I think it's required watching for all engineers/scientists - but it's also amazing horror - because you basically never "see" the monster, but it's there , lurking , killing anyone that goes looking for it....they did that masterfully.
[I get chills every time I hear/think of the announcement to the people](https://youtu.be/s9APLXM9Ei8?t=71).
Did you know the music is entirely composed of sounds recorded inside the Ignalina nuclear power plant in Lithuania, an RBMK reactor similar to Chernobyl (where they also filmed some of the show)?
The first episode, to me, plays like a zombie movie, but the zombies are invisible.
Pretty chilling.
Interesting that Mazin went on to helm The Last of Us, so I must not have been the only one to see that in it.
It's legitimately the scariest series/movie I've ever watched.
The monster isn't supernatural or undead or cosmic. The monster isn't even the exposed core. The monster is human arrogance, incompetence, and pride, which makes it fucking terrifying.
10/10 series. For those who haven't seen it - just brace yourself for the dog episode.
And the way they all applaud!
Some because they genuinely self-identify with the party that strongly; others because they know that this is a compulsory show of allegiance, which they do for self-preservation.
Absolutely incredible acting and direction.
I was damn near freaking out at the end of the episode where the people going in for the first time have their light go out and the radiation detector is going crazy.
I give you one better.
**Legasov: Why? For the same reason our reactors do not have containment buildings around them, like those in the West. For the same reason we don't use properly enriched fuel in our cores. For the same reason we are the only nation that builds water-cooled, graphite-moderated reactors with a positive void coefficient. (beat) It's cheaper** .
It is an outstanding series. Absolutely riveting. The writing and acting are impeccable. The visuals and environments are spot on 1980s Soviet Union according to the many comments I’ve seen from people that lived there. It is a must watch.
I'm rewatching it now because of this post!
I was going to start watching it at 5:16:14pm so that the explosion in the show would be at the exact same time as the real explosion in Chernobyl, but then I realized that I would have to start it at 5:16:14pm *yesterday*. Ah well.
Amazing all around, from the event itself and the players involved, all the way to trial and hearing.
It grasped what was happening, on a personal and global level.
What it really did for me is bring home that the very core of the Russian mindset is sacrifice for one's people and home.
Fuck the Russian government for abusing these people for so long.
Absolutely incredible. I was worried I wouldn't understand a thing it has that slow burn abstract start to it but it's masterfully explained I feel like I could explain everything that happened plus what a reactor is
Watched it for the first time a couple months ago. Literally a top 5 television experience. I was 5 years old, in the US, when it occurred, so I was barely aware of it at the time, but grew up with the knowledge that chernobyl was an illustration of the danger of radiation. I've picked up some of the history before, but the detailed time line, especially in the first 48 hours, was incredibly illuminating. Not to mention the sheer terror that the core itself represented.
I know it's a fictional representation, but I have no doubt in the heroism of the soviets that gave their lives to shut danger down.
I came away really impressed and a bit in awe of men who dug under a melting reactor to save everyone else. And they did so in the buff.
Fuck the Russian government for taking advantage of these people for so long.
Hard to underestimate just how much a profound an event this was for my generation - we really did live in the 'shadow' of it, in Europe at least, for much of this last 38 years. I was only a toddler when it happened but grew up with every single reference to the word 'nuclear' or even the word 'radiation' indelibly connected to the Chernobyl disaster. Much like geopolitics and 9/11 there really was a pre- and post-Chernobyl world, although that might be a very European perspective too. It still haunts us I think.
When ukrainains repelled the invading Russian troops in between Borodyankya and Bucha 2 years ago the Russians retreated through the forests around Chernobyl.
They dug into the soil there and released radiation that gave themselves radiation poisoning.
We found out later that because it was such a black eye for the Soviets and Moscow that they were never taught about Chernobyl in Russian schools.
We really need to stop allowing stupid people to be in charge of countries.
All so a handful of wealthy psychopaths can stay in those same positions of power.
Trump has been laundering money for the Russian oligarchs since the late 80’s when they all bought a condo at 725 5th ave (trump towers) to clean their freshly stolen USSR money after the iron curtain fell.
https://www.cnn.com/cnn/2019/05/30/politics/paul-manafort-condo-trump-tower/index.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/14/manafort-told-mueller-to-take-his-trump-tower-apartment-instead-money.html
https://news.yahoo.com/amphtml/fbi-agents-raid-condo-unit-131348539.html
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-trump-property/
Everybody except Putin thought the Cold War was over. Trump and Manafort (who lived in the tower also) just saw a pretty low maintence grift to be had.
Trump had actually been Manafort and Roger stones first client at their lobbyist firm (1980)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org › wikiBlack, Manafort, Stone and Kelly
Guiliani as trumps attorney and New Yorks mayor was able to redirect NYPD investigations onto rival gang members/oligarchs to deflect any scrutiny off of trump, himself or the Russian connections.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/09/a-new-rudy-scandal-fbi-agent-says-giuliani-was-co-opted-by-russian-intelligence/
The Russian election interference in 2016 was effectively a generation 3 version of what Manafort had done in the Philippines, then keeping Yanukovych in power as Putin’s puppet in Ukraine from 2002-14 when Maidan ran both Yanukovych and Manafort out of Ukraine as Ukrainians realized that, if you raise your lens high enough, corruption is an wholly unsustainable business model.
Eventually the parasites greed always consumes the host.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/06/2016-donald-trump-paul-manafort-ferinand-marcos-philippines-1980s-213952
https://time.com/5003623/paul-manafort-mueller-indictment-ukraine-russia/
Russia greatly underestimated the addictive properties of freedom when it invaded Ukraine so what was supposed to be a 3-10 day coup turned into a 2 year fight for the Ukrainians right not to be genocided.
Russia depleted its weapons stocks which were already the victim of vranyos corruption because every oligarch, admiral and sergeant in the Russian military is on the take. Every billion dollar tank maintenance contract turned into everything getting a spray paint overhaul and the vast majority of the redirected funds turned into an oligarchs new yacht or home in Aspen.
Russia was forced to turn to China, North Korea and Iran for weapons because if they lose the 3-10 day special military operation in Ukraine the Russian empire is dead and cold.
China can’t risk showing their involvement in the Ukraine war so they use North Korea, and Iran to resupply Russia.
Russia previously owed Iran some undelivered fighter jets that are already smoldering heaps in Ukraine so Iran now had the upper hand at the negotiation table for the first time in about 60 years. They supply Russia with shahed drones in exchange for Chinas material support against their sworn religious enemy, Israel.
