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This Is What Happened To The Dogs In The Real Life Chernobyl Disaster

Rachel Andrews

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This Is What Happened To The Dogs In The Real Life Chernobyl Disaster

Featured Image Credit: HBO

Sky Atlantic and HBO's Chernobyl was widely praised for its gripping content, made all the more harrowing that it retells the story of the biggest nuclear disaster created by man.

The five-part mini-series tells the story of the residents living closest to the nuclear power plant at the time of the accident, the employees working at the time as well as the firefighters first on the scene.

And in one disturbing scene, three Soviet soldiers was seen shooting the dogs that had been abandoned in Pripyat, Ukraine who had been affected by the explosion and the devastating aftermath.

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The scene really hit home with viewers on Twitter. "Watching soldiers shoot dogs in Chernobyl is blood curdling," shared one person, while another echoed: "Not ok with the dog killing scene in #Chernobyl."

While most of us would like to hope that this scene of episode four - along with many, many more details from the factual series, wasn't true, it turns out that the most of the dogs caught up IRL would have met just as an upsetting ending.

According to Business Insider, residents near to the explosion had to evacuate 36 hours after the accident and just had 50 minutes to pack up their entire lives and leave.

Credit: Unsplash
Credit: Unsplash
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And heartbreakingly, none of the pets were allowed to allowed to come with them, meaning they were left behind to fend for themselves.

Upsetting, first hand accounts from people who were there at the time suggest that the pets chased after the buses escorting their owners away from the disaster.

Residents believed they would be able to come back for their animals in a few days after the scale of the accident was downplayed, but the dogs and cats were left to roam the streets near the abandoned city.

Credit: HBO/Sky Atlantic
Credit: HBO/Sky Atlantic
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And just like in the series, soldiers were ordered to kill them to stop the spread of contamination.

Fast forward to 2019, and it's believed that hundreds of stray dogs still live inside the Chernobyl exclusion zone set up in 1986, but they rarely live past the age of six due to harsh weather and lack of food at the site, among other factors.

Estimated numbers of the dogs living there fluctuate from 300 up to 900, but there's hundreds of other animals living there too. This really hammers home the scale of the disaster over 30 years on.

Thankfully, Clean Futures Fund is doing as much to help the stray dogs as possible by spaying and neutering them as well as vaccinating to help improve their quality of life and the generations thereafter.

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And after a change in legislation in 2018, some of the puppies can now be adopted through charities, too.

Topics: Life News, HBO, TV News, Chernobyl, Dogs

Rachel Andrews
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