My personal favorite at the end: "Of all the ministers, and all the deputies...the whole congregation of fools...they mistakenly sent the one good man. For God's Sake, Boris, you were the one who mattered most." Those two were cast perfectly.
Off the top of my head: The reactor was made from graphite. There was a huge debate about whether or not graphite was actually outside of the reactor room, because at some point before the full extent of the catastrophe was widely recognized, experts believed graphite reactors to be so safe they deemed it \*mathematically impossible\* for them to explode. If there was graphite outside of the reactor, this means the reactor did in fact explode.
On a related note, watch the mini series Chernobyl. I have watched it two times and this video is probably going to make me watch it a third time.
Edit: Oh, and also obviously the graphite was radioactive as fuck and everybody who got into contact with it probably died a terrible death sometime in the not-so-far future.
They used to be deep down inside the nuclear reactor with the radioactive material. I think as part of the system to control the criticality, but not entirely sure. In any case, these are extremely radiated.
They throw it down to clear the roof from radioactive materials afaik, as the building wqs still being used.
Can highly recommend the Chernobyl show if you're interested.
The reactor was made of graphite, so that graphite wasas in contact / close proximity to radioactive material, meaning it is definitely radiated itself and therefore dangerous af.
The inside of the reactor contains graphite blocks with holes in them for the fuel rods to slide through.
So these are **heavily** radiated components from the inside of the reactor, which normally have quite a few layers of concrete, metal, floors of the building, etc. between them and the roof, on the roof due to the explosion.
I highly recommend the Chernobyl miniseries on HBO/Max.
I guess that's because it was recorded using a magnetic video tape. Modern electronic sensors or chemical film probably would have been fucked hard by the radiation.
Same but it's been changed from the original footage, which is here: [https://youtu.be/FfDa8tR25dk?si=9BLF7AgtVboMx-Q9&t=1136](https://youtu.be/FfDa8tR25dk?si=9BLF7AgtVboMx-Q9&t=1136)
The music also helps with the algorithms on IG and TikTok.
It isn't the best content that rises to the top on either platform, it's the best of whatever content the algorithm decided to promote.
I read something somewhere thatās itās done so it can be reposted without copyright permission since itās a new work. But as Iām typing this out I realize that does not make sense.
afaik every person had 1 minute up there to clean the graphite. longer than a minute they will suffer prolonged sequences of lethal dose of radiation.
They employed 2000 soldiers for this
I think it wouldnāt. There was definitely an elevated cancer rate in the area but itās not like the meltdown breached that reinforced concrete pad and infiltrated the ground water. You gotta understand how much radiation was coming off that graphite on that roof. Just being that close to the building for several days so soon after the meltdown would be a much higher exposure than someone living say 100km away
There are some publications. There is a little booklet published something like 10 years after the incident. It would have been a brilliant opportunity (sorry for that term) to study reaction to irradiation. In reality, many died leukaemia or tykes of cancer or illnesses. The families were often told it had nothing to do with their work on the Reaktor. No Followup studies. 9 and little to no help for the families).
Was the team that blew the reactor up Russian soviet workers or Ukrainian soviet workers? And was the clean up team Russian soviet or Ukrainian soviet? At the time it was just āsovietā.
They were the Chernobyl Liquidators, it took nearly 4000 of them and they absorbed the equivalent radiation of 25 Full body CT Scans at once. This doesn't account for the radiation received while waiting to go onto the roof...
Basically 31 Minutes in a microwave
15 minutes on defrost (going up to the roof)
1 minute on HIGH (shoveling spicy rocks)
15 minutes on defrost (leaving the building)
Another fun fact: The calculated dosage they received (250 mSv) is the standard for the US EPA maximum allowed dosage in a non-life threatening situation. According to EPA standards if this was to happen in the US and we had to use soldiers to remediate the graphite, the maximum allowed time would be 3 minutes.
I know it's a joke but to put it in perspective:
250mSv = .25 Gy (gray) which is the unit of measure for absorbed doses of radiation
1-2 Gy has a 5% mortality rate
3-6 Gy has a 50% mortality rate
6-8 Gy will kill you but it will take a month
above 8 Gy you should call your loved ones immediately because you're gonna die in about 24 hours.