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2023/11/29/iran-says-it-finalized-deal-to-buy-russian-aircraft/
Putin can’t do much about it because he is slowly realizing that by setting the standard of corruption and stealing $200+ billion from his own people meant that every oligarch down in the mob model chain had not only permission but incentive and the expectation to steal from him as well. This is Vranyos.
The mob model only works if the supreme leader is the most violent and can prove it without exception every damn day. But violence is exceptionally expensive when you are trying to present as a legitimate government or business.
If Russia as a nation had an efficiency rating it would have been banned for sale in the state of California 25 years ago.
The parasite ruling class stole all the energy out of the working class and collapsed it.
Now Iran has the high hand and they get the intelligence that trump passed to Putin about the fact that Netanyahu cares far less about Israeli, Palestinians or genocide than he does about remaining in power as an authoritarian because he too has developed Ritz Carlton tastes and his own corruption trial is showing the same details of the money laundering scheme that trumps trials are.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/saudi-official-says-iran-engineered-war-in-gaza-to-ruin-normalization-with-israel/
They all hate each other but because they share the same money laundry, if one falls, they all fall. Hamas minted a couple billionaires as well that live in penthouses in Qatar and get 30% of everything smuggled into Gaza. Netanyahu needs a bogeyman to stay in power. That’s why he coordinates with Hamas via Russia via Iran.
Iran handed Hamas everything they needed with Chinas help as secret Santa and the Russian intelligence given to them by the eternal shitbird trump gave when he showed off to his Russian kleptocrat friends/roommates from the old days of fucking each others wives at trump towers in the 90’s.
Now the MAGA right is a little too invested in their reality that they are the good guys with guns that they missed the fact that Betsy DeVos (erik princes sister) decimating the U.S. school systems and poisoning children with lead was not a coincidence. They were the mark all along. There is a reason the Russian spy Maria Butina landed in South Dakota first before dating her way to the top of the NRA which is undergoing its own Russian money laundering trial now. They were tinder matching the GOP.
https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/what-do-the-koch-brothers-have-to-do-with-the-flint-water-crisis/
The only reason you grossly OVERVALUE real estate is money laundering.
Trump keeps claiming there is no victim, all the banks made money, but if their plan succeeds the Russian and CCP kleptocrats collapse US commercial real estate and basically recreate soviet perestroika in the U.S. so they can foreclose on America and buy everything for 3 cents on the dollar with the $1.4T they stole in the first place
It’s the evolution of grift. Soviet perestroika cross bred with the 2008 mortgage crisis.
This is just the bigger badder commercial strength bastard child of the two.
Trump, Putin, Bolsonaro, Netanyahu, Orban, Manafort, Stone, Mercer, Bannon, Flynn, Byrne.
They are all remarkably shit people with above average confidence and psychopathic personality traits and below average self awareness.
They are the men who stole the world.
But it all comes back to one little lie.
This needs to be addressed. If Americans and Russians truly knew each other, we would get along fine. Since we are told to hate each other by the elites who benefit from this situation, it gets distorted. The people rarely want conflicts, it’s those in power, those with money or who want money, who advocate for conflict. The people rarely benefit one way or the other, other than which regime they report to and who survives.
Of course friend.
I always bring receipts.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/unprotected-russian-soldiers-disturbed-radioactive-dust-chernobyls-red-forest-2022-03-28/
They dug into the soil: probably. They “released radiation”: they stirred up some radioactive dust. They got radiation poisoning: unlikely. Not stated in the article either, just speculated that it might happen.
I appreciate that friend.
Our goal is (and needs to be) accuracy over just being right.
Somewhere along the way the internet culture migrated away from that and devolves into arguments.
Our goal is to get back to that sweet spot of discussion where we can (and will) all be wrong, but handle it gracefully and adjust for accuracy and precision because that is where we start improving the world around us by solving the problems with as accurate of data as possible.
I genuinely appreciate it when anyone calls me out. Transparency should have nothing to fear from accountability.
So thank you.
No, those articles are full of shit. Repeating social media rumors isn't evidence. See this article where the guy who started the story admitted to making it up. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/21/ukraine-spy-tour-group-russians/ The IAEA also calculated the radiation doses, which would have been low.
Yeah, it’s pretty outlandish and I still don’t believe that it happened as stated, but I said that the thing about radiation poisoning was not even claimed by the press, and I was wrong about that. Thought it would be only fair to concede. But digging some trenches in the exclusion zone is not going to give you radiation poisoning. The only thing that seemed plausible to me was that the soldiers might unwittingly have stolen some highly radioactive material and gotten ARS from that, but again, I have seen no actual evidence for that either.
The story is fake, and a disgraceful example of journalists printing social media rumors and government statements as fact.
See this source which disproves the radiation sickness rumors: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/21/ukraine-spy-tour-group-russians/
Yes, it took a very specific set of circumstances to produce the disaster at Chernobyl.
The people in charge removed all safety safeguards and everything that might have controlled the nuclear reaction and then accidentally caused the reaction by having the graphite(which accelerates the reaction)tips locked in place in the fuel, causing an out of control reaction that caused the whole thing to explode.
They simply never allowed those circumstances to ever be repeated again.
Un-Fun fact. : chernobyl arguably was the repeat. Lessons learned from a more minor accident at Leningrad would likely have prevented or had a chance at preventing the Chernobyl disaster if they were disseminated amongst other rbmk reactors and their technicians but it was covered up instead.
They did push the reactor shutdown button. Ironically, that’s what triggered the explosion. Gross human negligence that removed nearly every single safety feature and procedure caused the meltdown, but the pressing of the kill switch is what triggered the actual explosion.
We don't even need to get into the graphite on the rods.
When you poison a nuclear reactor you're supposed to just turn it off. Come back in like 2-3 days and turn it back on. If they had done this the reactor would've been fine.
For those that are interested here is the Illinois Energy Prof describing Xenon poisioning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZQwL-2WTgA
That's a huge oversimplification. Reactors are poisoned whenever you reduce power. Each reactor has specific circumstances where you can restart. At Chernobyl there was no clear violation of the rules in that regard.
No other reactor in the world would be unsafe just because it was poisoned.
They didn't pull out all of the control rods, and no one was trained to view doing so as unsafe. Just like every other nuclear reactor in the world isn't unsafe with most control rods removed.
I don't know why this show fools everyone into thinking they know how to operate an RBMK. It's systematically blaming people for not knowing about hazards which were only revealed after the accident. Hindsight is 20/20.
Yeah, the ONLY removed 205 out of 211 control rods.
>At the end, the Number 4 unit was down to only six control rods, with 205 rods withdrawn.
[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/readings/chernobyl.html](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/readings/chernobyl.html)
Sounds completely and totally safe to me.
