Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster.

Even now the full facts aren’t know and probably never will be but the heroism of the people who had to deal with the immediate aftermath is immense.

For those interested in the events of that day and the aftermath Chernobyl Prayer is an excellent read with some very harrowing first hand accounts from those who were there.

Some powerful images here 30 years on. Warning, they’re not all nice…

http://www.politico.eu/interactive/in-pictures-chernobyl-30-years-later/

Thanks for posting this.

What does that translate to Sr?

Thanks will read that later.

The Chernobyl reactor is to be contained within a huge concrete structure, currently being built in order to prevent the further release of radioactive material into the environment as the building decays.

The structure is designed to last one hundred years, when (hopefully) we will have developed the technology to safely dismantle and dispose of the damaged reactor. It’s quite sobering that we have to put this off for future generations to deal with, but the alternative is equally dire.

What does that translate to SR?

It simply says:

30 years. Remember.

I guess I was at just the right age, it’s one of my earliest memories… but I think, I kind of forget about the human side a bit, I find the whole incident and zone absolutely fascinating and kind of, overlook the awfulness of the whole thing for so many people… And the cost!

Still, I’d love to do one of the tours.

It’s quite sobering that we have to put this off for future generations to deal with, but the alternative is equally dire.

We do this with everything? See oil, climate change, economics. Not saying it is a good way to do things but it seem to be a default…

The Chernobyl reactor is to be contained within a huge concrete structure, currently being built in order to prevent the further release of radioactive material into the environment as the building decays.

New Safe Confinement is steel and will fit over the existing concrete sarcophagus. It’s being built on site and will be rolled over the reactor building in sections.

Some powerful images here 30 years on. Warning, they’re not all nice…

I’ve seen worse. Not getting into internet top trumps here but there are far worse images out there, most of them of pretty mundane things until you realise what was happening invisibly around them. The conditions that existed in the days and months following the accident were terrifying.

The structure is designed to last one hundred years, when (hopefully) we will have developed the technology to safely dismantle and dispose of the damaged reactor.

I believe we could probably do it now if we put our minds to it but it would be such a massive complex job that is dependent upon the safe confinement being built that it’s not even worth starting to imagine how it will be carried out. Sellafield, by comparison, is also massively challenging and is going to take that sort of timescale to sort out but nowhere near as bad as Chernobyl.

Crikey 30 years 😯

Time passes so quickly these days.

Caught something last night on National geographic showing how the fish have prospered in the cooling ponds there, shows how nature adapts and moves on.

Caught something last night on National geographic showing how the fish have prospered in the cooling ponds there, shows how nature adapts and moves on.

Yes, but did they mention that the fish all have three eyes?

Blinky!

My Norwegian GF’s father was an itinerant reindeer hearder wandering across the Finmark. His business essentially died as the reindeer meat couldn’t be sold due to their eating contaminated moss.
As a result he turned his whole business into a series of Western styled reindeer rodeos and show. A very cool guy.

Yes, but did they mention that the fish all have three eyes?

Lol, the underwater footage showed them to be all as expected, no mutations, nothing wrong size wise although they did make a point about the monster catfish (wels) being about 7 feet long, this however is not unusual as they are regularly caught bigger than that in the river Ebro in Spain.

The legacy of Fukushima is far worse than Chernobyl.
There was a sustained effort to contain Chernobyl.
Nothing like that happened after the Japan quake.
The reactors are still melting into the ground. Also there are still hundreds of tonnes of Water pouring into the Ocean.

There was a superb drama with Ade Edmunsen a few years ago detailing what went wrong, how badly the response was managed, to start with it was assumed that the leak wasn’t to bad as their Geiger counters only measured up a certain level and basically they were all red lining but nobody in authority realised that meant the levels were way beyond that.

There is also a chilling horizon documentary with film of the town just after the incident with flashes of light all over the images due to radiation. The film crew from horizon then get a guided tour including under the reactor to where the elephants foot is (name given to the core material melt that did its best to get to the water table).

I’ve got a new scientist as well with an article written by one of the control room guys who got sent to see what was happening after the reactor blew. His two colleagues went through a door before him and stopped him going through it as they were staring down into the glowing reactor watching blue neutron radiation shining up into the sky (they’d realised they were toast when the worked out what they were seeing and saved him by stopping him coming through the door).

eddiebaby – Member

As a result he turned his whole business into a series of Western styled reindeer rodeos and show.

That’s pretty much the most norwegian thing ever to have happened. That, and norwegian students fighting over 1/20th of a half pint of beer.

The legacy of Fukushima is far worse than Chernobyl.
There was a sustained effort to contain Chernobyl.
Nothing like that happened after the Japan quake.
The reactors are still melting into the ground. Also there are still hundreds of tonnes of Water pouring into the Ocean.