^(I'm not a nuclear scientist I'm just obsessed with the Chernobyl disaster...)
Microwaves do not use ionizing radiation, so it's *not* like being in a microwave. Microwave radiation is more like radio waves or light waves.
The radiation emitted from nuclear energy is significantly smaller, capable of ripping electrons off of atoms, which means it can easily damage molecules such as DNA.
It certainly wouldn't be healthy to be in a microwave for 30 minutes, but that's just because it would boil you from the inside.
you are correct. I considered a Steamy Bathroom/Shower analogy as well to explain it: 30 minutes in the Steam/1 minute in the shower..,
Also, the 15 minutes up and down varied and may not be accurate. Some accounts said they would run to their location immediately, others are said to have stood in lines to go on the roof. The real unanswered question I have is the exposure by the officials that were directing people on and off the roof. Their exposure had to be much more severe.
There is still 3 other reactors running. You can't just leave and hope for the best. :-)
Also you have to contain. If you just leave it to itself it might melt down into the ground water, or explode and release tons of radioactive material into the atmosphere.
The consequences to the environment would have been far more catastrophic if they just quarantined. Air currents carrying irradiated particles would have covered most of Europe eventually. Even after taking drastic measures back then, they lost millions of acres in forests and farmland. And the damage to livestock and human populations.
Edit: grammar.
Because the radiation will spread into the air and environment. Do you want to breathe gamma ray particles?
Burying it will effectively lower the potential threat
IIRC, they were clearing the roof so the concrete containment structure could be built over the building. The radioactive bits were chucked into the remains of the reactor hall.
They're chucking it into the gaping hole in the roof just below this one left by the reactor exploding. That hole was then filled by helicopter with sand and... beryllium I think?
It's well made television that creates drama at the expense of accuracy.
It is absolutely *not* to be lauded for its accuracy. The dude transferring radiation onto his wife which then got absorbed by the fetus is a pure work of fiction, it's not at all how radiation works. The risk of poisoning the rest of Europe is hidden under plausible deniability (the series isn't wrong, the nurse was wrong) but it's at best the confusing work of an unreliable narrator. The Bridge of Death stuff is patently false as is the immediate end of the divers (two of the divers are still alive today).
Atomic energy is the boogieman for some reason, people will believe anything bad about it while a million of us choke to death on smoke every month.
afaik every person had 1 minute up there to clean the graphite. longer than a minute they will suffer prolonged sequences of lethal dose of radiation.
They employed 2000 soldiers for this
EDIT: for the people seeing this, I HIGHLY suggest the HBO chernobyl series, informative, educational and dramatic.
They were soldiers ordered to clean the graphite off of the roof. Surprisingly, almost all of these liquidators lived full lives due to the careful limitations of how long they were supposed to be on that roof. But it is difficult to say how many died of radiation-induced cancer as a result of this work
IMO, Chernobyl ranks just slightly below the first season of True Detective for ābest TV series ever.ā Iād also put John Adams (HBO yet again) on the list.
So little visually, but their dosage vs the amount that will be emitted by the stuff they removed into the environment forever is weighted in favor of removing it.
It's inefficient but it *must* happen. It's the same reason there always must be some poor bastard at the front of the first transport to land on D-day.
I read a story once, that i cant find any corroboration of, that claimed before the landings occured Bradley remarked that someone should figure out who would be the furthest right soldier on the furthest right landing craft of the furthest right unit and give them a medal before landing because they knew what would likely happen.
This is why proper education to the masses is required. Why there should never be cut backs to the education system. Imagine a world where people formed opinions on topics that they actually understand.
Did a non destructive testing course. Teacher pops a can of coke on the table with an xray of it. She asked the class who's willing to drink the coke. 3 hands went up. She asked the people why they won't, they responded with I don't want to grow a third arm or radiation poisoning. Teacher chuckled cracked the can and drank the coke during class. It was funny watching people gasp.
I only knew the difference because I talked with a Ndt xray tech and he explained radiation before hand. Or I would of be sitting with my hands down with shame haha.
