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The pictures are lovely and the reflections profound. But much of the cited data here appears wrong. For instance, the article states (italicized): "six hundred

The pictures are lovely and the reflections profound. But much of the cited data here appears wrong. For instance, the article states (italicized): "six hundred helicopter pilots were killed" and yet it was only 600 helicopter pilots who _flew_ liquidator missions[1], two of which were killed in an piloting accident and none were registered killed from immediate radiation exposure[2], though at least one eventually died from cancer likely from this exposure[3]. Similarly a claim of "Over six hundred thousand people were directly involved in dealing with the aftermath of the Chernobyl explosion" is not supported by the evidence[4]. I don't mean any of this to lessen the enormity of what happened and the tremendous, noble effort made by the liquidators to remediate what was there at great personal cost. It's just good when making specific claims for those claims to be substantiated. [1] https://www.rotorandwing.com/2016/04/26/chernobyl-anniversary-recalls-helo-pilots-bravery/ https://www.rotorandwing.com/2016/04/26/chernobyl-anniversar... [2] http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Chernobyl_pilots_knew_risks_commander_999.html http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Chernobyl_pilots_knew_risk... [3] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-07-04-mn-106-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-07-04-mn-106-st... [4] http://www.chernobylgallery.com/chernobyl-disaster/liquidators/ http://www.chernobylgallery.com/chernobyl-disaster/liquidato...

