Nah they should do it hunt for the Red October style, everyone trying their best to sound Russian and then one defiant old Scot in the middle of it all…

That film has a clever opening though where they start talking in Russian and it blends through to English. Smart.

why should you never buy Ukrainian underpants?

because chernobyl fallout

I told that very old joke to one of the women at work yesterday. Surprisingly she laughed so hard, had she had a knob to fall out, I reckon it would. Somewhat surprised she hand’t heard it before.

I went last year.

The maddest day! Tour guide forgot all the rules and we went into a crumbling reactor that was never finished, covered in the cranes that were building it still. Took us all the way into where the core would have been if they finished it, the concrete was 15 feet thick. Came across a guy cutting up metal to take out and sell on the black market, he would have bribed the border guards. Guide had to make a shady deal, we wouldn’t report him and he wouldn’t report us for being where we shouldn’t!

Pripyat was pretty sobering, seeing all the everyday items left behind. The schools are full of gas masks, our guide grew up in the soviet schools system around the time, apparently they did PE lessons in the masks so they would be used to running in gas masks for later military service. That and how to strip. , clean and reassemble an Ak 47!

Russians are insane, also Sweden’s radioactivity sensors were going wild on the days after the explosion but when they called Moscow to check everything was ok they said yes we are fine…

Just for some balance:

Energy Accidents

Coal is globally responsible for a hundred thousand deaths, per PWh of electricity, when nuclear is responsible for ninety.

“mrmonkfinger

Member

Worth noting Fukushima was a very, very old reactor design.”

True but what really caused the disaster there, was mismanagement by Tepco- when you learn that they were told by engineers that the sea wall was inadequate and should be raised and reinforced, and refused, because they were worried about the negative PR that would be caused if they admitted the sea wall was inadequate… Gah. And that’s not the only example, it’s just the one simple one that’d have stopped the whole thing. Nuclear is safe, humans are deadly.

Agreed, it is usually the human factors that do it.

s/a Chernobyl. RBMK was “safe” under normal operations but definitely not under unusual conditions, untrained personnel not fully understanding the operation of the reactor, politburo unwilling to disclose official secrets pertaining to known flaws, the list goes on.

RBMK is/was a really really badly designed reactor. Coupled with a lack of operator education and training was a horrendous combination

…and add in a culture of not questioning your superiors.

Mind you, the UK’s history’s not great, it’s just that the USSR’s was absolutely horrific. (and sometimes that washed over… Like, for a long time it was thought that they’d kept the Kyshtym disaster secret, but then it turned out that the US and UK both knew about it almost at the time, but also kept it secret because they thought it could damage the reputation of nuclear here. We were never as mad as Mayak of course, but we did make a lot of the same mistakes including at Windscale, which maybe could have been avoided with more honest disclosure.

Just for some balance:

Energy Accidents

Coal is globally responsible for a hundred thousand deaths, per PWh of electricity, when nuclear is responsible for ninety.

The issue being that a coal mine explosion kills people immediately, and that’s basically it, whilst the effects of a nuclear disaster last literally centuries, and will keep killing people for decades.

I thought the first episode was superb, I agree I’d have taken Ukranian and subtitles – but preferred English to woeful pseudo-Soviet accents. Really looking forward to the rest of it.

I agree I’d have taken Ukranian and subtitles – but preferred English to woeful pseudo-Soviet accents.

One of the things I really like about Netflix is it’s not afraid to make programs in any or multiple languages with subtitles. The programmes are better for it in my opinion.

I really liked Deutschland 86, and whilst you had to be “in the mood” for it, I thought it was certainly better for being subtitled. It could be worse of course, it could have been (badly) dubbed into English.

The issue being that a coal mine explosion kills people immediately, and that’s basically it, whilst the effects of a nuclear disaster last literally centuries, and will keep killing people for decades.

I think you’ll find the effects of resultant atmospheric pollution are longer lasting than “immediately”. Stuff like coal lung is a long term early death for some sufferers. In our recent history the London smog was responsible for thousands of deaths every year, all related to coal fire emissions, and the atmospheric effects here were of course short term, when weather conditions did not clear the crap from the air. The “deaths” figures on wikipedia account for all forms of death not just the obvious instant explosive ones, so I think it is more than a little disingenuous to say “that’s basically it”. That attitude, being dismissive of “conventional” fuel problems, combined with ramping up the scare factor on nuclear (because it has magic woo woo that you can’t see) is what has shut down sensible discussion of nuclear over the years.

Also I’m not sure that for instance the enormous and lethal Bhopal gas leak left a particularly habitable piece of land behind, either.

Also worthy of note is the amount of people killed when constructing wind turbines and solar panels, which has made them currently more deadly than nuclear.

we did make a lot of the same mistakes including at Windscale, which maybe could have been avoided with more honest disclosure.

But at least the culture here allowed for a response, a clean up and a way to actually learn from all the mistakes. And during the construction of Windscale there was at the very least, room within the culture for someone to shout “we need extra safety stuff” and for it to be added. Not ideal, but it kept a lid on the disaster and allowed for containment. That could never have happened with the Russian approach, where the design flaws were state secrets and never disclosed and staff would never have been allowed to even talk about them. Hence why the operators genuinely believe there was no possibility the reactor could ever explode. The thing “was perfect” and “couldn’t go wrong”. I guess.

The western safety critical industries are now very good at reducing chances of catastrophic events, mainly because of learning from events like Windscale. It has taken time of course. Again, it is a culture thing, and you have to wonder if every place on earth will be willing or capable of operating to that standard.