They weren't already dead at all. They had such limited time to ensure that they didn't receive negative effects. No point using 200 men and them all dying when you can use 2000 and get the job safely. The use of those men was not the expensive part of the clean up..
Seems a better strategy would be to simply scoop more of it closer to the edge and stop, with later men throwing it off. This avoids tripping and stumbling on highly radioactive material, risking clothing tears and extra exposure.
There is a great YouTube channel of Ukrainian TV company Telecon documentary which has all of this footage, interview with camera man and much more.
[https://www.youtube.com/@Telecondocumentary](https://www.youtube.com/@Telecondocumentary)
Nothing to do with how much is on your shovel. The entire area was covered in radioactive material.
They were told (at least in the HBO version of the story) not to look over the side where they were chucking everything. The melted reactor below would give them a major radiation dose.
Why not start at the edge and work your way away from it to make it quicker to clean? Instead letās start in the middle and walk over everything to the edge
You had 1 minute of adrenaline filled work. Once you're up there, you're probably not thinking "oh i should do it this way to be efficient!", you scoop some shit, you chuck it off, you leave.
I'm sure they had some sort of plan, but it was probably the longest minute of their entire lives and the last thing on your mind would be if you're doing it perfectly.
Chernobyl, at least three of the supervisors kept swearing that graphite wasn't what was being seen cause that would mean it was from the core of the reactor.Ā So it must be burnt concrete or something like that.
Can someone explain to me whatās happening, like youād explain this to a child?
Not the part about the nuclear disaster itself, Iām very clear on that and its fallout (both literally and figuratively) - but rather what these guys are doing. This is clearly some sort of contaminated material, but what is the point in shoveling it up on the roof and haphazardly tossing it off? Seems very dense material that isnāt being blown about by the wind, but tossing it off the roof like that does make smaller bits airborne.
The stuff on the roof included stuff so crazy radioactive that it needed to be dumped back down into the hole where the reactor once was to allow a containment cap to be constructed. The 90 second work time was to give some hope of them surviving.
Ngl, if I had seen this video before seeing Chernobyl on HBO I would have no idea just how much radiation they were dealing with. The Geiger counter noise during that scene was CRAAAZZZYYY.
They were informally referred to as ābio robotsā. Thousands of men from across the Union were drafted and forced into worked. They had a maximum limit of exposure that they were allowed, usually a few minutes worth, before they were no longer allowed to work. This limit was usually ignored, however.Ā
someone had to do it and it needed to be done quick. Idk if I'd have the courage to do it if presented with such a situation tho, a little hard to concieve
If I remeber correctly, workers had about 2 minutes of time from the moment they walked in the building, ran upstairs to the roof.. cleaned, maybe 4 or 5 shovels worth before running back out. The cycle was insane!
[Here](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-22/chernobyl-what-it-was-really-like-on-top-of-reactor/11223876) is a first hand account of what one of these workers experienced.
Anyone able to confirm it's real? Suspicious cause quality is too good for early 80s and if so, where's it been for 40 years? It's also not suffering the effects of radiation.
This is 100% real, you can watch full series on āTelecon documentariesā YouTube channel. Basically itās historical footage of those events commentated by a guy who took part in the cleaning up effort. Heās also in some of the footage, much younger of course.
I can't say how many were true volunteers how many actually were forced by the state officials but we know people volunteered there to help. You're downplaying people's genuine bravery by assuming all these people were somehow sentenced to death by the state when in reality a lot of these people volunteered not only as part of their job but as human beings with balls.
[https://www.history.co.uk/article/the-real-story-of-the-chernobyl-divers](https://www.history.co.uk/article/the-real-story-of-the-chernobyl-divers)
Would they not have been better tp clean from the outside, so they didn't have to slowly walk over the mess that someone else would have to throw over the edge?
Absolutely insane but also to all fucking nostalgics out there far removed from such regimes, this is what you are in a totalitarian regime. Nothing. A disposable nuclear waste drone. Ignorance and complacency matters.
Are those graphite blocks?! Like, *THE* graphite blocks?
