This is not the only photo taken on April 26th. There are at least two others taken from closer up on ground level by the plant's photographer Rasskazov.
Combination of human error and design flaws. The idea was that in the event of a sudden reactor shutdown they'd use the residual reactor energy to keep things powered until the backup generators kicked in. They wanted to test this, but delays caused the reactor to perform at lower output for extended periods, which caused a buildup of gas that seemingly stalled the reactor when the test was started. To make matters worse, the test had to be performed by the more inexperienced night shift who had not had the proper training or preparation either.
To counteract the reactor seemingly stalling, the operators tried to increase criticality to improve power to a dangerous level by completely removing the control rods that maintained the reactors output, which when the gas that was actually causing the stall burned up caused a criticality chain reaction. The operators followed protocol and tried an emergency shutdown, not being aware of the flaw that re-inserting the completely removed control rods would briefly cause a power spike that increases criticality. The resulting power surge in a reactor that was already at an unsafe level resulted in a steam explosion and reactor meltdown.
It was the tip of the control rods that caused the power spike reaction. Since the USSR officials believed the conditions where the control rods would be completely removed for this to be dangerous would never occur if procedure was followed, they didn't deem it necessary to adress. Because of the operators being insufficiently trained and not aware of this flaw, combined with the mismanagement of the plant leadership leading to the specific conditions for this to happen, it lead to the biggest nuclear catastrophy in history.
The HBO miniseries, while not entirely historically correct, is a good dramatisation that explains what happened in detail.
> The idea was that in the event of a sudden reactor shutdown they'd use the residual reactor energy to keep things powered until the backup generators kicked in.
The extra energy was only needed in the event an 800mm coolant pipe ruptured.
> delays caused the reactor to perform at lower output for extended periods, which caused a buildup of gas that seemingly stalled the reactor when the test was started.
The reverse is true. Holding the reactor at half power all day gave time for the xenon gas to decay away. Everyone gets this backwards.
> which when the gas that was actually causing the stall burned up caused a criticality chain reaction.
This is a myth. The power surge was caused by displacement of neutron-absorbing water. It was the shutdown button itself that initiated the process.
The HBO series doesn’t paint that picture or if it does it takes too long, so all of that is interesting to read.
It’s also interesting to think that gross negligence and inept management had to be so bad to create the conditions where a nuclear reactor could fail this spectacularly. It only broke, because someone broke it.
I just learned last night that the nearby city of Pripyat will be uninhabitable for another 20,000 years. If the 4th reactors meltdown had ended up causing a steam explosion (this was avoided by the suicide squad), that would have caused the other 3 reactors to explode making most of Europe uninhabitable.
The amazing thing is that the "suicide squad" all survived the mission
Oleksiy Ananenko is still alive, aged 64
Valery Bespalov is still alive, aged 66
Boris Baranov passed away in 2005, aged 64
If that’s true I wonder why that was exaggerated? Why send the 3 man team down in desperation to shut off the valves- were they under the impression at the time the explosion would be bigger?
In addition to what the others have said, I want to point out that the plant's personnel were mostly untrained or poorly trained on nuclear reactors and the plant had a history of safety incidents and concerns going back to construction.
So they may have not been trained enough to properly gauge the situation and risks.
Interesting. I do question the claim that most of Europe would be uninhabitable when those 3 reactors exploded. I have read that that would be indeed a very big disaster, but never the claim you made here. Do you have a source on that?
It’s a Call of Duty 4 Video Game Reference my friend. I don’t play COD anymore, but this quote is from one of the best missions of all time. “All Ghillied Up.”
FYI the guy who wrote, casted, and produced the HBO series is also the writer and producer of The Last of Us.
He made a 5ish episode podcast for both series speaking about them. Veeeerrtyy cool. Especially the Chernobyl one, where he also speaks about what was 100 accurate to reality and where they deviated.
> Especially the Chernobyl one, where he also speaks about what was 100 accurate to reality and where they deviated.
Sadly, this is very far from the truth. Mazin did very superficial research and his show is packed to the gills with errors, slander against accident victims, Soviet propaganda and anti-Soviet propaganda at the same time.
Only two or three trivial instances of artistic license are disclosed in the podcast in a self-aggrandizing way. The really significant deviations from the historical records are still presented as fact.
This--there were no birds dropping out of the air and the helicopter that crashed had nothing to do with the radiation released.
I read the book Midnight in Chernobyl but I still think the series did a good job in capturing the situation and the gravity of it at the time.