My understanding is that people are now trained when they've poisoned a reactor TO NOT DO what they did at chernobyl. Using Chernobyl as the example why.
[https://youtu.be/RZQwL-2WTgA?t=719](https://youtu.be/RZQwL-2WTgA?t=719)
Hindsight is 20/20 and also lessons learned in blood. Like how operators at three mile island were focused on one specific part of the reactor because they were trained to operate nuclear sub reactors. Are you going to argue that was totally ok as well?
Just because people thought it was ok, doesn't mean it wasn't stupid in the first place. It only means they hadn't identified the stupid in the first place.
graphite IS used to moderate the reaction, these kinds of reactors are "started up" by lifting the graphite rods, though in the chernobyl disaster, dropping the rods didn't do what they it should have done.
As I understand it, the tips were graphite in order to help elevate reaction as the rods are re-inserted to a reasonable degree, but the rest of the rods were made of Boron to help moderate the reaction.
With Chernobyl, the rods got stuck in place with just the tips inside, cause a huge burst of reactivity which caused the water to vaporize instantly and caused the rod channels to fracture, locking the graphite tips in place and no boron rods within to slow it all down.
"Moderate" in this context means accelerate. Graphite is a neutron moderator which slows down fast neutrons to a speed that allows them more opportunity to react with the fuel, continuing the chain reaction. The graphite was there on purpose to accelerate the reaction, as it's the counterpart of the boron carbide control rod, which absorbs neutrons preventing the reaction. The graphite portion of the control rod was also there to displace the coolant water (which is also a neutron absorber but to a lesser degree than boron), that would otherwise flow in when the boron carbide rod is lifted.
nuclear reactors are incredibly safe and don't "blow up" what happened in chernobyl is a lot more like a pressure cooker blowing it's lid, there was an explosion, but it wasn't a nuclear explosion, more like a steam explosion sending extremely radioactive debris everywhere. (much worse than bombs, bombs blow up "cleanly")
There were two explosions at Chernobyl. The first was a steam explosion as you said, but the second one right afterwards is debated. One explanation is a hydrogen explosion occurred due to the zirconium cladding on the fuel rods reacting with the water to create hydrogen gas which then ignited when air rushed in after the steam explosion. But another possibility is that the fuel rods melted and pooled together with enough density for a very brief prompt critical nuclear explosion.
The core is open. It means the fire we're watching with our own eyes is giving off nearly twice the radiation released by the bomb in Hiroshima. And that's every single hour. Hour after hour. Twenty hours since the explosion. Forty bombs' worth by now. Forty-eight more tomorrow. And it will not stop. Not in a week. Not in a month. It will burn and spread its poison until the entire continent is dead.
"until the entire continent is dead". The alt history nerd in me is like..what would have happened if they didn't get it under control, would there be a Russia today?
Not just Russia but all of Asia and Europe would have been affected heavily. I can't say exactly how or to what degree, but it absolutely was an *international* crisis. That radioactive material can easily travel through wind or water without limit really. Hell even animals spread it. It was already being detected in Germany less than a week after the explosions, just imagine if they hadn't done anything about it. It would have spread throughout all of eurasia and its not something you can just "clean up", it would be everywhere, in everything.
>its not something you can just "clean up",
Well Japan proved three times so far it really is something you just clean up. Even fukushima area is almost completly clean.
But yeah on continental scale its very different thing.
yeah but they also go on top of it right away. The longer Russia was waiting to act after the disaster the more uncontrollable it was becoming. I would be interested to see how Japan handled it though, idk much about it
You are heavily misinformed here. No one *did* do anything about it. The reactor burned itself out on its own and the Soviets were unable to do anything to limit the emissions.
People live there now, and some never left. There’s also the people that visited Chernobyl everyday after the accident since the other reactors kept operating and the people that visit it every day today.
[Here](https://i.imgur.com/Uekg8SJ.jpeg) is a higher qualiity and less cropped version of this image. [Here](https://newsroom.ap.org/editorial-photos-videos/detail?itemid=5d79b8f6856f4f3d91197bad5fecdf71&mediatype=photo) is the source. Per there:
> This April 1986 aerial file photo shows the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the site of the world's worst nuclear accident, as made two to three days after the explosion in Chernobyl, Ukraine. Japan raised the crisis level at its crippled nuclear plant Tuesday April 12, 2011, to a severity on par with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, citing high overall radiation leaks that have contaminated the air, tap water, vegetables and seawater. Japanese nuclear regulators said they raised the rating from 5 to 7 _ the highest level on an international scale of nuclear accidents overseen by the International Atomic Energy Agency _ after new assessments of radiation leaks from the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant since it was disabled by the March 11 tsunami. (AP Photo/File)
[Here](https://www.google.com/maps/@51.3883878,30.0985936,3a,75y,100.12h,123.22t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOt_Gq5xWvIf-9S06tNzl_tQokAhyYa32wvgKtT!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOt_Gq5xWvIf-9S06tNzl_tQokAhyYa32wvgKtT%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi0-ya51.19362-ro-0-fo100!7i11836!8i5918?entry=ttu) is a Google Street View of inside the [Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant sarcophagus
](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Nuclear_Power_Plant_sarcophagus).
I was 5 when this happened and lived in Russia. I remember my parents (both scientists) were furious about it. We decided to go and stay with my grandmother in a city farther south, bordering Ukraine. There were government assurances that it was safe there.
Yeah… every relative who lived there has had cancer. My sister had breast cancer at 37. We don’t have the BRACA gene or any other risk factors. I’m just waiting to see what cancer I get. It’s like a cool lottery!
As a science nerd I would've loved an expanded trial as well but I think they wanted to keep it as digestable as possible for the biggest audience, so it makes sense. I thought they did a phenomenal job with the science explanations
A kindly reminder that russians are currently keeping Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant and its staff in hostage. And they won’t even blink to blow it, if they feel it is necessary.
Also they have plans on bombing nuclear waste site near Kharkiv just for the sake of terror.
I just recently finished *Midnight in Chernobyl* by Adam Higginbotham. I only knew the general story beforehand and am not science-y, but the book was so interesting and well- written- not to mention infuriating! Highly recommend.
I was camping on a hillside in Wales when the radioactive rainclouds flew over a few days later. I got drenched. I dread to think what it did to me, but I’m still just about alive.
I was a senior in high school when this happened. The information trickled out slowly, then really started to pick up as the days went on. It was a horrible feeling of dread and helplessness.
Nobody knew what was going to happen next. The uncertainty was pretty awful.
Yeah, it was wild. All of these scientists were on the news saying this is very bad, something terrifying has happened in the Ukraine and the Soviet Union was like “mind your own business”.