baybal2 7y ago
> equivalent of a 5 megaton explosion Yep, the man greatly dramatises the story. Total deaths from immediate "radiation poisoning" were likely less than 100, with possibly 100 more due to radionuclide ingestion. Immediate DNA damage that does not result in radiation sickness, is much less lethal than popular culture suggests. Another thing to add, the best protective equipment for nuclear disaster is a good respirator, and a chemsuit, and not the lead "x-ray suit" often portrayed in popular culture. The cause of most deaths during Chernobyl was smoke inhalation, seconded by radionuclide ingestion by people who ate contaminated meals from field kitchens.
- joshuamorton 7y ago
  > > equivalent of a 5 megaton explosion To be clear, this didn't happen. No one said it did. There was a chance something like this could have happened (the Chernobyl miniseries does a great job of showing this). The issue was that there were large water tanks under the reactor, and that the reactor material would eventually melt into those tanks, superheat the water and cause an enormous steam explosion, further scattering radioactive materials into the atmosphere, and destroying the three other reactors at Chernobyl, scattering their material too. That said, the idea that a 5MT explosion at Chernobyl would have levelled the city of Kiev is not particularly realistic [0]. (note that the fallout effects from Chernobyl would be much worse than from a nuclear explosion, so given winds, fallout could have made Kiev, or even Moscow, uninhabitable). And in fact, as explained elsewhere, the explosion wouldn't have been 5MT, but much smaller, although that wouldn't have mattered much for the issue of spreading radioactive material. [0]: https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?&kt=5000&lat=51.3906031&lng=30.1039024&airburst=0&hob_ft=0&casualties=1&fallout=1&ff=50&psi=20,5,1&rem=100,500&therm=_3rd-100,_3rd-50,_2nd-50,_1st-50,_noharm-100&fatalities=0&injuries=0&psi_1=0&zm=6 https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?&kt=5000&lat=51.3906031&...
  - brianpgordon 7y ago
    To be even more clear, a steam explosion cannot by any stretch of the imagination "level" a city fully two hours away. And the phrase "equivalent of a 5 megaton explosion" has no possible interpretation that squares with reality. The idea of a megaton-sized steam explosion is ludicrous, so I assume he means to imply some connection to radioactive fallout - but the amount of fallout isn't really correlated with the strength of the explosion. In fact, early fission bombs were relatively dirty while later thermonuclear bombs were relatively clean. The largest nuclear explosion ever produced was actually remarkably clean due to its unique design. So what is Moxie even talking about? It borders on incoherent, and I think you're being far too charitable. By the way, the three men who faced "almost certain death" were certainly heroic but weren't in nearly as much danger as he plays up. All three men survived and lived for decades afterward.
    - joshuamorton 7y ago
      See this reddit thread[0] linked elsewhere here. The issue is likely a faulty primary source, some russian official who wildly misspoke or miswrote something. [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/TVChernobyl/comments/boo19f/did_she_say_the_potential_water_reservoir_could/enozssk/ https://www.reddit.com/r/TVChernobyl/comments/boo19f/did_she...
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      > but the amount of fallout isn't really correlated with the strength of the explosion. It absolutely is for a similar burst condition and similar weapon technology, so it's absolutely credible that one would use, say, groundburst yield with a technology then dominant for large weapons as a reference for fallout. (And, IIRC, groundburst yield is both much greater and much less variable by nuclear bomb technology than airburst since most of the fallout is ground material with induced radioactivity while with an airburst most of the fallout is bomb material, so that technology might not even need to be significant variable using groundburst yield as a reference scale.)
  - baybal2 7y ago
    Man, 5 megaton tnt is like ~25 exajoules. Thermal energy of 100 tons of 2000C uranium is like 0.25 terajoules... Somebody missed at least 5 zeroes And it was later found that only few percents of the fuel melted, so very likely 7 zeroes... And given that it is not possible for anywhere close to 10% of thermal energy of such huge, solid body to go into steam flash, add 2 more zeros.
- gambiting 7y ago
  >>What about the people who knowingly sacrificed themselves to stop a reaction that would have destroyed most of Europe? If he is talking about those 3 people who went to drain the pool under the reactor - none of them died. I think they are all still alive to this day, at least they were the last time I checked.
  - layoutIfNeeded 7y ago
    “Research by Andrew Leatherbarrow, author of Chernobyl 01:23:40,[81] determined that the frequently recounted story is a gross exaggeration. Alexei Ananenko continues to work in the nuclear energy industry, and rebuffs the growth of the Chernobyl media sensationalism surrounding him.[88] While Valeri Bezpalov was found to still be alive by Leatherbarrow, the 65-year-old Baranov had lived until 2005 and had died of heart failure.” From Wikipedia
    - gambiting 7y ago
      Oh. Then I misremembered - my apologies.
3JPLW 7y ago
Estimates seem to vary wildly — which makes sense given the variety of agents and agendas. It's not really fair to hammer him on facts without acknowledging that the ground truth is far from certain. Heck, even your fourth citation writes: > Figures for the number of liquidators involved vary greatly from several hundred thousand to nearly a million people. It is likely that at least 300,000 – 350,000 people were directly involved. A report by the Nuclear Energy Agency quotes a figure “up to 800,000”. The International Conference “One Decade After Chernobyl” refers to “about 200,000 ‘liquidators’ who worked in Chernobyl during the period 1986-1987 and estimating the total number of people registered as involved in activities relating to alleviating the consequences of the accident at between 600,000 to 800,000.
moxie 7y ago