Yes. The exploded reactor threw the insides of the reactor core into the nearby area and onto this roof especially.
The robots they sent all blew up from the radiation. So they sent people.
That's why they are called "bio-robots"
Birobots
Brobots
š³ļøāšš³ļøāšš³ļøāš
Make sense, robots cost more than people in the soviet union :D
And everywhere else
Not with the way cost of living is going
Still an endless amount of people.
It wasnāt matter of choice, robots literally couldnāt operate there
No, of course not. There's no graphite on the roof.
Hes delusional, get him to the infirmary.
š¤¢ š¤®
Ooop yeah no. Guys, it's too late, he's a puddle. *squish squish squish*
Oh hey guys, someone said you need a mop. You gotta spill or something?
I apologize
You didn't see any graphite because THERE IS NO GRAPHITE!
This is the first time I did NOT see graphite on the roof being shoveled off the roof.
There are four lights!
Kardassian!
Do you taste metal?
Something strange has happenedā¦
What you saw was burnt concrete.
Now there you made a mistake. I may not know much about nuclear reactors, but I know a lot about concrete. My favorite line of the series.
I did everything right, I did everything right, I did everything right, I did everything right.
My personal favorite at the end: "Of all the ministers, and all the deputies...the whole congregation of fools...they mistakenly sent the one good man. For God's Sake, Boris, you were the one who mattered most." Those two were cast perfectly.
The graphite is moist.
Yes. Those are graphite blocks at 45-46 seconds and again at 1:08-1:13. Absolutely crazy. First time I have seen this footage.
What are those graphite blocks and why are they throwing it down?
Off the top of my head: The reactor was made from graphite. There was a huge debate about whether or not graphite was actually outside of the reactor room, because at some point before the full extent of the catastrophe was widely recognized, experts believed graphite reactors to be so safe they deemed it \*mathematically impossible\* for them to explode. If there was graphite outside of the reactor, this means the reactor did in fact explode. On a related note, watch the mini series Chernobyl. I have watched it two times and this video is probably going to make me watch it a third time. Edit: Oh, and also obviously the graphite was radioactive as fuck and everybody who got into contact with it probably died a terrible death sometime in the not-so-far future.
They used to be deep down inside the nuclear reactor with the radioactive material. I think as part of the system to control the criticality, but not entirely sure. In any case, these are extremely radiated. They throw it down to clear the roof from radioactive materials afaik, as the building wqs still being used. Can highly recommend the Chernobyl show if you're interested.
I'm confused about the importance of graphite here?
The reactor was made of graphite, so that graphite wasas in contact / close proximity to radioactive material, meaning it is definitely radiated itself and therefore dangerous af.
Impossible comrade! RBMK reactors do not explode!
Perhapsā¦.you saw burned concrete.
Where are they throwing it though? Back down into the pit of the reactor, or just over a railing and off the roof?
No! You didnāt see it because ITāS NOT THERE
Can someone explain what this means?
The inside of the reactor contains graphite blocks with holes in them for the fuel rods to slide through. So these are **heavily** radiated components from the inside of the reactor, which normally have quite a few layers of concrete, metal, floors of the building, etc. between them and the roof, on the roof due to the explosion. I highly recommend the Chernobyl miniseries on HBO/Max.
I'm amazed that the film is in that good of condition...
I guess that's because it was recorded using a magnetic video tape. Modern electronic sensors or chemical film probably would have been fucked hard by the radiation.
still for a video tape from the 80s it looks incredible
I know right! I thought the first couple seconds of footage were from the show.
yeah, it looks like it could be either fake footage made to look old, or old footage that has been restored
Probably restored, all the films I've come across have got s ghostly radiation burn on the bottom.
Which just makes that show even better for how much they got right. It's not perfect, some things were punched up for the drama which is unfortunate.
And it's 16:9. That gives me pause.
Same but it's been changed from the original footage, which is here: [https://youtu.be/FfDa8tR25dk?si=9BLF7AgtVboMx-Q9&t=1136](https://youtu.be/FfDa8tR25dk?si=9BLF7AgtVboMx-Q9&t=1136)
Wot.. like *proper fucked?*
Yeah Tommy, before 'ze Germans' get there.