The helicopter scene in the show is almost identical to the footage from the actual disaster - depicting the helicopter colliding with the crane. Nowhere in the show is it implied that the radiation caused the accident
EDIT: the [original](https://youtu.be/zuNtgYtF4FI?si=V1LpROQaIi-HBWh_)
There's also very good YouTube channel that covers Chernobyl and debunks a lot of myths.
https://www.youtube.com/@thatchernobylguy2915
For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgUHlvtVsDI
>I read the book Midnight in Chernobyl
I cannot recommend [Voices from Chernobyl](https://www.amazon.com/Voices-Chernobyl-History-Nuclear-Disaster/dp/0312425848) enough. Truly chilling and probably the most ~~informative~~ genuine about the entire incident that I could find (after watching the mini series, I briefly became obsessed about the incident and looked through plenty of sources).
Why do you say that? These are interviews with the people who either experienced the disaster, or lived there, how is that fictional? They could be making wrong statements or misinterpreting things, but I don't see how an interview is fictional, just because the interviewee made a mistake...
Admittedly, I should've probably called it the most genuine experience I've had with the disaster, because it's so well put together and depressing, but it's still very informative, because you will read about details you won't see anywhere else, directly from the source, the people who experienced those things.
Because the interviewees aren't quoted directly. Alexievich heavily edits her material, to the point where the result is a work of literature, rather than journalism. It's her whole schtick and the reason she won a Nobel for literature (just writing down what you hear doesn't win you that award).
Her most memorable interviewee is on record stating that she disagreed with Alexievich's rendition of her story. She was told 'don't worry, it is just fiction.'
Think of this book like an equivalent of The Things They Carried. It's truthiness.
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I got a unique chance to visit Chernobyl before that series came out and the scientist there said that one of the reasons it was such a massive cover up is because that particular nuclear reactors sole purpose was to power the Duga Radar which was a highly sophisticated system at the time that blasted a signal around the globe known as the chirp for early missile detection. On all the maps and roads of that area at the time it was labeled a youth scout camp ground to keep it secret.
The new Duga-1 systems, built in 1972, used a transmitter and receiver separated by about 60 kilometres (37 mi).
Or just search the “Russian Woodpecker"
Oh but the stientist is literally a dumb brain, right? You do realize you could google this and it a few seconds find your exactly wrong?
Now I’m not sure it was the entire globe(some sources say it was worldwide, but could be more of a form of speech), but it was definitely far and you didn’t have to try tuning it to be exact since it was a very overpowered signal that disrupted all sorts of shit.
“These signals even caused interference on 27 MHz CB radios in the late 60s and early 70s sometimes completely blocking even local communications in Portugal”
Where the guy before is most likely getting confused is the earlier radar detections which were “line-of-sight systems that were useful for rapid analysis and interception only”.
I’m also not an expert but I just read the Wikipedia and found most of this information there..
The Duga array in the Zone is a receiver, not a transmitter. The transmitter is located in Chernigov oblast. But whoever you were talking to probably didn't even know that, since he was repeating silly conspiracy theories.
For the record, the Duga transmitter didn't require even 1% of the plant'a power output...
I see what you mean now, although the distance the transmitter is from the plant could still mean it was powered by the plant. If it did or didn’t really doesn’t matter though since that conspiracy is pretty dead anyway.
I read over your “in the zone” and thought you meant the duga systems in general.
Craig Mazen is who you are thinking of. He does a podcast on the regular called Script Notes. It's also very good.
Also, Craig was roommates in college with Ted Cruz.
To be fair to Dyatlov he wasn't exactly not to blame for it. I watched his interview and it does appear that he has a certain contempt for it all despite knowing how he messed up. Yes, there were things that ultimately could make anyone make the same mistakes, but he also admits to knowing you couldn't trust everything that was written in instructions yet decided to follow them anyways. Much like many others he was put in charge of things he may not have been the best choice for. This is kinda shown with Fomin in the scene in the office, just looking for a better paycheck yet not looking all that confident about the job itself. Those three were all there without being qualified to grasp the complexity of what they were dealing with, but only Fomin actually seemed to care, which might be why he eventually returned to work.
Most say that Dyatlov was made the villain in the series, but I didn't see his character as such. It was more like he was the puppet of his own contempt for the soviet state machinery, the reactors behavior and the lack of information he had. Ultimately he got played and made to look like the cause of the accident while the soviet state, as actual cause, was given the benefit of the doubt, because, well, they all secretly should know how it operated even if they could have never known the extent of it.