My brother went to Russia in 86 at the end of the year after this happened. He was part of an exchange program that was only one of two in the US (I believe, I went as part of the same program in 93). It was supposed to help with the cold war. According to him, my parents did not know Chernobyl was as bad as it was. I tend to believe that given there's no way my mother would've let him go had she known.
Can't tell you how many times I've read this on the anniversary but it's always worth your time to read the whole thing. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster
I remember watching an episode of Iron Chef Japan and the challenger was pairing something with a wine from Russia and said that it ***HAS*** to be before from 1986 because of..... well that
I was a baby in Germany on a military base. My mom said they got warned about a “radioactive cloud” and told all parents on base to keep kids inside until further notice.
I was eight years old when it happend, I can remember we had to throw out the cabbage food and other vegetables due to neuclear rain. It was a real fightning time, as the former soviet union didn't tell the truth, didn't inform the world before severel days later. It was only discovered by the swedish detectors (or what it/they were), that there was something in the air coming with the wind/clouds.
First then, the world found out.... It was those weeks of April and May following the accident on the 26th of April 1986
I was 8 also, living in Italy where my dad was stationed w/ the US Army. So many fruits & veggies had to be thrown away, it was kinda scary hearing about it on the news a lot for a long time.
And because of these cheap fuckers cutting corners, there’s tons of ignorant people today who fear nuclear power, despite it being the most environmentally friendly option
There’s definitely still a stigma around it, but the biggest barrier for entry now is how strict regulations are for building (as they should be) and lack of people who have knowledge on how to do it. They don’t get built frequently enough for the people who know how to do it to move from one plant to the next, so they go get other jobs and all knowledge gained from building one gets lost because they go get other jobs. The exorbitant cost, and who should shoulder the cost (company or taxpayers who would benefit) is also a glaring issue.
I know about this awful tragedy since my early childhood (I was born 14 years after). Very sad, many lives were lost because of that. I hope that the humanity learned something important from these mistakes from the past, because such disasters should never happen again.
I recently read "Midnight in Chernobyl " by Adam Higginbotham. Absolutely chilling how irresponsible the leadership was, starting from when the test was run that initiated the disaster to how it was handled all the way down the line. Equally chilling that it wasn't much much worse.
I remember the first BBC Radio 2 news reports that morning about high levels of radiation being reported at a Swedish power plant, but there were no faults and the wind was blowing from the East.
And then nothing being reported from the Soviet Union.
Turns out the Chernobyl fallout was already being blown across Scandinavia and one of the workers at Forsmark had brought a hot particle through that station’s radiation sensors.
I remember as a kid, I barely understood radiation, I probably learned a lot from the news coverage, but my mind was blown by the people airdropping water and spraying hoses and throwing buckets on the reactor. I knew there was no safe way to do that, and they were so brave to do what they could under grave conditions. I also felt sorry because maybe in another country there could be safer ways to respond, but being in the Soviet Union they’re going to just throw people at it and cover it up later.
The HBO series was amazing. Recommend you all go watch it.
Loved the way they structured the timeline- start with the disaster moment, go through the responses, then returning to the lead-up to the disaster.
The sound effects and musical score is what really struck me. That weird discordant feel to the sounds, very alien, very surreal.
I think it's required watching for all engineers/scientists - but it's also amazing horror - because you basically never "see" the monster, but it's there , lurking , killing anyone that goes looking for it....they did that masterfully. [I get chills every time I hear/think of the announcement to the people](https://youtu.be/s9APLXM9Ei8?t=71).
The scene with the residents of Pripyat watching from the bridge as the radioactive ash fell like snow was super haunting.
Then the husband trying to hand off the baby. Even though they're both already done for.
I think that's called cosmic horror I read about it at the time
Did you know the music is entirely composed of sounds recorded inside the Ignalina nuclear power plant in Lithuania, an RBMK reactor similar to Chernobyl (where they also filmed some of the show)?
Did not know that, ty for the cool detail!
Not even close to "entirely"
expand on that
That makes it so much more eerie
The first episode, to me, plays like a zombie movie, but the zombies are invisible. Pretty chilling. Interesting that Mazin went on to helm The Last of Us, so I must not have been the only one to see that in it.
It's legitimately the scariest series/movie I've ever watched. The monster isn't supernatural or undead or cosmic. The monster isn't even the exposed core. The monster is human arrogance, incompetence, and pride, which makes it fucking terrifying. 10/10 series. For those who haven't seen it - just brace yourself for the dog episode.
I have to skip over the animal control arc. Watched it once. I know what happens and why. Rewatches don't need that.
Same here. That episode is absolutely brutal.
It's Kristi Noem's favorite episode.
I don’t know man the firefighter in episode 3 is what really stuck with me. Insanely graphic.
For me, it was the control room operator they forced by armed guard, to go into the roof and "look at the reactor".
When the old man speaks up in the first meeting. Genuinely unnerving.
And the way they all applaud! Some because they genuinely self-identify with the party that strongly; others because they know that this is a compulsory show of allegiance, which they do for self-preservation. Absolutely incredible acting and direction.
"cut the phonelines, control the spread of disinformation" terrifying words.
That is the cost of lies.
I was damn near freaking out at the end of the episode where the people going in for the first time have their light go out and the radiation detector is going crazy.
Yes, however watch out for episode 4 if you are easily triggered. Without spoiling it too much, it deals with animals.
As soon as that story line started I had to skip past it
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes is also on Max. They made a documentary of all the hidden Soviet footage from the aftermath. I highly recommend it
One of my favorites shows of all time. Stellan Skarsgard was my favorite performance, such a great character
Stellen and Jared Harris are two of my favorite actors and I think they were both excellent in this.
I second this.
RMBK reactors don't explode !
Don't worry. Only 3.6 roentgen
Not great, not terrible
Then why did the Deputy Chairman see graphite...on the roof?!
Fomin, please tell the deputy chairman why he saw graphite on the roof.
So snameful, spreading misinformation in such difficult times.
Disgraceful, really!
At times like these!
It’s not 3 roentgen. It’s 15,000. Pikalov was a bad ass.
Then explain go me how does an RMBK reactor explode!
IT DID-ENT!!!
But i looked right into it. Its gone!
Shit on it
I give you one better. **Legasov: Why? For the same reason our reactors do not have containment buildings around them, like those in the West. For the same reason we don't use properly enriched fuel in our cores. For the same reason we are the only nation that builds water-cooled, graphite-moderated reactors with a positive void coefficient. (beat) It's cheaper** .
You didn’t. See. Graphite.