I think there's a lot of uncertainty in talking about Chernobyl, since most of the information published by the Soviet authorities was intentionally incorrect or misleading, designed to downplay the significance of the accident. One thing I've found interesting in talking about Chernobyl is that advocates of nuclear power are often willing to accept the Soviet numbers as fact, since they confirm the idea that nuclear power is still relatively "safe" even in case of disaster. I don't know what the exact numbers are, and I'm not sure if any of us will ever know for sure, but one of the documentaries I like is Discovery's "Battle of Chernobyl," since it includes a lot of interviews with people who were actually there and participated in the events. They interview Nikolay Antoshkin, the colonel general in charge of the helicopter operations there, which is where the 600 pilot deaths number comes from. I'm more inclined to believe that account than what the state published.
- charlinski 7y ago
  Hehe. Discovery channel? I would rather trust Soviet lies. Of course Soviet lied to cover up but i believe there was also symmetric campaign to exagerrate impact o Chernobyl. And the very hbo series is going to be rather scary propaganda. I read a lot on topic. After Chernobyl ca half a million people were relocated. Most of it just for psychical comfort as there was no risk involved.
- tptacek 7y ago
  I see interviews with Antoshkin about the lack of precautions taken for the pilots, in stories citing the "600" number as the total number of pilots involved, but nothing establishing 600 fatalities. I screened the Discovery documentary you're referring to and watched all the segments in which Antoshkin appears. It's the narrator of the special who claims 600 helicopter pilot fatalities, not Antoshkin himself, unless I've missed something. Can the 600 number be squared with the number of helicopters involved (the documentary claims 60, I think) and the number of missions the pilots fly (dozens per day), and with the fact that you can find some of those pilots giving interviews just a few years ago?
- arcticbull 7y ago
  > One thing I've found interesting in talking about Chernobyl is that advocates of nuclear power are often willing to accept the Soviet numbers as fact, since they confirm the idea that nuclear power is still relatively "safe" even in case of disaster. I believe the IAEA report (which you can read yourself) put together by the United Nations and relevant affected governments in the mid-2000s. It shows that over the entire course of time 4,000 people will have died prematurely as a result of the accident at Chernobyl (including people who killed themselves because they feared they were "contaminated"), and between 31 and 54 people died between both the explosion itself and to acute radiation injuries in the immediate aftermath -- including the helicopter pilots you mention. [1] I also believe that 7.3 million people die every year as a direct result of the burning of fossil fuels. [2] Everything is trade-offs. The accident was bad, and it could have been an awful lot worse. On the other hand, it's important we not lose sight of the big picture. When humans get hurt, they learn why, and move forward - this should not be an exception. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_di... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents
ChuckMcM 7y ago
Exactly this, the numbers of casualties and description post disaster and the heroics during the disaster are not corroborated by the data. Given the secrecy of the old Soviet system about such "embarassing" events I doubt we'll ever know exactly how many people died but the massive casualty rates that get casually flicked around make for a good story but aren't supported by any external documents at all. Perhaps we'll find a mass grave somewhere full of radioactive bodies of dead workers but barring that, most data based consensus puts the total death toll from all radiation effects at less than 1,000 and usually less than 100. But even that brings out the challenge right? So if person dies because they fell off an earth mover that was building an earthen berm to shield an area, that is clearly a death, it wasn't due to radiation and it could have happened on any worksite (like building a levy) but happened because this person was working at this disaster, does that count? Do you see how it gets complicated? What is perhaps most interesting about the exclusion zone has been how effective it has been at recovering its natural state. It it certainly not a "radioactive wasteland" and there are numerous reports of people hunting (and eating) some of the now abundant wildlife there. It isn't the picture "post nuclear disaster" that most people have been given.
- freeflight 7y ago
  > Perhaps we'll find a mass grave somewhere full of radioactive bodies of dead workers but barring that, most data based consensus puts the total death toll from all radiation effects at less than 1,000 and usually less than 100. The problem is that to this day we struggle to fully understand the effects of long-term low-level radiation exposure because figuring those out usually requires long-term epidemiological studies, which are expensive and complex [0] [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2757021/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2757021/
  - ChuckMcM 7y ago
    Okay. I'm trying to understand the "low level radiation" part though. What is disappointing about the study you reference is that they don't characterize what the level of radiation is compared to normal background radiation, they don't account for changes in population or diet, and they don't account for changes in industry. As the study itself states: "These conclusions are regrettable because low statistical significance only means that chance has not been excluded as an explanation, assuming no bias and no real effect. In more detail, p values -that is, the probabilities that observed effects may be due to chance - are affected by both the magnitude of the effect and the size of the study. This means the results of statistical tests must be interpreted with caution [26]." Meta studies based on statistical analysis is inherently challenged. This one is no better (and no worse) than the others.
iooi 7y ago