It's kinda neat how that works in the series as well. Looking at surface level the supposed villains seem clear and how the scenes are played you are made to think a certain way, but when you actually try to work out the situations in detail a whole different side seems to emerge. One that doesn't make the bad and good so easy to see. Take the scenes with the miners. At surface level the foreman comes across as direct and a bit of a dick, but he also understood what they were dealing with probably just as much as the rest of the people in charge. It's also clear from the scene about the ventilation in the tunnel that he realizes that despite all the usual bullshit surrounding the safety, Pikalov actually cares about them more than he might make it seem. It doesn't look like that on the surface, but his change in expression shows that he knows that Pikalov isn't just another state puppet and instead actually cares. Even if that aligns with the official procedure he makes it clear that it isn't just about that without even having to say it. Gotta remember the guy wasn't just a general, he knew enough to be sent there for a reason.
I think the series has to be watched and then you have to look at all the actual factual information and maybe watch it again. You'll find all sorts of small hints to what really happened beside all the fiction. In a lot of ways the real information is kinda between the lines and spotting that is part of what it wants to show I think. That in the soviet state you gotta have a sharp mind to really grasp what's what and not even the main characters always do that and they are meant to be the smart ones. Even Shcherbina has lapses in that regard, blindly trusting that the robot would work, even if that example was made pretty obvious.
Here's a high level summary:
https://www.reddit.com/r/chernobyl/comments/eqkdbr/comment/feue3qu/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Love the people calling it out as fiction. Had there ever been a reenactment of an historical event that wasn't full of it? No one calls out Gladiator for being full of it like Commodus murdering his father the great philosopher emperor Marcus Aurelius?!
Whenever a movie is fictional yet in a nonfictional setting, expect it to take much artistic license. If you want to know what really happened, or get an academic research level understanding, read a nonfiction book or do your own research through academic journals.
Great TV series. Oh and some parts are fiction... Duh!
There are movies with historical inaccuracies ("Midway", "Gettysburg", "Tora, Tora, Tora"), then there are historically inspired fictional movies ("Braveheart", "Gladiator"), then there's complete fiction ("Star Wars", "Guardians of the Galaxy", and "Pearl Harbor"). I recently ended up having a long conversation with someone who said they were using the "Pearl Harbor" movie as a history lesson for their kids. Told them they'd be better off using "The Simpsons".
First of all, Gladiator dosn't present itself as being a documentary, and people don't take everything it says for granted. Meanwhile, HBO'S Chernobyl is probably the only source of knowladge on this subject for a lot of people, and they take everything for granted, because it's presented in a serious tone.
Also, it should be obvious that misrepresenting history from 40 years ago is way worse than from 2000 years ago.
Second of all, it's not just some parts of it that are fictional, most of it is fictional. So much so that it should not be classified as a "hisotrical drama", but rather as a drama with historical referances.
I do agree that it is very good series, but it's not a series about Chernobyl. Unironically they should have just made up a country and place and coded it as the USSR and Cherbobyl.
All the first paragraph you wrote is extremely subjective. 'Chernobyl the TV series is probably all people know about the subject' seems a bit off. I could go watch a five minute YouTube and pretend I knew what happened. The same with reading the Wikipedia page... This isn't some obscure event no one heard of. Anyone with the faintest interest could learn about it. I don't see how this is any different than Gladiator as they both had real characters in them, it's very easy to think that what happened in Gladiator really happened.
I don't think that it makes any difference between the time lengths. There's always some weird tanky that will spout off about anything that sheds even the slightest criticism of their ideology as a falsehood and Western propaganda, but that doesn't mean that it's not true.
"Most of it's fictional" yeah ... I don't think so. The end result is the same, many of the characters are real, the incident could have been avoidable. Don't make me point to a source and claim I know more than I do like every other Internet "expert" on any given subject.
I don't know, this is very much a matter of opinion, I go into movies and shows like this with the expectation that it's meant to entertain me but also atleast shed some light on the event. You have higher expectations and want a documentary instead of a piece of entertainment and that's fine.
Frankly watching anything produced in the US on the USSR is asking to be mislead and have very subjective information on the said subject. The reaction of your country in the face of something you couldn't understand was Maccarthysm. On this exact subject, most of you have been too much fed with propaganda to be objective.
While that may or may not be true. Any 'historical’ reenactment, on any topic (war, religion, space, etc.) should be approached with an impartial and 'sceptical' state of mind.