I know nothing about the facts around the case you cite, although if it were so, I would have thought the world would be more concerned. Is it possible what you say here is either not the whole story, or that you have it wrong?

Whatever the facts of the matter, Chornobyl was a key moment in the decline of the Soviet Union, and is very much wrapped up with the question of people’s dignity and the respect for human life. In other words, it is monumentally political in a way that few (NOT none; just few) other disasters had been to that point.

chrissyharding – suggesting that the incident at Fukushima was in any way even comparable with Chernobyl, never mind worse, is bizarre at best.

At Fukushima, some core material did melt but was contained by the primary containment vessel. Any leak of radioactive elements outside this concrete structure were entirely down to leaking of water pumped in afterwards. The entire lid of the pcv equivalent at Chernobyl was blown clean off and the burning core belched out into the atmosphere. It’s just on a different scale…

Rachel

There was a sustained effort to contain Chernobyl.
Nothing like that happened after the Japan quake.
The reactors are still melting into the ground. Also there are still hundreds of tonnes of Water pouring into the Ocean.

Sauce, or it didn’t or rather did/is happen(ing).

Bear in mind that Fukushima radiation hasn’t killed anyone (there have been other deaths, but none related to radiation). I’d say that points to the cleanup operation going a whole lot better as well as the industry in general being safer.

I get an (almost) weekly newsletter detailing deaths and serious incidents in O&G/petrochemicals. Last one was 24 dead, 8 missing, 136 injured, 19 hospitalized 13 of those serious, last week at a petrochemical plant in Mexico. If that was a nuclear incident it would be the worst since Chernobyl, in a less reactionary way, it’s the worst petrochemical disaster this month (ish, haven’t checked).

Yup, tbh it’s pretty questionable whether the human cost of the Fukushima evacuation is justified, a slower evacuation could have mitigated that a lot without massive health risks. Course, that’s with 20/20 hindsight, they had to make the evacuation call without knowing the final extent of the disaster.

Best I can find on the subject of water contamination, is Tepco saying that their seawall reduced the flow from 400 tons per day to 10 tons. So that seems to back up the “100s of tons” claim, though the actual level of contamination is supposed to be small (disclaimer: I don’t think we should trust Tepco claims in the slightest, generally)

Yes, yes, yes, I know – wikipedia and all that but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Fukushima_and_Chernobyl_nuclear_accidents

Oh – and I mistakenly said that there was some sort of containment vessel at Chernobyl – there wasn’t.

Rachel

It’s quite sobering that we have to put this off for future generations to deal with, but the alternative is equally dire.

We do this with everything? See oil, climate change, economics. Not saying it is a good way to do things but it seem to be a default…

I think it’s a bloke thing.

Do you remember those men shovelling the graphite core off the roof, protected by leather and lead aprons, shudder, arrrrhh it be reite lad!

There was a very good program on the subject the other day on S4C the same journalist vitiated the area and re interviewed people from a program 30 years ago.
Lots of people had been affected mentally by the accident and had turned to alcohol and commuted suicide etc.
Worth a look, its in welsh and will have subtititles google byd at bedwar Chernobyl

Commuted suicide? Where they driven to it?

No Rachel you were right first time, it was a lack of secondary containment in Chernobyl.

The Adrian Edmondson doc is an episode of Surviving Disaster, depicts a few of the anecdotes mentioned above. Understanding the stuff behind it THAT is what’s so terrifying about the whole thing, that people can be so ignorant of what they are working around.

IIRC the guy who got stopped at the door was holding it open and still got fried pretty badly in exposed parts.

It sounds bad but you should hear the stories I have about radiography back in the day. Running round to the other side of the reactor when a source was opened and STILL getting a heavy dose through a 5m thick concrete pressure vessel (so 10m total). The world has moved on a lot thankfully, in no small part due to Chernobyl and Three Mile Island and the info sharing that became normalised in the wake.

Watched this documentary a while ago there’s a bit near the end where they are measuring the amount of contamination on some of the clothes worn by fire fighters who attended, its freaky stuff.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5vlk_d6hrc[/video]

A mate has been, took hundreds of pics that were incredibly powerful, the fairground, swimming pool, abandoned schools and apartments.

I couldn’t help but think ‘wow, it looks like he’s been on holiday to Call of Duty 4…’

tomhoward – Member

I couldn’t help but think ‘wow, it looks like he’s been on holiday to Call of Duty 4…’

The gasmask in the OP’s pics gave me snork flashbacks 😆 Get out of here stalker! Get out of here stalker! Get out of here stalker!

The Chernobyl plant still employs approximately 3,000 people.

Blimey – I had no idea!