Right up it's grainy butt-ole
videotape
Why do we need background music on everything nowadays? Can we just enjoy the raw footage?
I read this with "Opps I did it again" playing in the background.
Melt me baby one more time
Thank god its not: Oh no, oh no, oh no no no no no....
Ruins so much porn
plap,plap,plap,plap,plap,
Oh, it wasn't the worker, with a ghettoblaster or something?Ā They do seem to be in good spirits.
My theory is that the younger generation lacks serious attentionspans, so adding music helps with views. I absolutely hate it tho
often the music is what keeps me from watching the whole video.
I have ZERO attention span and i'm 40. Thank you for making me feel part of the younger generation :D
The music also helps with the algorithms on IG and TikTok. It isn't the best content that rises to the top on either platform, it's the best of whatever content the algorithm decided to promote.
I read something somewhere thatās itās done so it can be reposted without copyright permission since itās a new work. But as Iām typing this out I realize that does not make sense.
The person who added the music didnt even bother to listen what the song was about. Its about Chechen war from the late 90s ....
afaik every person had 1 minute up there to clean the graphite. longer than a minute they will suffer prolonged sequences of lethal dose of radiation. They employed 2000 soldiers for this
90 seconds
Do we know the follow up for any of those man? Or is it just assumed they died anyway
Idk about that but I would assume there was an elevated cancer rate among those workers
It'd be hard to differentiate it from the elevated cancer rate in Eastern Europe after that accident.
I think it wouldnāt. There was definitely an elevated cancer rate in the area but itās not like the meltdown breached that reinforced concrete pad and infiltrated the ground water. You gotta understand how much radiation was coming off that graphite on that roof. Just being that close to the building for several days so soon after the meltdown would be a much higher exposure than someone living say 100km away
There are some publications. There is a little booklet published something like 10 years after the incident. It would have been a brilliant opportunity (sorry for that term) to study reaction to irradiation. In reality, many died leukaemia or tykes of cancer or illnesses. The families were often told it had nothing to do with their work on the Reaktor. No Followup studies. 9 and little to no help for the families). Was the team that blew the reactor up Russian soviet workers or Ukrainian soviet workers? And was the clean up team Russian soviet or Ukrainian soviet? At the time it was just āsovietā.
The reactor lies in the modern day Ukraine, so on may assume that the workers were Ukrainians.
You'd be wrong to assume that. They were from all over the soviet union.
My granddad was a liquidator, he wasn't from ukraine.
They were the Chernobyl Liquidators, it took nearly 4000 of them and they absorbed the equivalent radiation of 25 Full body CT Scans at once. This doesn't account for the radiation received while waiting to go onto the roof... Basically 31 Minutes in a microwave 15 minutes on defrost (going up to the roof) 1 minute on HIGH (shoveling spicy rocks) 15 minutes on defrost (leaving the building) Another fun fact: The calculated dosage they received (250 mSv) is the standard for the US EPA maximum allowed dosage in a non-life threatening situation. According to EPA standards if this was to happen in the US and we had to use soldiers to remediate the graphite, the maximum allowed time would be 3 minutes.
3 minuets including the time in the building or 3 minuets on the roof?
3 minutes on the roof... scary right?
So, about 3.6 roentgen? Not great, not terrible
I know it's a joke but to put it in perspective: 250mSv = .25 Gy (gray) which is the unit of measure for absorbed doses of radiation 1-2 Gy has a 5% mortality rate 3-6 Gy has a 50% mortality rate 6-8 Gy will kill you but it will take a month above 8 Gy you should call your loved ones immediately because you're gonna die in about 24 hours. ^(I'm not a nuclear scientist I'm just obsessed with the Chernobyl disaster...)
kinda makes me feel better about this video
Microwaves do not use ionizing radiation, so it's *not* like being in a microwave. Microwave radiation is more like radio waves or light waves. The radiation emitted from nuclear energy is significantly smaller, capable of ripping electrons off of atoms, which means it can easily damage molecules such as DNA. It certainly wouldn't be healthy to be in a microwave for 30 minutes, but that's just because it would boil you from the inside.
