Der erste Tag (2008)

The radiation monitoring station near the Dukovany nuclear power plant, close to the border, reports elevated radioactivity. The Federal Warning Center in Vienna and the Lower Austria State Warning Center are informed. The Czech authorities assure them that it is only a minor incident. When it becomes clear that a serious Level 4 INES accident has occurred, residents of the Horn and Hollabrunn districts are told to stay indoors and take potassium iodide tablets. At the same time, checkpoints with monitoring and decontamination stations are set up at the road border crossings. When the wind suddenly shifts, carrying clouds contaminated with radioactive particles into Austria, several monitoring stations in Lower Austria also report elevated radioactivity after the first rainfall. Since measurements at both the monitoring stations and the checkpoints show extremely high radioactivity, the claim that it is a “minor” incident is quickly called into question. Ultimately, the nuclear power plant operator announces that a reactor core has melted and that firefighting efforts are still under way. At the Federal Warning Center, this information is passed on as a “GAU” (though it must apparently have meant a “Super-GAU,” since a GAU would not release radioactive substances into the environment). Thousands of people are now to be evacuated from the affected areas. This announcement marks “the first day” of the disaster—and the end of the film. The Hirzer family: Karl and Ines Hirzer run a successful restaurant, where their son Jonathan is currently training to be a chef against his will. After an argument with his father, he rides off on his moped without his mobile phone and is caught in the radioactive fallout. The Schretzer family: Hubert and Karoline Schretzer are farmers; their daughter Marie is in love with Jonathan. When he turns up on his moped outside her school, Horn Grammar School, she skips class and rides off with him to play truant. The Renolder family: Gregor Renolder works at the Lower Austria State Warning Center. Knowing how serious the situation is, he asks his pregnant wife Anna to take their son Theo out of the danger zone to Gmunden, where her sister lives. The Friedl family: The Friedls run a bakery in Horn. Siegmund Friedl is the first to hear about the accident, from a Czech friend, and tries to persuade the mayor to take action. However, the mayor does not want to warn the public without confirmation from the State Warning Center, for fear of causing panic. While carrying out his efforts, Friedl is hit by a vehicle and killed.