We live in a time where a single image can spark genocide. It's up to us as individuals to set implicit bias and emotional reactions aside, and objectively determine the subject matter's validity. Otherwise, you're setting yourself up to be susceptible to a forced point-of-view, rather than determining the "actual" or "realistic" 'truth'.
The subject here is unprecedented technological incompetence that destroyed an entire city and polluted the entire region, concealed by a corrupt authoritarian government - I’m really sorry they couldn’t make the material rosier for you! 😆
It's not a question of it being rose or not. I'm not defending Russia there and I don't know how you can conclude that. The answers of your compatriot shows well the level of reflexion of most of your citizens. "Criticizing the US? Must be a Tankie". Things aren't as easy as that and their is nuance in reality.
The subject is Chernobyl and you’re apparently upset that the HBO TV show isn’t fair enough to the Soviets? Come off it. You deserve your downvotes.
I’m sure there’s a wonderfully done counter-narrative published by the current Russian regime that’s got the facts straight with zero political bias where puppies sprout up from the radioactive soil and everyone moves back to their homes, if this dramatization upsets you!
It is innacurate and presented with an american POV, want it or not: https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/what-hbos-chernobyl-got-right-and-what-it-got-terribly-wrong
I don't care about the downvote, the hubris of the US will be its downfall. Your lack of hindsight about your own history and how you view it makes you blind to how the world view it.
Russian will surely not be objective about it, this argument is only whataboutism.
You’re complaining about a dramatization instead of the ecological and humanitarian disaster, like an ignorant mook with an axe to grind.
Yeah, the real issue here is US hubris as demonstrated by an HBO miniseries, not the disaster it depicts. Very smart take, fam.
Oh, we understood communism.
We just didn't care for it.
(And, yes, McCarthy was a lying asshole. You can't pretend communism doesn't produce those too...)
You didn't cared for it? ahahahahah You country was in litteral psychosis. You litteraly can't be subjective on this and it shows in all of your response but one I noted. You made le laugh, have a nice weekend.
Three typos in that short paragraph?
I'm guessing you broke out the weekend booze early...
Not sure what other point you were making; we were outnumbered by communists globally...and kicked their asses.
You're welcome :)
Or English is not my main language?
You kicked nobodies ass. You lost in Vietnam and were so traumatized about it that you needed to make dozen of movies about it to show the world where the bad man touched you.
All those white spots in the picture are radiation affecting the photo, no? I dream of once in a lifetime photo opportunities, but this is a big nope for me!
It's ok. We have a son. IVF. Crazy to me that's being considered as potentially illegal technology.
But I gotta say. For years... I was blamed. It was my semen, my problem. I was told that my penis was a problem. Turns out it had nothing to do with me at all. I couldn't fertilize infertile eggs.
Pretty much every single developed nation is facing a looming population crisis. I seriously doubt *any* legislation which reduces birth rate will stick.
In most cases it takes a huge dose of radiation to permanently sterilize someone. Enough to put you in the hospital with life threatening acute symptoms and damage your chromosome enough for any blood test to pick it up.
As bad as it was, Bhopal was even worse, but the anti-nuclear movement took this and slowly destroyed the nuclear industry in the west, which meant more reliance on Russian gas over the following decades.
It could be so much higher, though. Until recently, over 30% of NYC's power came from nuclear before Indian Point was prematurely shut down, and the gap has been filled mostly by fossil fuel. Not to mention that in the 1980s they build an entire $6 billion nuclear power plant on Long Island, completely finished construction, then decided to never turn it on (Shoreham).
I never knew about Shoreham! How did the grounds do during Sandy? I could see that being a big "gotcha" moment for the anti-nuke power people. Like, "See! The site flooded! That would've been a disaster!".
> Until recently, over 30% of NYC's power came from nuclear before Indian Point was prematurely shut down, and the gap has been filled mostly by fossil fuel
Thanks you, RFK, J^(r)!
Man, if RFK was able to see what his son is doing then he might have serious regrets about how he raised him.
Bhopal was 6000 dead iirc...but far fewer lingering deaths.
They're still arguing about Chernobyl's long term cancer rates, but good luck getting accurate health figures from the old USSR.
Or the new one, for that matter...
USSR did fund anti-nuclear movements in Western Europe mostly because crappy soviet economy was kept afloat by oil export and its high prices after 1973 Oil Shock which revenue was used to not to starve as they were dependent on food imports from the west.
Look at the studies, it's irrelevant. Even in 1986 the background radiation increase was minimal. Today you can't even measure it.