You seem to have cherry picked sources that have a lower estimate for all these figures, i.e., "propaganda numbers". I think the best source for these numbers is the Wikipedia article "Deaths due to the Chernobyl disaster" [1]. From the article, Russia claims "estimates ranging from 4,000" while scientific and environmental organizations claim "no fewer than 93,000". It's clear that Russia wants to downplay the enormous human and environmental toll this has had and will continue to have. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_di...
- the_af 7y ago
  While later contested, it's not only "Russia" which estimated 4000 deaths. Wikipedia states the United Nations took part in the joint group, and > "[...] worked to establish international consensus on the effects of the accident via a series of reports that collated 20 years of research to make official previous UN, IAEA, and World Health Organization (WHO) estimates of a total of 4,000 deaths due to disaster-related illnesses." In fact, the sentence you quoted states: > "[...] there is considerable debate concerning the accurate number of deaths due to the disaster's long-term health effects, with estimates ranging from 4,000 (per the 2005 and 2006 conclusions of a joint consortium of the United Nations and the governments of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia), to no fewer than 93,000 (per the conflicting conclusions of various scientific, health, environmental, and survivors' organizations)." So it's not just Russia.
  - wiz21c 7y ago
    anyway, it's much lower than death caused by burning coal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents
    - the_af 7y ago
      Yes. I think it's important the keep the hyperbole to a minimum, if we're truly interested in safe energy and in understanding this accident and its impact. Speaking of millions of deaths, as if it were proven fact, or getting our knowledge from sensationalized miniseries, is doing a disservice to both the Chernobyl disaster and the topic of nuclear energy.
atombender 7y ago
For a better-researched, well-sourced and grounded write-up of a visit to Chernobyl — with tons of background on the incident itself — see Andrew Leatherbarrow's Chernobyl 01:23:40, which is available as a blog as well as an e-book: https://leatherbarrowa.exposure.co/chernobyl https://leatherbarrowa.exposure.co/chernobyl. Edit: Posted to HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20033770 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20033770.
- the_af 7y ago
  Very interesting link, thanks for posting! More informative and detailed than TFA, in my opinion, and it also has cool pictures.
  - atombender 7y ago
    Thanks! I posted it as a story here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20033770 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20033770.
rdslw 7y ago
Knowing many Belarusians, they recommend reading book by Aleksievich which is a written down summary of 500 individual discussions with first hand eye witnesses/victims of the event. Highly recommended. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voices_from_Chernobyl https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voices_from_Chernobyl
abalone 7y ago
> But much of the cited data here appears wrong. I don't think this is a fair assessment. First of all you've ignored the most significant claims, that Chernobyl was very nearly a much worse disaster that "would have leveled Kiev and Minsk, and would have ejected the nuclear material from the other 3 Chernobyl reactors with a force that would have rendered much of Europe uninhabitable for hundreds of years." Or it nearly irradiated "groundwater for 50 million people" or that 50,000 people "were given 2 hours to pack whatever they could carry and get on a bus" and never come back. On these points alone it would be inaccurate to say "much" of his data is "wrong" -- that's most of the data data right there and it is unchallenged. Instead you've focused on whether it was 600K or merely 300K liquidators, or whether the 600 pilots were "registered" killed or merely suspected. These are relatively minor points (compared to ending large swaths of civilization) and even your own sources note that the figures are controversial and give ranges. While I would agree that Marlinspike has favored the worst case end of the spectrum here and his piece ought to cite sources, I think you have misrepresented the certainty of the evidence.
lqet 7y ago
> It's just good when making specific claims for those claims to be substantiated. After watching the Chernobyl miniseries last week, I dug deep into Wikipedia articles related to the accident. One thing I found interesting was the following: to empty the bubbler pools, three men dived below to reactor to open valves: Alexei Ananenko, Valeri Bezpalov and Boris Baranov. In western media, it was reported that as soon as they emerged from the water, they were told it was a suicide mission and they died a few days later, implying of course that the Soviet Union knowingly send them to death. However, according to Wikipedia: > Research by Andrew Leatherbarrow, author of Chernobyl 01:23:40, determined that the frequently recounted story is a gross exaggeration. Alexei Ananenko continues to work in the nuclear energy industry [...]. While Valeri Bezpalov was found to still be alive, the 65-year-old Baranov had lived until 2005 and had died of heart failure. [0] This is a great reminder that propaganda always happens on both sides. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Steam_explosion_risk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Steam_explo...
- blago 7y ago
  I think the more accurate way to describe it is "(Soviet) propaganda meets (Western media) sensationalism." Not that we don't do propaganda, but I don't think it was government orchestrated and political in this case.
temp001 7y ago
Does anybody know why this helicopter crashes after flying over the reactor core? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICOu7KksgUA&feature=share https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICOu7KksgUA&feature=share Was this a technical issue, or was the pilot affect by the radiation?
- paulclinger 7y ago
  It collided with the crane cables. It can be seen on the video.
xtracerx 7y ago
It also says a 5kt explosion would have "levelled" Minsk and Kiev. They are 200 and 60 miles away, so that's just made up.

