[Music] operation [Music] cyclone in the days following the Chernobyl disaster secret mission unfolded high above the radioactive wreckage Soviet tu6 bombers typically used for long-range military strikes took to the skies with a new urgent task creating rain the operation was led by Yuri Israel head of the Soviet state Committee of hydrometeorology 2 days after reactor 4 exploded a classified map arrived on his desk it showed the radioactive Cloud drifting toward Moscow with millions of lives at stake in the city preparing for the annual Mayday Parade in Red Square an event that could not be canceled for fear of embarrassing the Soviet government Israel issued a faithful order Make It Rain before the toxic clouds reached the Capital just 48 hours after the explosion of reactor 4 the operation began artillery shells filled with silver iodide were loaded into tu6 bombers at a Moscow airbase and Soviet Pilots set out to intercept the radioactive clouds the pilots initially circled the burning reactor within a 6-mile radius but the wind continually pushed the radioactive plume farther out forcing the crews to follow the black cloud for hundreds of miles as they intercepted the clouds they released the silver iodide which acted like ice crystals causing water vapor to condense and fall as rain villagers in the town of narvia just 30 Mi north of Chernobyl watched in confusion as the sky filled with strange yellow and gray contrails by 8:00 p. m. the clouds erupted into a deluge Thunder rolled across the land and Black Rain poured down in turret scouring r radioactive particles from the air and sending them into the soil these weren't the first weather modification missions for the Soviet Air Force since 1941 they had experimented with manipulating the weather and by the 1980 Moscow Olympics the same tu6 bombers had been used to clear the skies for the games but this Mission known as operation Cyclone was far riskier the rain brought down not only water but a toxic mix of radioactive isotopes including cesium 137 and iodine 131 the seated rainclouds dumped Fallout across Belarus sparing Moscow but leaving entire Villages drenched in radioactive precipitation in Ukraine an opposite weather modification operation unfolded pilots from The Institute of hydrometeorology this time in civilian aircraft flew missions to stop rain clouds instead of inducing them concerning thunderstorms were spreading radiation into the Prat River a key source of water for Ukraine they dropped tons of a compound called cement 600 a mixture of cement and drying agents into the clouds this strange attempt to dry the skies created a 5-month drought over parts of Ukraine further altering the environment in a desperate bid to control the spread of radiation by the winter of 1986 these operations had largely succeeded in protecting Moscow but the cost was steep Belarusian Villages drenched in radioactive rain saw radiation levels Spike 20 to 30 times above normal entire communities were left to face the Grim consequences children sickened cancer rat soared and birth defects became tragically common for years Soviet officials denied that these cloud-seeding missions ever took place but the truth left a haunting Legacy in the Forgotten Villages of bellarus where the rain that saved millions in Moscow had come at a terrible price [Music] the first [Music] photograph for years the first photograph of the Chernobyl disaster remained as shrouded in mystery as the catastrophe itself Igor cen's iconic image grainy and fogged with radiation is often claimed to be the earliest snapshot of the destroyed reactor but Cen wasn't the only one with a camera that day and his photograph made may not have been the first in the pre-dawn hours of April 26th 1986 Coston a photographer for Noti received an urgent call a Chernobyl nuclear power plant had exploded at 1:23 a.
m. by late morning or early afternoon he was aboard a helicopter flying over the smoldering ruins of reactor 4 though the exact time remains disputed as he leaned out of the helicopter's window armed with a medium format ke 6 camera Cen later wrote how quote a big puff of hot air filled the cabin of the helicopter as he snapped what would become one of the most famous images of the disaster but C's Mission didn't go as planned after capturing around 20 shots his camera jammed and when he developed the film nearly all of his photographs were ruined radiation had corroded most of his film leaving only one haunting image intact taken around 14 hours after the explosion another photographer anatol roskov also documented the disaster potentially capturing some of the earliest images of the reactor of that day as a staff photographer at the plant rusz off was called to the scene at 9:00 a. m.