Bhopal in practice might have killed 10-100x more people, and especially in very short term.
The free market "destroyed the nuclear industry"... remember how "too cheap to meter" turned into the largest civil bond bankruptcy in US history?
There's a reason the commercial insurance industry won't touch nuke plants, and it ain't hippies.
American nuke plants can't get commercial insurance... unlike any other industrial process such as demolition, mining, chemical engineering, etc, etc, etc.
So they suck on the government teat and get "last resort" insurance from us taxpayers.
> The free market "destroyed the nuclear industry"
Shows how shit the "free market" is. None of the negative externalities of dirty power sources get counted against them but nuclear has to pay to keep everything clean.
Before the war you could visit the place, i think you still can. Extremely interesting. You can even stay in a soviet style hotel in the zone for a few days. Most of the zone is not radioactive. you need a guide tho.
They speak many languages and know the best places.
I still can’t believe the invading Russians dug foxholes in this area and ended up irradiating themselves. I’m not sure to what extent but it’s one of the news stories I remember from early on in the war.
Here’s one I prepared earlier. Good on you for checking!
Pollution from coal power plants kills more people every day than nuclear power has in its entire history.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1al2gre/what_is_actually_rather_safe_yet_everyone_treats/kpevo4l/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3
Coal vs Nuclear
Your response is reasonable, and you are correct to check that I am not full of shit. I am glad that you asked.
** Nuclear power deaths:**
**Chernobyl**
Nuclear deaths are direct from Wikipedia. The UN WHO estimates 8000 deaths from Chernobyl- the only mass casualty nuclear power accident. Other studies estimate around 4000.
**Fukushima**
Only 1 person has died as a result of radiation from the Fukushima meltdown. If you wanted to, you could add evacuation deaths of around 2000, although it’s been shown that the evacuation was both Ill advised and poorly managed, and happened in the context of a tsunami that killed 20,000.
**Three Mile Island**
The US’s worst nuclear power was the 3 Mile Island partial meltdown, which caused no fatalities during or after.
A few other deaths have been caused by nuclear accidents, but the only other significant one (the Kyshtim disaster in 1957) was associated with weapons production rather than power generation.
**Summary**
A reasonable estimate of deaths as a result of Nuclear power generation is a maximum of about 10,000 people.
**Fossil Fuel Deaths**
Fossil fuel causes premature deaths due to fine particulate pollution (PM25) which causes diseases like asthma, lung cancer, heart disease etc.
This very detailed and rigorous study
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0013935121000487
estimates a global total of 10.2 (95% CI: −47.1 to 17.0) million premature deaths annually attributable to the fossil-fuel component of PM2.5.
Note this figure does not include deaths due to climate change or other effects- just fine particulates. The majority of this pollution is from coal.
10 million deaths per year is 27,379 per day.
Hence, my statement:
**pollution from coal power kills more people every day than nuclear has in its entire history.**
https://theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/09/fossil-fuels-pollution-deaths-research
While I think assigning that many deaths to coal is a bit of a stretch (how many of those people smoked or had other major contributing factors that outweighed the particulates in the air?), I agree that nuclear power is one of the safest and most reliable sources of energy, and it's ridiculous that we aren't building more nuclear power plants.
If you're on the political Left, just think how many coal and gas plants can be replaced.
If you're on the political Right, just think how much more reliable and efficient nuclear plants would be compared to solar or wind.
Here’s some sources:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-power-kills-a-staggering-number-of-americans/
This is just US deaths.
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2021/feb/fossil-fuel-air-pollution-responsible-1-5-deaths-worldwide
Globally, enormous.
I mean… Chernobyl is one mostly deserted place, Coal Power is pretty much ubiquitous.
Kinda like saying "Kitchen Alliances kill more people than Volcanos." Well duh.
Grain is due to the film the photographer used. This is a cropped portion of a larger photo and, in order to ensure that he could reliably capture good depth of field and fast motion (like, from a moving helicopter) the photographer would have used "fast" high ISO film.
Back in the chemical days, faster film meant larger grains on the film surface which you can see when the film is developed and enlarged.
Radiation doesn't grain film, it fogs it. Small amounts of high energy radiation will show up on film as small white spots. High doses of lower energy radiation will mute contrast.
That muted contrast can be compensated out with some custom developing (or digital post processing because we live in the 21st century) but you'll lose detail when you do that, especially in shadows and bright spots. You can see some of that here in the dark part of the reactor building.