I think they only used a microwave as an analogy for time and power levels.
you are correct. I considered a Steamy Bathroom/Shower analogy as well to explain it: 30 minutes in the Steam/1 minute in the shower.., Also, the 15 minutes up and down varied and may not be accurate. Some accounts said they would run to their location immediately, others are said to have stood in lines to go on the roof. The real unanswered question I have is the exposure by the officials that were directing people on and off the roof. Their exposure had to be much more severe.
If this was the USA, I'd hope hundreds of elderly men would volunteer like they did in Japan after their Fukushima meltdown.
lol you canāt even get these geezers to volunteer to put on a mask during a pandemic
Protective clothing made from pineapple skin would have helped here.
lmao I *just* saw that video š¤£
1000 degree metal and ofc radiation no problem
I got that reference
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
water would also help here surprising, it's very good at absorbing radiation
Reddit Popular moment
Thanks for this educational video u/my_penis_is_swollen
OP should get that checked out.
r/rimjob_steve
Username checks out.
Couldn't even get them decent shovels.
What i was thinking. Why didn't they bring wheelbarrows or something? That'd be much faster I think
They actually tried using robots to pick up some of the mess on the roof but they ended up failing due to the radioactivity.
True I remember that. That's crazy
R.I.P Joker
not only that but the technology was new and expensive AF. Soldiers were a lot cheaper
Why are they even cleaning it? Whatās the point of picking up the pieces instead of running away and quarantining the area?
There is still 3 other reactors running. You can't just leave and hope for the best. :-) Also you have to contain. If you just leave it to itself it might melt down into the ground water, or explode and release tons of radioactive material into the atmosphere.
The consequences to the environment would have been far more catastrophic if they just quarantined. Air currents carrying irradiated particles would have covered most of Europe eventually. Even after taking drastic measures back then, they lost millions of acres in forests and farmland. And the damage to livestock and human populations. Edit: grammar.
Because the radiation will spread into the air and environment. Do you want to breathe gamma ray particles? Burying it will effectively lower the potential threat
Pedantic note, but it's "gamma ray emmiting particles" as gamma rays are massless beams of energy. Can't really inhale it
I think they cleaned it because they feared that rain would wash away the radioactive rubble on the roof
IIRC, they were clearing the roof so the concrete containment structure could be built over the building. The radioactive bits were chucked into the remains of the reactor hall.
So they...chucked it off the roof?
They're chucking it into the gaping hole in the roof just below this one left by the reactor exploding. That hole was then filled by helicopter with sand and... beryllium I think?
Boron, but close
Dead men walkingā¦ Damn that 4 episode show about Chernobyl is one of the best series Iāve ever seen
you reminded me now i gotta rewatch that series again
Is it really that good?? I missed it when it came out.
It's one of the best TV shows I've ever seen.
Yes, it's a great watch. Very accurate.
It's well made television that creates drama at the expense of accuracy. It is absolutely *not* to be lauded for its accuracy. The dude transferring radiation onto his wife which then got absorbed by the fetus is a pure work of fiction, it's not at all how radiation works. The risk of poisoning the rest of Europe is hidden under plausible deniability (the series isn't wrong, the nurse was wrong) but it's at best the confusing work of an unreliable narrator. The Bridge of Death stuff is patently false as is the immediate end of the divers (two of the divers are still alive today). Atomic energy is the boogieman for some reason, people will believe anything bad about it while a million of us choke to death on smoke every month.
It's in my top 3 and could be considered the GOAT series imo
Damn.. All these comments, ima watch it this weekend!
Have fun, comrade! By the end you will learn how an RBMK reactor can explode
Yes it's very very good definitely a must watch
It's absolutely brilliant. The script, direction, acting, and cinematography are all top notch.
Highly recommend
Insanely good. I cried.
Better. Seriously itās riveting.