baybal2 7y ago

> equivalent of a 5 megaton explosion Yep, the man greatly dramatises the story. Total deaths from immediate "radiation poisoning" were likely less than 100, with possibly 100 more due to radionuclide ingestion. Immediate DNA damage that does not result in radiation sickness, is much less lethal than popular culture suggests. Another thing to add, the best protective equipment for nuclear disaster is a good respirator, and a chemsuit, and not the lead "x-ray suit" often portrayed in popular culture. The cause of most deaths during Chernobyl was smoke inhalation, seconded by radionuclide ingestion by people who ate contaminated meals from field kitchens.

joshuamorton 7y ago
> > equivalent of a 5 megaton explosion To be clear, this didn't happen. No one said it did. There was a chance something like this could have happened (the Chernobyl miniseries does a great job of showing this). The issue was that there were large water tanks under the reactor, and that the reactor material would eventually melt into those tanks, superheat the water and cause an enormous steam explosion, further scattering radioactive materials into the atmosphere, and destroying the three other reactors at Chernobyl, scattering their material too. That said, the idea that a 5MT explosion at Chernobyl would have levelled the city of Kiev is not particularly realistic [0]. (note that the fallout effects from Chernobyl would be much worse than from a nuclear explosion, so given winds, fallout could have made Kiev, or even Moscow, uninhabitable). And in fact, as explained elsewhere, the explosion wouldn't have been 5MT, but much smaller, although that wouldn't have mattered much for the issue of spreading radioactive material. [0]: https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?&kt=5000&lat=51.3906031&lng=30.1039024&airburst=0&hob_ft=0&casualties=1&fallout=1&ff=50&psi=20,5,1&rem=100,500&therm=_3rd-100,_3rd-50,_2nd-50,_1st-50,_noharm-100&fatalities=0&injuries=0&psi_1=0&zm=6 https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?&kt=5000&lat=51.3906031&...
- brianpgordon 7y ago
  To be even more clear, a steam explosion cannot by any stretch of the imagination "level" a city fully two hours away. And the phrase "equivalent of a 5 megaton explosion" has no possible interpretation that squares with reality. The idea of a megaton-sized steam explosion is ludicrous, so I assume he means to imply some connection to radioactive fallout - but the amount of fallout isn't really correlated with the strength of the explosion. In fact, early fission bombs were relatively dirty while later thermonuclear bombs were relatively clean. The largest nuclear explosion ever produced was actually remarkably clean due to its unique design. So what is Moxie even talking about? It borders on incoherent, and I think you're being far too charitable. By the way, the three men who faced "almost certain death" were certainly heroic but weren't in nearly as much danger as he plays up. All three men survived and lived for decades afterward.
  - joshuamorton 7y ago
    See this reddit thread[0] linked elsewhere here. The issue is likely a faulty primary source, some russian official who wildly misspoke or miswrote something. [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/TVChernobyl/comments/boo19f/did_she_say_the_potential_water_reservoir_could/enozssk/ https://www.reddit.com/r/TVChernobyl/comments/boo19f/did_she...
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > but the amount of fallout isn't really correlated with the strength of the explosion. It absolutely is for a similar burst condition and similar weapon technology, so it's absolutely credible that one would use, say, groundburst yield with a technology then dominant for large weapons as a reference for fallout. (And, IIRC, groundburst yield is both much greater and much less variable by nuclear bomb technology than airburst since most of the fallout is ground material with induced radioactivity while with an airburst most of the fallout is bomb material, so that technology might not even need to be significant variable using groundburst yield as a reference scale.)
- baybal2 7y ago
  Man, 5 megaton tnt is like ~25 exajoules. Thermal energy of 100 tons of 2000C uranium is like 0.25 terajoules... Somebody missed at least 5 zeroes And it was later found that only few percents of the fuel melted, so very likely 7 zeroes... And given that it is not possible for anywhere close to 10% of thermal energy of such huge, solid body to go into steam flash, add 2 more zeros.
gambiting 7y ago
>>What about the people who knowingly sacrificed themselves to stop a reaction that would have destroyed most of Europe? If he is talking about those 3 people who went to drain the pool under the reactor - none of them died. I think they are all still alive to this day, at least they were the last time I checked.
- layoutIfNeeded 7y ago
  “Research by Andrew Leatherbarrow, author of Chernobyl 01:23:40,[81] determined that the frequently recounted story is a gross exaggeration. Alexei Ananenko continues to work in the nuclear energy industry, and rebuffs the growth of the Chernobyl media sensationalism surrounding him.[88] While Valeri Bezpalov was found to still be alive by Leatherbarrow, the 65-year-old Baranov had lived until 2005 and had died of heart failure.” From Wikipedia
  - gambiting 7y ago
    Oh. Then I misremembered - my apologies.