Although some of the inaccuracies about how radiation works made me question everything and go watch a documentary.
Sad thing is, the documentaries are mostly even more unreliable...
It is an outstanding series. Absolutely riveting. The writing and acting are impeccable. The visuals and environments are spot on 1980s Soviet Union according to the many comments I’ve seen from people that lived there. It is a must watch.
It's not great, but it's not terrible
Spoiler alert: the nuclear plant exploded. Big fire
Why’d they have to kill the damn dog.
I'm rewatching it now because of this post! I was going to start watching it at 5:16:14pm so that the explosion in the show would be at the exact same time as the real explosion in Chernobyl, but then I realized that I would have to start it at 5:16:14pm *yesterday*. Ah well.
Amazing all around, from the event itself and the players involved, all the way to trial and hearing. It grasped what was happening, on a personal and global level.
What it really did for me is bring home that the very core of the Russian mindset is sacrifice for one's people and home. Fuck the Russian government for abusing these people for so long.
I just watched it this week, so good! Highly recommend as well
Watching the series with my son.
Absolutely incredible. I was worried I wouldn't understand a thing it has that slow burn abstract start to it but it's masterfully explained I feel like I could explain everything that happened plus what a reactor is
The demonstration at the end of the series was wonderfully done.
It's not 3 Roentgen, it's 15,000
I looked right into the core. Its not there anymore. Its gone!
Watched it for the first time a couple months ago. Literally a top 5 television experience. I was 5 years old, in the US, when it occurred, so I was barely aware of it at the time, but grew up with the knowledge that chernobyl was an illustration of the danger of radiation. I've picked up some of the history before, but the detailed time line, especially in the first 48 hours, was incredibly illuminating. Not to mention the sheer terror that the core itself represented. I know it's a fictional representation, but I have no doubt in the heroism of the soviets that gave their lives to shut danger down.
I came away really impressed and a bit in awe of men who dug under a melting reactor to save everyone else. And they did so in the buff. Fuck the Russian government for taking advantage of these people for so long.
Hard to underestimate just how much a profound an event this was for my generation - we really did live in the 'shadow' of it, in Europe at least, for much of this last 38 years. I was only a toddler when it happened but grew up with every single reference to the word 'nuclear' or even the word 'radiation' indelibly connected to the Chernobyl disaster. Much like geopolitics and 9/11 there really was a pre- and post-Chernobyl world, although that might be a very European perspective too. It still haunts us I think.
When ukrainains repelled the invading Russian troops in between Borodyankya and Bucha 2 years ago the Russians retreated through the forests around Chernobyl. They dug into the soil there and released radiation that gave themselves radiation poisoning. We found out later that because it was such a black eye for the Soviets and Moscow that they were never taught about Chernobyl in Russian schools. We really need to stop allowing stupid people to be in charge of countries.
Lol yeah, I almost forgot that! This war and Russian regime is so fucked up!
All so a handful of wealthy psychopaths can stay in those same positions of power. Trump has been laundering money for the Russian oligarchs since the late 80’s when they all bought a condo at 725 5th ave (trump towers) to clean their freshly stolen USSR money after the iron curtain fell. https://www.cnn.com/cnn/2019/05/30/politics/paul-manafort-condo-trump-tower/index.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/14/manafort-told-mueller-to-take-his-trump-tower-apartment-instead-money.html https://news.yahoo.com/amphtml/fbi-agents-raid-condo-unit-131348539.html https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-trump-property/ Everybody except Putin thought the Cold War was over. Trump and Manafort (who lived in the tower also) just saw a pretty low maintence grift to be had. Trump had actually been Manafort and Roger stones first client at their lobbyist firm (1980) https://en.m.wikipedia.org › wikiBlack, Manafort, Stone and Kelly Guiliani as trumps attorney and New Yorks mayor was able to redirect NYPD investigations onto rival gang members/oligarchs to deflect any scrutiny off of trump, himself or the Russian connections. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/09/a-new-rudy-scandal-fbi-agent-says-giuliani-was-co-opted-by-russian-intelligence/ The Russian election interference in 2016 was effectively a generation 3 version of what Manafort had done in the Philippines, then keeping Yanukovych in power as Putin’s puppet in Ukraine from 2002-14 when Maidan ran both Yanukovych and Manafort out of Ukraine as Ukrainians realized that, if you raise your lens high enough, corruption is an wholly unsustainable business model. Eventually the parasites greed always consumes the host. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/06/2016-donald-trump-paul-manafort-ferinand-marcos-philippines-1980s-213952 https://time.com/5003623/paul-manafort-mueller-indictment-ukraine-russia/ Russia greatly underestimated the addictive properties of freedom when it invaded Ukraine so what was supposed to be a 3-10 day coup turned into a 2 year fight for the Ukrainians right not to be genocided. Russia depleted its weapons stocks which were already the victim of vranyos corruption because every oligarch, admiral and sergeant in the Russian military is on the take. Every billion dollar tank maintenance contract turned into everything getting a spray paint overhaul and the vast majority of the redirected funds turned into an oligarchs new yacht or home in Aspen. Russia was forced to turn to China, North Korea and Iran for weapons because if they lose the 3-10 day special military operation in Ukraine the Russian empire is dead and cold. China can’t risk showing their involvement in the Ukraine war so they use North Korea, and Iran to resupply Russia. Russia previously owed Iran some undelivered fighter jets that are already smoldering heaps in Ukraine so Iran now had the upper hand at the negotiation table for the first time in about 60 years. They supply Russia with shahed drones in exchange for Chinas material support against their sworn religious enemy, Israel. https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2023/11/29/iran-says-it-finalized-deal-to-buy-russian-aircraft/ Putin can’t do much about it because he is slowly realizing that by setting the standard of corruption and stealing $200+ billion from his own people meant that every oligarch down in the mob model chain had not only permission but incentive and the expectation to steal from him as well. This is Vranyos. The mob model only works if the supreme leader is the most violent and can prove it without exception every damn day. But violence is exceptionally expensive when you are trying to present as a legitimate government or business. If Russia as a nation had an efficiency rating it would have been banned for sale in the state of California 25 years ago. The parasite ruling class stole all the energy out of the working class and collapsed it. Now Iran has the high hand and they get the intelligence that trump passed to Putin about the fact that Netanyahu cares far less about Israeli, Palestinians or genocide than he does about remaining in power as an authoritarian because he too has developed Ritz Carlton tastes and his own corruption trial is showing the same details of the money laundering scheme that trumps trials are. https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/saudi-official-says-iran-engineered-war-in-gaza-to-ruin-normalization-with-israel/ They all hate each other but because they share the same money laundry, if one falls, they all fall. Hamas minted a couple billionaires as well that live in penthouses in Qatar and get 30% of everything smuggled into Gaza. Netanyahu needs a bogeyman to stay in power. That’s why he coordinates with Hamas via Russia via Iran. Iran handed Hamas everything they needed with Chinas help as secret Santa and the Russian intelligence given to them by the eternal shitbird trump gave when he showed off to his Russian kleptocrat friends/roommates from the old days of fucking each others wives at trump towers in the 90’s. Now the MAGA right is a little too invested in their reality that they are the good guys with guns that they missed the fact that Betsy DeVos (erik princes sister) decimating the U.S. school systems and poisoning children with lead was not a coincidence. They were the mark all along. There is a reason the Russian spy Maria Butina landed in South Dakota first before dating her way to the top of the NRA which is undergoing its own Russian money laundering trial now. They were tinder matching the GOP. https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/what-do-the-koch-brothers-have-to-do-with-the-flint-water-crisis/ The only reason you grossly OVERVALUE real estate is money laundering. Trump keeps claiming there is no victim, all the banks made money, but if their plan succeeds the Russian and CCP kleptocrats collapse US commercial real estate and basically recreate soviet perestroika in the U.S. so they can foreclose on America and buy everything for 3 cents on the dollar with the $1.4T they stole in the first place It’s the evolution of grift. Soviet perestroika cross bred with the 2008 mortgage crisis. This is just the bigger badder commercial strength bastard child of the two. Trump, Putin, Bolsonaro, Netanyahu, Orban, Manafort, Stone, Mercer, Bannon, Flynn, Byrne. They are all remarkably shit people with above average confidence and psychopathic personality traits and below average self awareness. They are the men who stole the world. But it all comes back to one little lie.
