclear power and that s/he was attempting to form a "nuclear support group". 10 minutes in Chernobyl and if you still feel the same about nuclear power I'll concede. Any takers?

Doc on Belarus and IAA lies

by cool j

Fri Apr 21, 2006 03:35

Anyone who thinks Nuclear is a good idea should have viewed Wednesday's night doc on Chernobyl 20 years since the catastrophe which followed Adi Roache around Belarus. Less than 20% of babies are born healthy with most seriously ill or horrificly disfigured. Went along way in expsosing the lies being spun by the International Atomic Agency which shamelessy seeks to downplay the effect of the diasaster. for their own selfish aims.

Clarification

by Homer J.

Fri Apr 21, 2006 23:04

It's ... nukelar!

As usual

by A10

Sat Apr 22, 2006 22:14

RTE fucks up with it's schedule.They would have to show it before everyone switches over to Lost. on RTE 2 .
Should be a laugh a minute anyway,as there is no plan apart from staying indoors and listening to RTE.So we should have alot of understated panic scenesand the introduction of martial law to keep order .

Very Real

by Nat

Mon Apr 24, 2006 12:07

I happened to switch on the telly last night missing the start of the documentary.
It was so real that I panicked and rang my folks on the continent to see if they had heard about it, too. I think I really gave them a fright, because I was in tears.. They checked Sky News straight away.
As the documentary went on I realized that it was just a 'what if' - report and calmed down a bit.
I remember the many thoughts going through my head...like what to do next - in that sense the 'realness' of the docu was very good - that you are really confronted with the situation.
On the other hand I was thinking of all the people, especially elderly people, who might also have just tuned in like me and taken it for real.
But fair play - it is very well made and it just shows how terrible it would be if something did happen....the threat is very real !

fear

by revelation

Mon Apr 24, 2006 12:20

the exact same thing happened to me. i switched on the telly and i saw "breaking news: fire in sellafield" and the news reader was saying "could this be an irish chernobyl?". It was very effective at putting the fear of God into me! was that the whole point of it? to scare people into waking up to the danger that is actually very close geographically. definitely worked on me! I had to watch it for an hour before i realised it wasnt real. very scary

Reality hit home

by Dana

Mon Apr 24, 2006 14:32

My 11 year old boy woke me hysterically on the couch upset about what was on the 'news' as we live in Kildare .. he was so scared and asked me what was going on. It took me ages to reaslise it was only a documentary, although some of the video clips were dated Feb 05 which confused me even more and made it very real. I was so tempted to ring my family just to double check that it wasn't real..

It was an excellent way of waking us all up to what may happen and a way of educating us all .. it'll take precedence over 'lost' in my house tonight! It also made me realise that this country would be chaotic if something like this ever happened.

Fallout Documentary

by Galway Girl - n/a

Mon Apr 24, 2006 18:34

What a work of Art and fairplay to the person/s that came up with the idea.
Like many other comments I too was S....ess when I turned on the T.V. Didnt realise this was a documentary and went O my God.. Rang my brother in Lucan who calmed me down and told me it was a documenary. I have suddenly woke up to the Timebomb. Is there anything I or anyone can do, can we vote or get a petition going. I am not well up on this stuff. I read some info I got on Google and its scary stuff in these containers, the Irish Sea it seems is toilet for alot of Nuclear waste.

erin

by erin

Mon Apr 24, 2006 20:37

i think that rte should have had the decency to put a warning at the bottom of the screen that it was not real i am only 17 and was in histerics when i read it! i have emailed rte and complained

Not scary enough

by Bill in Navan

Wed Apr 26, 2006 12:14

Excellent program - very well made, but not half scary enough.
Suggests that half the population move to the west and wait peacefully for a year or two while the government hands out food vouchers etc.
In reality there would be complete chaos, mayhem and anarchy.
If Dublin was evacuated, there would be no government, no transport, no Eircom, no RTE, no imports/exports via the city, no banks, no insurance, no post, no social welfare, no health service, no internet etc
What about all those in hospital , nursing homes, institutions etc at the time of the crisis ?
Who's going to look after 100,000 people a day crossing the shannon ?
Where's all the food going to come from ? etc, etc, etc.

Maybe we'd be better off staying put and accepting the consequences.

OR we could

Wed Apr 26, 2006 16:50

OR apart from thinking about putting head between legs and kissing ass goodbye if this should happen.Why not switch off the tube one night and play a what IF game with friends and family??
What If this happened?What would we do?How would we communicate?How would we meet up?Where?How will we feed ourselves?etc etc.
Maybe if this laughable programme got people thinking about what to do in an emergency situation and what personal measures they could take to save their own asses.It would be vworth it.One thing is for sure the Irish govt wont do anything to help US.THEY will be the first ones running West and feck the rest of us..

Missed IT!! aww

by Grace

Wed Apr 26, 2006 21:18

i really wanted to watch this but missed it, but i saw trailer and thought it look very thought provoking. Wish that i could dowload and watch it on real player or something like tht

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Fallout: Drama documentary about nuclear accident in Sellafield

Comments (12 of 12)