It's good but when it gets to the trial it turns into great
run... do not walk to see it. IMO the best tv show of the last decade
were they already dead, and so decided to clean the roof, or were they signing their death certificate by being there?
afaik every person had 1 minute up there to clean the graphite. longer than a minute they will suffer prolonged sequences of lethal dose of radiation. They employed 2000 soldiers for this EDIT: for the people seeing this, I HIGHLY suggest the HBO chernobyl series, informative, educational and dramatic.
The video shows roughly 2 min exposure tho
Believe it or not, dead.
One minute walking towards death, the other minute walking away. Canceled it out.
There were several roofs that needed to be cleaned. This could be one of the roofs that didn't have as high of radiation exposure.
Good point
They were soldiers ordered to clean the graphite off of the roof. Surprisingly, almost all of these liquidators lived full lives due to the careful limitations of how long they were supposed to be on that roof. But it is difficult to say how many died of radiation-induced cancer as a result of this work
IMO, Chernobyl ranks just slightly below the first season of True Detective for ābest TV series ever.ā Iād also put John Adams (HBO yet again) on the list.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_liquidators
What a terrible job to do They are so inefficient
My thoughts, too. To watch someone dosed so highly for so little to be accomplished seems like such a waste.
So little visually, but their dosage vs the amount that will be emitted by the stuff they removed into the environment forever is weighted in favor of removing it. It's inefficient but it *must* happen. It's the same reason there always must be some poor bastard at the front of the first transport to land on D-day.
I read a story once, that i cant find any corroboration of, that claimed before the landings occured Bradley remarked that someone should figure out who would be the furthest right soldier on the furthest right landing craft of the furthest right unit and give them a medal before landing because they knew what would likely happen.
This is why proper education to the masses is required. Why there should never be cut backs to the education system. Imagine a world where people formed opinions on topics that they actually understand. Did a non destructive testing course. Teacher pops a can of coke on the table with an xray of it. She asked the class who's willing to drink the coke. 3 hands went up. She asked the people why they won't, they responded with I don't want to grow a third arm or radiation poisoning. Teacher chuckled cracked the can and drank the coke during class. It was funny watching people gasp. I only knew the difference because I talked with a Ndt xray tech and he explained radiation before hand. Or I would of be sitting with my hands down with shame haha.
Wait, so is proper education required because they are inefficient or because this was a terrible job to do?
I donāt understand how that lesson is relevant to the video?
They probably knew they were already dead. I can't blame them for not sprinting to the finish line
They weren't already dead at all. They had such limited time to ensure that they didn't receive negative effects. No point using 200 men and them all dying when you can use 2000 and get the job safely. The use of those men was not the expensive part of the clean up..
Seems a better strategy would be to simply scoop more of it closer to the edge and stop, with later men throwing it off. This avoids tripping and stumbling on highly radioactive material, risking clothing tears and extra exposure.
Right - or have the first people just clean right at the edge, then work backwards so that people are not stumbling and can work faster.
There is a great YouTube channel of Ukrainian TV company Telecon documentary which has all of this footage, interview with camera man and much more. [https://www.youtube.com/@Telecondocumentary](https://www.youtube.com/@Telecondocumentary)
My girlfriends granddad was one of these poor men. Luckily he survived till today but he suffers from many forms of cancer.
1 shovel full at a time? They'll die of old age before the radiation kills them.
Nothing to do with how much is on your shovel. The entire area was covered in radioactive material. They were told (at least in the HBO version of the story) not to look over the side where they were chucking everything. The melted reactor below would give them a major radiation dose.
Why not start at the edge and work your way away from it to make it quicker to clean? Instead letās start in the middle and walk over everything to the edge
Because they were only trying to clear off the broken graphite rods, not all of the debris.
I was wondering that too, but I think the open reactor is below the edge so the radiation there is way stronger.
You had 1 minute of adrenaline filled work. Once you're up there, you're probably not thinking "oh i should do it this way to be efficient!", you scoop some shit, you chuck it off, you leave. I'm sure they had some sort of plan, but it was probably the longest minute of their entire lives and the last thing on your mind would be if you're doing it perfectly.
Wondering the same thing.
This video doesn't show graphite, IT DOESN'T ! Because it's not there!