The end of last night’s episode…

…the most nightmarish thing I’ve seen on telly for some time. Mainly because everything depicted actually happened.

Agreed. Game Of Thrones is a breath of fresh air in comparison.

Did the helicopter crash actually happen? Can’t remember ever reading about it, and I’ve put myself on a research ban until after the series is finished

Did the helicopter crash actually happen? Can’t remember ever reading about it, and I’ve put myself on a research ban until after the series is finished

I’m on a similar research ban but I think at least 1 helicopter did crash over the reactor though I don’t think it was the first one as depicted in the show. It was a tricky bit of flying by tired pilots in over-stressed kit and there were a lot of sorties so I’d be amazed if it hadn’t happened.
Some of the science seems a bit wild – I don’t think a physicist would have predicted a 2-4 Mb yield from even an enormous thermal explosion as Emily Watson’s character did.

A helicopter did crash but it wasn’t the first one to fly over the reactor. They altered the time line for the sake of the story. It struck a crane and came straight down.

There’s YouTube footage, but I won’t post it because… well it is a fatal crash and all that.

Emily Watson’s character is fictional. Again, just to help the story along. I assume that most of the calcaultions and assessments were made by grey, tired men and women in smoke filled rooms.

Compelling viewing.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-chernobyl-podcast/id1459712981

Worth a listen, it’s the series creator and producer of the HBO show explaining the show, he covers the reasons for various things like the accents.

This keeps on getting better. I’d forgotten about the miners’ story.

Make up department having a field day.

First you feel very ill, then you feel a bit better, then you melt.

Been doing a bit of reading about the divers that went down to open the water valves.

Apparently they didn’t have the dynamo torch back-up so they found the valve in complete darkness and, incredible as it sounds, they survived! One died in 2005 and the other two are still with us in 2016 when a researcher tracked them down.

Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster

Survival rates amongst the coal miners weren’t great.

Skin crawlingly good TV. It took a little while to get use to the language and accents but I think it’s fine, I did find the lack of consistency with the evacuation announcement being in Russian bothersome though.

I’m really enjoying it, watched the first two episodes so far. Would have preferred Russian with subs, but not that big a deal. It’s pretty obvious that a lot of the details must have been dramatized (including fictional or composite characters, as mentioned above), but the major events are historical.

Survival rates amongst the coal miners weren’t great.

I don’t suppose survival rates were very good for any Soviet miner of that era.

Was interesting to see nasty Trevor from Eastenders strutting around as a bollock-naked Russian miner.

He deserved his fate after what he did to Little Mo.

Started catching up on this last night, end of episode 2 properly gave me the spooks. The ticking of the Geiger counter as the lights failed was haunting.
Awesome TV, truly amazing how the soviet machine worked, and the attitude of the leaders towards both each other and the outside world. I think what made it more scary is the knowledge we all have all learned since. The firefighters / nurses etc really had no idea how to deal with the incident.
Woke up twice with nightmares due to the bloody programme. 🙁

It just continues to absolutely brilliant if some what disturbing how a ridiculous sense of pride and loyalty can lead to so many wrong decisions.

Worst. Dive. Ever.

Just caught up with episode 3. I believe Emily Watson character is fictional and is made up of several real people from the incident.

It’s horrible compulsive viewing.

I’m reading the Atomic Accidents book mentioned earlier in the thread.  The mix of design, procedural, man-thinking-he-knows-better-than-procedures and sheer stupidity errors that have caused some very nasty accidents and fatalities makes me think we should have put the genie back in that particular bottle and then sealed it in cement long ago.

Some of the science is a bit dodgy, which is a shame, but it’s very compelling.

This article from the WHO is quite interesting:

https://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/chernobyl/backgrounder/en/

Really want to see this. Find it fascinating.

Has anyone visited the place?

i went for 6 days a few years ago, also had a day in Kiev when the riots were happening. most surreal week of my life.
pripyat and chernobyl where amazing to see and I highly recommend it if you have an interest in it at all. one of our guides was actually at work on reactor 1 when 4 exploded and a couple of his close friends are among the 30 or so people that are remembered for having given their lives in the immediate aftermath. we even visited the flat that he lived in with his young family before the incident.
watching the tv series has made me feel quite strange at times. some of the best tv i have seen

i went for 6 days a few years ago, also had a day in Kiev when the riots were happening. most surreal week of my life.

Sure sounds like it.

We did some filming in and around Kiev, and got into a bit of bother with filming equipment at Simferopol Airport.

Before the recent troubles; a guard with a gun had us dismantle our steadicam equipment!

Just started watching – intended to give the first episode a try, and ended up watching 3 in a row. It’s gripping even though you know (more or less) the story!

First you feel very ill, then you feel a bit better, then you melt.

I’ve had hangovers like that 🙁

Some of the science is a bit dodgy, which is a shame, but it’s very compelling.

The scriptwriter is active on the reddit chernobyl board – seems (if I understand right) most of the info was gleaned from a few books written around the time, one of which had a few “larger” claims about the impact than others (e.g. size of the potential thermal explosion, degree of groundwater poisoning). I think some of the dodgy science is in part down to source material.

makes me think we should have put the genie back in that particular bottle and then sealed it in cement long ago

thing is, it is out the bottle and has been for a long time, so what are the options? try and get better at each and every part of the process or stick your head in the sand?

Some of the science is a bit dodgy,

Is the actual science a bit dodgy, or is it just characters saying things that they believed, but turn out not to be correct?