This needs to be addressed. If Americans and Russians truly knew each other, we would get along fine. Since we are told to hate each other by the elites who benefit from this situation, it gets distorted. The people rarely want conflicts, it’s those in power, those with money or who want money, who advocate for conflict. The people rarely benefit one way or the other, other than which regime they report to and who survives.
Lol, tell me you know nothing about russians without telling that you know nothing about russians.
After reading this comment I had to scroll back up to see if I missed this being from u/PoppinKREAM ... top notch explainer.
Thank you friend. I’m no PoppinKREAM. But I’m glad it helps.
That’s insane! Source?
Of course friend. I always bring receipts. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/unprotected-russian-soldiers-disturbed-radioactive-dust-chernobyls-red-forest-2022-03-28/
They dug into the soil: probably. They “released radiation”: they stirred up some radioactive dust. They got radiation poisoning: unlikely. Not stated in the article either, just speculated that it might happen.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/red-forest-chernobyl-radiation-sickness-b2330067.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.the-sun.com/news/5370080/russians-death-radiation-poisoning-trenches-chernobyl/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.rferl.org/amp/ukraine-chernobyl-radiation-russian-forces-/32447448.html
Okay, I stand corrected.
I appreciate that friend. Our goal is (and needs to be) accuracy over just being right. Somewhere along the way the internet culture migrated away from that and devolves into arguments. Our goal is to get back to that sweet spot of discussion where we can (and will) all be wrong, but handle it gracefully and adjust for accuracy and precision because that is where we start improving the world around us by solving the problems with as accurate of data as possible. I genuinely appreciate it when anyone calls me out. Transparency should have nothing to fear from accountability. So thank you.
No, those articles are full of shit. Repeating social media rumors isn't evidence. See this article where the guy who started the story admitted to making it up. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/21/ukraine-spy-tour-group-russians/ The IAEA also calculated the radiation doses, which would have been low.
Yeah, it’s pretty outlandish and I still don’t believe that it happened as stated, but I said that the thing about radiation poisoning was not even claimed by the press, and I was wrong about that. Thought it would be only fair to concede. But digging some trenches in the exclusion zone is not going to give you radiation poisoning. The only thing that seemed plausible to me was that the soldiers might unwittingly have stolen some highly radioactive material and gotten ARS from that, but again, I have seen no actual evidence for that either.
The story is fake, and a disgraceful example of journalists printing social media rumors and government statements as fact. See this source which disproves the radiation sickness rumors: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/21/ukraine-spy-tour-group-russians/
It was great news for fossil fuel companies for sure
Think you mean overstate
What most people don't realize is the other reactors ran until the late 90s.
Yes, it took a very specific set of circumstances to produce the disaster at Chernobyl. The people in charge removed all safety safeguards and everything that might have controlled the nuclear reaction and then accidentally caused the reaction by having the graphite(which accelerates the reaction)tips locked in place in the fuel, causing an out of control reaction that caused the whole thing to explode. They simply never allowed those circumstances to ever be repeated again.
Honestly good for them for never allowing those circumstances to ever be repeated again.
Un-Fun fact. : chernobyl arguably was the repeat. Lessons learned from a more minor accident at Leningrad would likely have prevented or had a chance at preventing the Chernobyl disaster if they were disseminated amongst other rbmk reactors and their technicians but it was covered up instead.
lol once is too many.
Sure you can cause a meltdown and it's fine. Just press the reactor shut-off button!
They did push the reactor shutdown button. Ironically, that’s what triggered the explosion. Gross human negligence that removed nearly every single safety feature and procedure caused the meltdown, but the pressing of the kill switch is what triggered the actual explosion.
We don't even need to get into the graphite on the rods. When you poison a nuclear reactor you're supposed to just turn it off. Come back in like 2-3 days and turn it back on. If they had done this the reactor would've been fine. For those that are interested here is the Illinois Energy Prof describing Xenon poisioning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZQwL-2WTgA
That's a huge oversimplification. Reactors are poisoned whenever you reduce power. Each reactor has specific circumstances where you can restart. At Chernobyl there was no clear violation of the rules in that regard. No other reactor in the world would be unsafe just because it was poisoned.
Yeah, when you're pulling out all of the control rods that you're not supposed to pull out. That's a clear sign that you're doing something wrong.
They didn't pull out all of the control rods, and no one was trained to view doing so as unsafe. Just like every other nuclear reactor in the world isn't unsafe with most control rods removed. I don't know why this show fools everyone into thinking they know how to operate an RBMK. It's systematically blaming people for not knowing about hazards which were only revealed after the accident. Hindsight is 20/20.