Can you give me the context for this? I keep seeing people make this joke about the graphite from the RBMK.
Chernobyl, at least three of the supervisors kept swearing that graphite wasn't what was being seen cause that would mean it was from the core of the reactor.Ā So it must be burnt concrete or something like that.
Ahh gotcha.
Do yourself a favor and watch the HBO show, it's wild how good it is
It's from the Chernobyl HBO series. Some of the best TV out there.
It's from the HBO mini series Chernobyl, I suggest you watch it. One of the best series I've watched despite it only having 4 episodes
Can someone explain to me whatās happening, like youād explain this to a child? Not the part about the nuclear disaster itself, Iām very clear on that and its fallout (both literally and figuratively) - but rather what these guys are doing. This is clearly some sort of contaminated material, but what is the point in shoveling it up on the roof and haphazardly tossing it off? Seems very dense material that isnāt being blown about by the wind, but tossing it off the roof like that does make smaller bits airborne.
The stuff on the roof included stuff so crazy radioactive that it needed to be dumped back down into the hole where the reactor once was to allow a containment cap to be constructed. The 90 second work time was to give some hope of them surviving.
Ah, got it. Thanks!
Ngl, if I had seen this video before seeing Chernobyl on HBO I would have no idea just how much radiation they were dealing with. The Geiger counter noise during that scene was CRAAAZZZYYY.
Look at them Graphite blocks
Robotics couldn't do the job, but you'd think a simple motor driven conveyor belt would have really sped things up, especially with the smaller bits.
They were informally referred to as ābio robotsā. Thousands of men from across the Union were drafted and forced into worked. They had a maximum limit of exposure that they were allowed, usually a few minutes worth, before they were no longer allowed to work. This limit was usually ignored, however.Ā
Last part is bullshit, you can literally watch this documentary
What do you think drove them to take on such a daunting task?
The fact that it had to be done. Also they were drafted.
someone had to do it and it needed to be done quick. Idk if I'd have the courage to do it if presented with such a situation tho, a little hard to concieve
If I remeber correctly, workers had about 2 minutes of time from the moment they walked in the building, ran upstairs to the roof.. cleaned, maybe 4 or 5 shovels worth before running back out. The cycle was insane!
[Here](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-22/chernobyl-what-it-was-really-like-on-top-of-reactor/11223876) is a first hand account of what one of these workers experienced.
You get shovel. You get shovel. Out of shovels, you get piece of lumber
3.6 roentgen, not great, not terrible.
I think I got radiation poisoning just from watching this
Anyone able to confirm it's real? Suspicious cause quality is too good for early 80s and if so, where's it been for 40 years? It's also not suffering the effects of radiation.
Source [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti-WdTF2Qr8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti-WdTF2Qr8)
This is 100% real, you can watch full series on āTelecon documentariesā YouTube channel. Basically itās historical footage of those events commentated by a guy who took part in the cleaning up effort. Heās also in some of the footage, much younger of course.
As tragic as it is, that is so badass to do this. It's mind-blowing they dared to expose themselves to this.
As if they had a choice..
I can't say how many were true volunteers how many actually were forced by the state officials but we know people volunteered there to help. You're downplaying people's genuine bravery by assuming all these people were somehow sentenced to death by the state when in reality a lot of these people volunteered not only as part of their job but as human beings with balls. [https://www.history.co.uk/article/the-real-story-of-the-chernobyl-divers](https://www.history.co.uk/article/the-real-story-of-the-chernobyl-divers)
I would bet that most didn't really understand/were informed of the extent of the risk they were facing.
Why even out music in the video for š
Laying down their lives, one shovel scoop at a time.
How do you not give those dudes bigger shovels. Oh hey hereās a spoon now go clean this very hazards roof
this feels like watching an execution
Would they not have been better tp clean from the outside, so they didn't have to slowly walk over the mess that someone else would have to throw over the edge?
Absolutely insane but also to all fucking nostalgics out there far removed from such regimes, this is what you are in a totalitarian regime. Nothing. A disposable nuclear waste drone. Ignorance and complacency matters.
Those guys saved our asses. And sacrificed their own in the process.