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There's an amazing documentary about this that contains a lot of footage of the actual incident and cleanup called the "Battle of Chernobyl". http://topdocumen

by owyn 11y ago

There's an amazing documentary about this that contains a lot of footage of the actual incident and cleanup called the "Battle of Chernobyl". http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-battle-of-chernobyl/ http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-battle-of-chernobyl/ Things that still haunt me: the helicopter pilots who put the initial fires out flew in 120-180C temperatures and pretty much all died of radiation. And the sequence that starts about here: https://youtu.be/ezohqY-vg4s?t=3430 https://youtu.be/ezohqY-vg4s?t=3430 Where they are picking up radioactive materials by hand and throwing it off the roof next to the reactor because the robots they were trying to use all break down. Even 1 hour of exposure was deadly so they rotated through shifts, and the guys who did it were called "Bio Robots"

rdtsc 11y ago
That's a good documentary. Haven't seen it before. I remembered distinctly when it happened, well when it was anounced on TV on evening news. It was really mentioned in passing -- oh by the way, there was incident at Chernobyl, a quick flash or some white smoke coming out in the distance and then ... sports. My dad knew it was something more than that and said something like "Oh shit, this could be really bad". People have learned when they published something as small in the news, they would multiply by some factor to get an idea how bad it really was. Then something really bizare happened. Refuges had started to stream into different cities. And for some strange reason, they were shunned. Others somehow thought these survivors were contaminated, cursed, builty or what have you. So instead of being embraced and helped, they found themselves trying to hide who they are and where they came from.
- rsync 10y ago
  "Then something really bizare happened. Refuges had started to stream into different cities. And for some strange reason, they were shunned. Others somehow thought these survivors were contaminated, cursed, builty or what have you. So instead of being embraced and helped, they found themselves trying to hide who they are and where they came from." There is an excellent book that tackles this very subject named "All that is Solid Melts Into Air" by Darragh McKeon. I highly recommend the book and it's not too long - 200 pages give or take. It chronicles a bit of the disaster as well as the lives of some people that live near it as well as rescue workers called in to respond to it.
  - rdtsc 10y ago
    Thanks for the suggestion. I ordered the book from Amazon.
  - arethuza 10y ago
    I wonder if the "shunning" might have been caused by civil defence training which might have taught people to avoid people from fall-out contaminated areas unless they had been decontaminated? Obviously not directly applicable but in a crisis it might be the kind of mistake people would make.
- oska 10y ago
  Not so bizarre unfortunately. The hibakusha, the survivors of the nuclear bombings in Japan, still suffer discrimination, as do their children. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibakusha#Discrimination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibakusha#Discrimination
aidos 11y ago
Considering from the outside it just looks like people shovelling rocks, that's one of the more harrowing clips I've ever seen..... Thanks for that!
pdkl95 10y ago
One of the most impressive documentaries I've ever seen is "Chernobyl 3828"[1]. It is about the 3828 "liquidators" (cleanup crew) - euphemistically called the "bio robots" - that had to clean up the worst section of roof above the reactor. Maximum allowed dose was two minutes exposure to that section the roof. It has some of the same footage as the sequence in your link to t=3430, but there is a key difference: Chernobyl 3828 is about the people. The psychology of the cleanup was complicated. Some people ran while others faced the danger and accepted a "red badge of courage" because if they didn't, someone else would have to go in their place. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfDa8tR25dk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfDa8tR25dk
- saganus 10y ago
  This is very dense... wow.
- InclinedPlane 10y ago
  See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_liquidators https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_liquidators
  - acqq 10y ago
    Wow, the differences in the number of victims from different sources are immense: "- According to Vyacheslav Grishin of the Chernobyl Union, the main organization of liquidators, "25,000 of the Russian liquidators are dead and 70,000 disabled, about the same in Ukraine, and 10,000 dead in Belarus and 25,000 disabled", which makes a total of 60,000 dead (10% of the 600 000, liquidators) and 165,000 disabled.[6] - A UNSCEAR report places the total confirmed deaths from radiation at 64 as of 2008.[citation needed] - Estimates of the number of deaths potentially resulting from the accident vary enormously: the World Health Organization (WHO) suggest it could reach 4,000" According to the WHO report from 2006 (which is stupidly in the form that can be neither searched nor copy-pasted, I guess intentionally!) 600,000 persons did receive the official certificates that they worked as the liquidators there: around 200,000 people worked during the first two years, others afterwards. See page 2. http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/chernobyl/who_chernobyl_report_2006.pdf http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/chernobyl/who_chernoby... The same report on page 107: "The RNMDR data indicate that 4.6% of the Russian emergency workers fatalities that occurred during the 12 years following the accident can be attributed to radiation-induced diseases."
billybofh 10y ago
There's also a good documentary about the lead up to various nuclear power issues in the Adam Curtis documentary 'A Is For Atom' : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora's_Box_%28TV_series%29#Part_6._.22A_Is_for_Atom.22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora's_Box_%28TV_series%29#...
stickfigure 10y ago
There seems to be something wrong with this documentary - or else my understanding of physics is flawed. It claims that had the corium dropped into the subbasement water, it would have produced a multi-megaton nuclear explosion, and even illustrated the point with film footage of a classic mushroom cloud. That can't possibly be correct, can it? Perhaps improved neutron moderation would lead to another ugly steam explosion... but how do you get a full-scale nuclear detonation out of an unsorted pile of material? Either I'm about to get schooled on physics or I pretty much can't trust anything said in this documentary (cool film footage notwithstanding).