3JPLW 7y ago

Estimates seem to vary wildly — which makes sense given the variety of agents and agendas. It's not really fair to hammer him on facts without acknowledging that the ground truth is far from certain. Heck, even your fourth citation writes: > Figures for the number of liquidators involved vary greatly from several hundred thousand to nearly a million people. It is likely that at least 300,000 – 350,000 people were directly involved. A report by the Nuclear Energy Agency quotes a figure “up to 800,000”. The International Conference “One Decade After Chernobyl” refers to “about 200,000 ‘liquidators’ who worked in Chernobyl during the period 1986-1987 and estimating the total number of people registered as involved in activities relating to alleviating the consequences of the accident at between 600,000 to 800,000.

moxie 7y ago

I think there's a lot of uncertainty in talking about Chernobyl, since most of the information published by the Soviet authorities was intentionally incorrect or misleading, designed to downplay the significance of the accident. One thing I've found interesting in talking about Chernobyl is that advocates of nuclear power are often willing to accept the Soviet numbers as fact, since they confirm the idea that nuclear power is still relatively "safe" even in case of disaster. I don't know what the exact numbers are, and I'm not sure if any of us will ever know for sure, but one of the documentaries I like is Discovery's "Battle of Chernobyl," since it includes a lot of interviews with people who were actually there and participated in the events. They interview Nikolay Antoshkin, the colonel general in charge of the helicopter operations there, which is where the 600 pilot deaths number comes from. I'm more inclined to believe that account than what the state published.

charlinski 7y ago
Hehe. Discovery channel? I would rather trust Soviet lies. Of course Soviet lied to cover up but i believe there was also symmetric campaign to exagerrate impact o Chernobyl. And the very hbo series is going to be rather scary propaganda. I read a lot on topic. After Chernobyl ca half a million people were relocated. Most of it just for psychical comfort as there was no risk involved.
tptacek 7y ago
I see interviews with Antoshkin about the lack of precautions taken for the pilots, in stories citing the "600" number as the total number of pilots involved, but nothing establishing 600 fatalities. I screened the Discovery documentary you're referring to and watched all the segments in which Antoshkin appears. It's the narrator of the special who claims 600 helicopter pilot fatalities, not Antoshkin himself, unless I've missed something. Can the 600 number be squared with the number of helicopters involved (the documentary claims 60, I think) and the number of missions the pilots fly (dozens per day), and with the fact that you can find some of those pilots giving interviews just a few years ago?
arcticbull 7y ago
> One thing I've found interesting in talking about Chernobyl is that advocates of nuclear power are often willing to accept the Soviet numbers as fact, since they confirm the idea that nuclear power is still relatively "safe" even in case of disaster. I believe the IAEA report (which you can read yourself) put together by the United Nations and relevant affected governments in the mid-2000s. It shows that over the entire course of time 4,000 people will have died prematurely as a result of the accident at Chernobyl (including people who killed themselves because they feared they were "contaminated"), and between 31 and 54 people died between both the explosion itself and to acute radiation injuries in the immediate aftermath -- including the helicopter pilots you mention. [1] I also believe that 7.3 million people die every year as a direct result of the burning of fossil fuels. [2] Everything is trade-offs. The accident was bad, and it could have been an awful lot worse. On the other hand, it's important we not lose sight of the big picture. When humans get hurt, they learn why, and move forward - this should not be an exception. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_di... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents

ChuckMcM 7y ago

Exactly this, the numbers of casualties and description post disaster and the heroics during the disaster are not corroborated by the data. Given the secrecy of the old Soviet system about such "embarassing" events I doubt we'll ever know exactly how many people died but the massive casualty rates that get casually flicked around make for a good story but aren't supported by any external documents at all. Perhaps we'll find a mass grave somewhere full of radioactive bodies of dead workers but barring that, most data based consensus puts the total death toll from all radiation effects at less than 1,000 and usually less than 100. But even that brings out the challenge right? So if person dies because they fell off an earth mover that was building an earthen berm to shield an area, that is clearly a death, it wasn't due to radiation and it could have happened on any worksite (like building a levy) but happened because this person was working at this disaster, does that count? Do you see how it gets complicated? What is perhaps most interesting about the exclusion zone has been how effective it has been at recovering its natural state. It it certainly not a "radioactive wasteland" and there are numerous reports of people hunting (and eating) some of the now abundant wildlife there. It isn't the picture "post nuclear disaster" that most people have been given.

freeflight 7y ago
> Perhaps we'll find a mass grave somewhere full of radioactive bodies of dead workers but barring that, most data based consensus puts the total death toll from all radiation effects at less than 1,000 and usually less than 100. The problem is that to this day we struggle to fully understand the effects of long-term low-level radiation exposure because figuring those out usually requires long-term epidemiological studies, which are expensive and complex [0] [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2757021/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2757021/
- ChuckMcM 7y ago
  Okay. I'm trying to understand the "low level radiation" part though. What is disappointing about the study you reference is that they don't characterize what the level of radiation is compared to normal background radiation, they don't account for changes in population or diet, and they don't account for changes in industry. As the study itself states: "These conclusions are regrettable because low statistical significance only means that chance has not been excluded as an explanation, assuming no bias and no real effect. In more detail, p values -that is, the probabilities that observed effects may be due to chance - are affected by both the magnitude of the effect and the size of the study. This means the results of statistical tests must be interpreted with caution [26]." Meta studies based on statistical analysis is inherently challenged. This one is no better (and no worse) than the others.

iooi 7y ago

You seem to have cherry picked sources that have a lower estimate for all these figures, i.e., "propaganda numbers". I think the best source for these numbers is the Wikipedia article "Deaths due to the Chernobyl disaster" [1]. From the article, Russia claims "estimates ranging from 4,000" while scientific and environmental organizations claim "no fewer than 93,000". It's clear that Russia wants to downplay the enormous human and environmental toll this has had and will continue to have. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_di...

the_af 7y ago
While later contested, it's not only "Russia" which estimated 4000 deaths. Wikipedia states the United Nations took part in the joint group, and > "[...] worked to establish international consensus on the effects of the accident via a series of reports that collated 20 years of research to make official previous UN, IAEA, and World Health Organization (WHO) estimates of a total of 4,000 deaths due to disaster-related illnesses." In fact, the sentence you quoted states: > "[...] there is considerable debate concerning the accurate number of deaths due to the disaster's long-term health effects, with estimates ranging from 4,000 (per the 2005 and 2006 conclusions of a joint consortium of the United Nations and the governments of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia), to no fewer than 93,000 (per the conflicting conclusions of various scientific, health, environmental, and survivors' organizations)." So it's not just Russia.
- wiz21c 7y ago
  anyway, it's much lower than death caused by burning coal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents
  - the_af 7y ago
    Yes. I think it's important the keep the hyperbole to a minimum, if we're truly interested in safe energy and in understanding this accident and its impact. Speaking of millions of deaths, as if it were proven fact, or getting our knowledge from sensationalized miniseries, is doing a disservice to both the Chernobyl disaster and the topic of nuclear energy.