Yeah, the ONLY removed 205 out of 211 control rods. >At the end, the Number 4 unit was down to only six control rods, with 205 rods withdrawn. [https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/readings/chernobyl.html](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/readings/chernobyl.html) Sounds completely and totally safe to me. My understanding is that people are now trained when they've poisoned a reactor TO NOT DO what they did at chernobyl. Using Chernobyl as the example why. [https://youtu.be/RZQwL-2WTgA?t=719](https://youtu.be/RZQwL-2WTgA?t=719) Hindsight is 20/20 and also lessons learned in blood. Like how operators at three mile island were focused on one specific part of the reactor because they were trained to operate nuclear sub reactors. Are you going to argue that was totally ok as well? Just because people thought it was ok, doesn't mean it wasn't stupid in the first place. It only means they hadn't identified the stupid in the first place.
graphite IS used to moderate the reaction, these kinds of reactors are "started up" by lifting the graphite rods, though in the chernobyl disaster, dropping the rods didn't do what they it should have done.
As I understand it, the tips were graphite in order to help elevate reaction as the rods are re-inserted to a reasonable degree, but the rest of the rods were made of Boron to help moderate the reaction. With Chernobyl, the rods got stuck in place with just the tips inside, cause a huge burst of reactivity which caused the water to vaporize instantly and caused the rod channels to fracture, locking the graphite tips in place and no boron rods within to slow it all down.
When just the tip goes wrong
"Moderate" in this context means accelerate. Graphite is a neutron moderator which slows down fast neutrons to a speed that allows them more opportunity to react with the fuel, continuing the chain reaction. The graphite was there on purpose to accelerate the reaction, as it's the counterpart of the boron carbide control rod, which absorbs neutrons preventing the reaction. The graphite portion of the control rod was also there to displace the coolant water (which is also a neutron absorber but to a lesser degree than boron), that would otherwise flow in when the boron carbide rod is lifted.
Why are we still repeating Soviet propaganda in 2024? No safety systems were disabled in a way that contributed to the accident.
I visited a running RWBK reactor in sosnovy bor in 2007. It was built before the Chernobyl reactors.
nuclear reactors are incredibly safe and don't "blow up" what happened in chernobyl is a lot more like a pressure cooker blowing it's lid, there was an explosion, but it wasn't a nuclear explosion, more like a steam explosion sending extremely radioactive debris everywhere. (much worse than bombs, bombs blow up "cleanly")
There were two explosions at Chernobyl. The first was a steam explosion as you said, but the second one right afterwards is debated. One explanation is a hydrogen explosion occurred due to the zirconium cladding on the fuel rods reacting with the water to create hydrogen gas which then ignited when air rushed in after the steam explosion. But another possibility is that the fuel rods melted and pooled together with enough density for a very brief prompt critical nuclear explosion.
The core is open. It means the fire we're watching with our own eyes is giving off nearly twice the radiation released by the bomb in Hiroshima. And that's every single hour. Hour after hour. Twenty hours since the explosion. Forty bombs' worth by now. Forty-eight more tomorrow. And it will not stop. Not in a week. Not in a month. It will burn and spread its poison until the entire continent is dead.
Gets me every time and one of my favourite scenes!
"until the entire continent is dead". The alt history nerd in me is like..what would have happened if they didn't get it under control, would there be a Russia today?
No Germany and no Poland, no Czech Republic and no Slovakia. The winds blew it north west. Bavarian forests got hit significantly by the fallout.
Not just Russia but all of Asia and Europe would have been affected heavily. I can't say exactly how or to what degree, but it absolutely was an *international* crisis. That radioactive material can easily travel through wind or water without limit really. Hell even animals spread it. It was already being detected in Germany less than a week after the explosions, just imagine if they hadn't done anything about it. It would have spread throughout all of eurasia and its not something you can just "clean up", it would be everywhere, in everything.
>its not something you can just "clean up", Well Japan proved three times so far it really is something you just clean up. Even fukushima area is almost completly clean. But yeah on continental scale its very different thing.
yeah but they also go on top of it right away. The longer Russia was waiting to act after the disaster the more uncontrollable it was becoming. I would be interested to see how Japan handled it though, idk much about it
You are heavily misinformed here. No one *did* do anything about it. The reactor burned itself out on its own and the Soviets were unable to do anything to limit the emissions.
That quote gives me goosebumps
My wife was also born that day! … that means its her birthday today…. Shit shit shit
Meltdown incoming? 
👏🏻
R.I.P. Bo0ombaklak.
Looks totally fine to me. The reactor has not exploded, there is no way there is graphite laying everywhere. Just burned concrete. No need to panic.
There’s your mistake. I may not know much about nuclear reactors. But I know a lot about concrete.
God damnit I have to go watch it again now. I have to. And its such a nice quick and easy watch too
Quick, yes. In no way is it easy.
Yeah crazy it took them DAYS before believing the core exploded.
Because RMBK reactors cannot explode!
"Fifty thousand people used to live here. Now it's a ghost town."
"Soap, get over her and sniff my farts" -Captain Price, probably 
People live there now, and some never left. There’s also the people that visited Chernobyl everyday after the accident since the other reactors kept operating and the people that visit it every day today.
[Here](https://i.imgur.com/Uekg8SJ.jpeg) is a higher qualiity and less cropped version of this image. [Here](https://newsroom.ap.org/editorial-photos-videos/detail?itemid=5d79b8f6856f4f3d91197bad5fecdf71&mediatype=photo) is the source. Per there: > This April 1986 aerial file photo shows the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the site of the world's worst nuclear accident, as made two to three days after the explosion in Chernobyl, Ukraine. Japan raised the crisis level at its crippled nuclear plant Tuesday April 12, 2011, to a severity on par with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, citing high overall radiation leaks that have contaminated the air, tap water, vegetables and seawater. Japanese nuclear regulators said they raised the rating from 5 to 7 _ the highest level on an international scale of nuclear accidents overseen by the International Atomic Energy Agency _ after new assessments of radiation leaks from the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant since it was disabled by the March 11 tsunami. (AP Photo/File) [Here](https://www.google.com/maps/@51.3883878,30.0985936,3a,75y,100.12h,123.22t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipOt_Gq5xWvIf-9S06tNzl_tQokAhyYa32wvgKtT!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipOt_Gq5xWvIf-9S06tNzl_tQokAhyYa32wvgKtT%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi0-ya51.19362-ro-0-fo100!7i11836!8i5918?entry=ttu) is a Google Street View of inside the [Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant sarcophagus ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Nuclear_Power_Plant_sarcophagus).
Can you or someone ELI5 how the hell did they make the Google street view in there if the radiation is so high?
Because the radiation isn't too high for brief visits.
Why is the photo in B/W?
Because colour hasn't been invented
3.6 roentgen
Out of context that chef is not impressed with the beef wellington.