by owyn 11y ago

rdtsc 11y ago

That's a good documentary. Haven't seen it before. I remembered distinctly when it happened, well when it was anounced on TV on evening news. It was really mentioned in passing -- oh by the way, there was incident at Chernobyl, a quick flash or some white smoke coming out in the distance and then ... sports. My dad knew it was something more than that and said something like "Oh shit, this could be really bad". People have learned when they published something as small in the news, they would multiply by some factor to get an idea how bad it really was. Then something really bizare happened. Refuges had started to stream into different cities. And for some strange reason, they were shunned. Others somehow thought these survivors were contaminated, cursed, builty or what have you. So instead of being embraced and helped, they found themselves trying to hide who they are and where they came from.

rsync 10y ago
"Then something really bizare happened. Refuges had started to stream into different cities. And for some strange reason, they were shunned. Others somehow thought these survivors were contaminated, cursed, builty or what have you. So instead of being embraced and helped, they found themselves trying to hide who they are and where they came from." There is an excellent book that tackles this very subject named "All that is Solid Melts Into Air" by Darragh McKeon. I highly recommend the book and it's not too long - 200 pages give or take. It chronicles a bit of the disaster as well as the lives of some people that live near it as well as rescue workers called in to respond to it.
- rdtsc 10y ago
  Thanks for the suggestion. I ordered the book from Amazon.
- arethuza 10y ago
  I wonder if the "shunning" might have been caused by civil defence training which might have taught people to avoid people from fall-out contaminated areas unless they had been decontaminated? Obviously not directly applicable but in a crisis it might be the kind of mistake people would make.
oska 10y ago
Not so bizarre unfortunately. The hibakusha, the survivors of the nuclear bombings in Japan, still suffer discrimination, as do their children. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibakusha#Discrimination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibakusha#Discrimination

aidos 11y ago

Considering from the outside it just looks like people shovelling rocks, that's one of the more harrowing clips I've ever seen..... Thanks for that!

pdkl95 10y ago

One of the most impressive documentaries I've ever seen is "Chernobyl 3828"[1]. It is about the 3828 "liquidators" (cleanup crew) - euphemistically called the "bio robots" - that had to clean up the worst section of roof above the reactor. Maximum allowed dose was two minutes exposure to that section the roof. It has some of the same footage as the sequence in your link to t=3430, but there is a key difference: Chernobyl 3828 is about the people. The psychology of the cleanup was complicated. Some people ran while others faced the danger and accepted a "red badge of courage" because if they didn't, someone else would have to go in their place. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfDa8tR25dk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfDa8tR25dk

saganus 10y ago
This is very dense... wow.
InclinedPlane 10y ago
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_liquidators https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_liquidators
- acqq 10y ago
  Wow, the differences in the number of victims from different sources are immense: "- According to Vyacheslav Grishin of the Chernobyl Union, the main organization of liquidators, "25,000 of the Russian liquidators are dead and 70,000 disabled, about the same in Ukraine, and 10,000 dead in Belarus and 25,000 disabled", which makes a total of 60,000 dead (10% of the 600 000, liquidators) and 165,000 disabled.[6] - A UNSCEAR report places the total confirmed deaths from radiation at 64 as of 2008.[citation needed] - Estimates of the number of deaths potentially resulting from the accident vary enormously: the World Health Organization (WHO) suggest it could reach 4,000" According to the WHO report from 2006 (which is stupidly in the form that can be neither searched nor copy-pasted, I guess intentionally!) 600,000 persons did receive the official certificates that they worked as the liquidators there: around 200,000 people worked during the first two years, others afterwards. See page 2. http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/chernobyl/who_chernobyl_report_2006.pdf http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/chernobyl/who_chernoby... The same report on page 107: "The RNMDR data indicate that 4.6% of the Russian emergency workers fatalities that occurred during the 12 years following the accident can be attributed to radiation-induced diseases."

billybofh 10y ago

There's also a good documentary about the lead up to various nuclear power issues in the Adam Curtis documentary 'A Is For Atom' : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora's_Box_%28TV_series%29#Part_6._.22A_Is_for_Atom.22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora's_Box_%28TV_series%29#...

stickfigure 10y ago

There seems to be something wrong with this documentary - or else my understanding of physics is flawed. It claims that had the corium dropped into the subbasement water, it would have produced a multi-megaton nuclear explosion, and even illustrated the point with film footage of a classic mushroom cloud. That can't possibly be correct, can it? Perhaps improved neutron moderation would lead to another ugly steam explosion... but how do you get a full-scale nuclear detonation out of an unsorted pile of material? Either I'm about to get schooled on physics or I pretty much can't trust anything said in this documentary (cool film footage notwithstanding).