atombender 7y ago

For a better-researched, well-sourced and grounded write-up of a visit to Chernobyl — with tons of background on the incident itself — see Andrew Leatherbarrow's Chernobyl 01:23:40, which is available as a blog as well as an e-book: https://leatherbarrowa.exposure.co/chernobyl https://leatherbarrowa.exposure.co/chernobyl. Edit: Posted to HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20033770 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20033770.

the_af 7y ago
Very interesting link, thanks for posting! More informative and detailed than TFA, in my opinion, and it also has cool pictures.
- atombender 7y ago
  Thanks! I posted it as a story here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20033770 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20033770.

rdslw 7y ago

Knowing many Belarusians, they recommend reading book by Aleksievich which is a written down summary of 500 individual discussions with first hand eye witnesses/victims of the event. Highly recommended. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voices_from_Chernobyl https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voices_from_Chernobyl

abalone 7y ago

> But much of the cited data here appears wrong. I don't think this is a fair assessment. First of all you've ignored the most significant claims, that Chernobyl was very nearly a much worse disaster that "would have leveled Kiev and Minsk, and would have ejected the nuclear material from the other 3 Chernobyl reactors with a force that would have rendered much of Europe uninhabitable for hundreds of years." Or it nearly irradiated "groundwater for 50 million people" or that 50,000 people "were given 2 hours to pack whatever they could carry and get on a bus" and never come back. On these points alone it would be inaccurate to say "much" of his data is "wrong" -- that's most of the data data right there and it is unchallenged. Instead you've focused on whether it was 600K or merely 300K liquidators, or whether the 600 pilots were "registered" killed or merely suspected. These are relatively minor points (compared to ending large swaths of civilization) and even your own sources note that the figures are controversial and give ranges. While I would agree that Marlinspike has favored the worst case end of the spectrum here and his piece ought to cite sources, I think you have misrepresented the certainty of the evidence.

lqet 7y ago

> It's just good when making specific claims for those claims to be substantiated. After watching the Chernobyl miniseries last week, I dug deep into Wikipedia articles related to the accident. One thing I found interesting was the following: to empty the bubbler pools, three men dived below to reactor to open valves: Alexei Ananenko, Valeri Bezpalov and Boris Baranov. In western media, it was reported that as soon as they emerged from the water, they were told it was a suicide mission and they died a few days later, implying of course that the Soviet Union knowingly send them to death. However, according to Wikipedia: > Research by Andrew Leatherbarrow, author of Chernobyl 01:23:40, determined that the frequently recounted story is a gross exaggeration. Alexei Ananenko continues to work in the nuclear energy industry [...]. While Valeri Bezpalov was found to still be alive, the 65-year-old Baranov had lived until 2005 and had died of heart failure. [0] This is a great reminder that propaganda always happens on both sides. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Steam_explosion_risk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Steam_explo...

blago 7y ago
I think the more accurate way to describe it is "(Soviet) propaganda meets (Western media) sensationalism." Not that we don't do propaganda, but I don't think it was government orchestrated and political in this case.

temp001 7y ago

Does anybody know why this helicopter crashes after flying over the reactor core? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICOu7KksgUA&feature=share https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICOu7KksgUA&feature=share Was this a technical issue, or was the pilot affect by the radiation?

paulclinger 7y ago
It collided with the crane cables. It can be seen on the video.

xtracerx 7y ago

It also says a 5kt explosion would have "levelled" Minsk and Kiev. They are 200 and 60 miles away, so that's just made up.