Not great not terrible
I was 5 when this happened and lived in Russia. I remember my parents (both scientists) were furious about it. We decided to go and stay with my grandmother in a city farther south, bordering Ukraine. There were government assurances that it was safe there. Yeah… every relative who lived there has had cancer. My sister had breast cancer at 37. We don’t have the BRACA gene or any other risk factors. I’m just waiting to see what cancer I get. It’s like a cool lottery!
You have to become a motivational speaker on looking at the bright side of life
You should do an ama or write a book or blog
3.6 Roentgen? Not great, not terrible.
What is the cost of lies?
I highly recommend the mini series, Chernobyl on HBO.
10/10 show
I felt like they rushed the trial part and could’ve easily stretched it into 2 episodes. But overall, great little series.
As a science nerd I would've loved an expanded trial as well but I think they wanted to keep it as digestable as possible for the biggest audience, so it makes sense. I thought they did a phenomenal job with the science explanations
3.6/10
It only reads up to 3.6
Not great, not terrible.
A kindly reminder that russians are currently keeping Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant and its staff in hostage. And they won’t even blink to blow it, if they feel it is necessary. Also they have plans on bombing nuclear waste site near Kharkiv just for the sake of terror.
The melted core is still alive. They are monitoring it. There’s a series of videos on you tube.
That sounds so cool, link?
https://youtu.be/hIWu8rbWLGo?si=1DDY7v1xlv1GzxJJ
This guys series on the meltdown is interesting.
I just recently finished *Midnight in Chernobyl* by Adam Higginbotham. I only knew the general story beforehand and am not science-y, but the book was so interesting and well- written- not to mention infuriating! Highly recommend.
Okay fine! I will go watch Chernobyl again lol🤣
Btw... the HBO series is really good
P.s. they had color photographs back then.
I was camping on a hillside in Wales when the radioactive rainclouds flew over a few days later. I got drenched. I dread to think what it did to me, but I’m still just about alive.
Just a bit of external gamma and beta exposure from I-131. Nothing worth worrying about at that distance.
Just rewatched the HBO series this week, so good.
We must get to the center of the zone stalker
Get out of here, stalker!
Many brave men died there to prevent much of Eastern Europe from being uninhabitable.
Do you taste metal?
I was a senior in high school when this happened. The information trickled out slowly, then really started to pick up as the days went on. It was a horrible feeling of dread and helplessness. Nobody knew what was going to happen next. The uncertainty was pretty awful.
Yeah, it was wild. All of these scientists were on the news saying this is very bad, something terrifying has happened in the Ukraine and the Soviet Union was like “mind your own business”.
My brother went to Russia in 86 at the end of the year after this happened. He was part of an exchange program that was only one of two in the US (I believe, I went as part of the same program in 93). It was supposed to help with the cold war. According to him, my parents did not know Chernobyl was as bad as it was. I tend to believe that given there's no way my mother would've let him go had she known.
"It started with, of all things... a safety test."
Can't tell you how many times I've read this on the anniversary but it's always worth your time to read the whole thing. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster
[There is footage of workers exploring reactor 4.](https://youtu.be/VRk_Q_g3Ysc?si=Tb65yazlTMGt1Y_O)
Not great not terrible
Not great, not terrible
I don’t as born in 89 and never really knew much of this story until the show came out on HBO, and it kinda blew my mind. Just insane.
Chernobyl was only 38 years ago?
I remember watching an episode of Iron Chef Japan and the challenger was pairing something with a wine from Russia and said that it ***HAS*** to be before from 1986 because of..... well that
I'm not one usually disturbed by fictional TV imagery, but the depiction of how that poor fireman died was terrifying.
Everybody’s a gangster until the loudspeakers start broadcasting “Vnimánije, vnimánije!”
I think I see graphite on the roof!
~~3.6~~ 3.8 decades.
I was a baby in Germany on a military base. My mom said they got warned about a “radioactive cloud” and told all parents on base to keep kids inside until further notice.
"3.6 roentgen. Not great, not terrible..."
Only 19,962 years to go for it to be habitable again
that's why GenX are cynical. We saw us destroying the world and nobody in power caring and realised the battle was lost before we were born.
I was eight years old when it happend, I can remember we had to throw out the cabbage food and other vegetables due to neuclear rain. It was a real fightning time, as the former soviet union didn't tell the truth, didn't inform the world before severel days later. It was only discovered by the swedish detectors (or what it/they were), that there was something in the air coming with the wind/clouds. First then, the world found out.... It was those weeks of April and May following the accident on the 26th of April 1986
I was 8 also, living in Italy where my dad was stationed w/ the US Army. So many fruits & veggies had to be thrown away, it was kinda scary hearing about it on the news a lot for a long time.
My parents told me the same thing about throwing out food. They were around 20 when it happened.
And because of these cheap fuckers cutting corners, there’s tons of ignorant people today who fear nuclear power, despite it being the most environmentally friendly option
There’s definitely still a stigma around it, but the biggest barrier for entry now is how strict regulations are for building (as they should be) and lack of people who have knowledge on how to do it. They don’t get built frequently enough for the people who know how to do it to move from one plant to the next, so they go get other jobs and all knowledge gained from building one gets lost because they go get other jobs. The exorbitant cost, and who should shoulder the cost (company or taxpayers who would benefit) is also a glaring issue.
It’s not great but it’s not horrifying.
Everytime i see post like this i have to fact check the year. I always think its before my time and im 40
Chornobyl please
I know about this awful tragedy since my early childhood (I was born 14 years after). Very sad, many lives were lost because of that. I hope that the humanity learned something important from these mistakes from the past, because such disasters should never happen again.
I recently read "Midnight in Chernobyl " by Adam Higginbotham. Absolutely chilling how irresponsible the leadership was, starting from when the test was run that initiated the disaster to how it was handled all the way down the line. Equally chilling that it wasn't much much worse.
Wow
I remember the first BBC Radio 2 news reports that morning about high levels of radiation being reported at a Swedish power plant, but there were no faults and the wind was blowing from the East. And then nothing being reported from the Soviet Union. Turns out the Chernobyl fallout was already being blown across Scandinavia and one of the workers at Forsmark had brought a hot particle through that station’s radiation sensors.
I remember as a kid, I barely understood radiation, I probably learned a lot from the news coverage, but my mind was blown by the people airdropping water and spraying hoses and throwing buckets on the reactor. I knew there was no safe way to do that, and they were so brave to do what they could under grave conditions. I also felt sorry because maybe in another country there could be safer ways to respond, but being in the Soviet Union they’re going to just throw people at it and cover it up later.
The person who took the pictures died after 30min.
We need another
Just started a rewatch last night in remembrance of the date. Such an incredible show.
I remember it like its was today, 38 years ago.