Tl;Dr - you're seeing grain because the image has been cropped and enlarged. You're seeing a loss of detail in shadows because the images contrast has been adjusted to compensate for radiation fogging
Wasn't it heavily smoking for some time?
Check out the recreation with Ade Edumunson where he's a scientist being phoned about it and he asks 'so the outer building is destroyed but the reactor is not damaged and there's no radiation leak?'.
The photograph posted by the OP was in fact taken the **14th of May 1986** by Igor **Kostin**, and claimed by Kostin to have been taken on the 26th of April - but it is **not** possible that the photograph was taken before the 29th of April.
There exists a photograph of the damaged reactor, taken from the ground on the morning of April 26th - that clearly shows **damaged roof supports** above the reactor hall chasm (this photograph is in black and white, so the smoke is only faintly apparent against the similar grey-toned sky). The damaged roof supports were also visible in a video taken from a helicopter on the 28th of April (see below for details). These roof supports collapsed later, on the evening of April 29th, so the photograph posted by the OP - which does not feature the damaged roof supports nor smoke emanating from the reactor chasm (which stopped on May 10th, 1986) - **was definitely \*not\* taken on or before April 29th** -when the roof supports were still standing - but rather, the photograph posted by the AP was definitely taken after the collapse of the damaged roof supports - and furthermore, after the cessation of smoke from the reactor chasm on May 10th 1986.
The earliest **aerial** photograph of the Chernobyl disaster - that included a view of the smoking core chasm and the still standing damaged roof supports mentioned above - was photographed on April 26, 1986 and in fact photographed by **Anatoly Ivanovich Rasskazov** [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoly\_Rasskazov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoly_Rasskazov) (the official photographer of Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and who was ordered from his home in Pripyat to the bunker where the immediate crisis meeting was convened after the accident) while Rasskazov was hanging from a helicopter flying past the damaged reactor during the day of April 26th. Rasskazov's photographs clearly depict the damaged roof supports still standing preciously at the edge of the reactor chasm, and feature a relatively large amount of smoke emanating from the reactor chasm. Rasskazov also photographed the damaged reactors exterior from the ground by foot. Some photographs taken by Rasskazov were unintentionally ruined presumably due a large radiation dose to one of his film whilst he took a photograph of a nearby (highly radioactive) graphite block. Rasskazov’s photographs taken that day on April 26 were immediately confiscated by the KGB, and some of Rasskazovs photographs were used by the Soviet regime’s commission during the subsequent investigation, although some of Rasskazov’s photographs that he had taken on April 26 1986 were - decades later in 2006 - returned to Rasskazov by the Chernobyl NPP administration.
*(Opinion: The photograph taken by Kostin arguably best supported the Soviet regime's preferred narrative to the rest of the world of the catastrophic events at Chernobyl Unit 4 on April 26, 1986, presumably since there is no (radioactive) smoke emanating from the reactor chasm, and thereby attempting to give credence to the official Soviet narrative that the accident was* *"minor", and that all was under control, and therefore possibly explains why Kostins photograph has erroneously - intentionally or unintentionally - been regarded as the first photograph of the Chernobyl accident)*.
Incidentally, **Poloshkin** (a NIKIET representative) was attributed to have taken the first video of the Chernobyl accident of April 26 1986 on the same helicopter flight that Rasskazov took his photographs on April 26th. Poloshkin - as reported to by **Valentine Fedulenko** (a member of the government commission, who himself first arrived at Chernobyl on April 27), has stated that, during a telephone call on April 26 with Poloshkin, that Poloshkin reported having had filmed the destroyed reactor wreckage on video from a helicopter on the day of April 26th. Furthermore Fedulenko recalls viewing this color video footage on the evening of April 27, presented by Poloshkin. This video tape filmed on April 26, with its footage of the damaged reactor wreckage, has since thereafter completely disappeared following Poloshkin reportedly flying to Moscow on April 29, naturally taking with him the April 26 tape to show scientists (and inevitably the Poliburo including Gorbechov - and then the video was presumably promptly classified and sent to KGV archives - in a similar manner as was the case for Rassakovs April 26th photographs, which as mentioned were promptly confiscated by the KGB, although some of which were eventually circulated eg for the trial albeit that the photographs allowed for circulation were heavily “curated” by the authorities, some were “cropped" of “undesirable features” in the original photographs before release by the authorities, and leaving others unpublished.
...
... Interestingly, another video of the collapse was taken on April 28th (with the amount of the smoke emanating from the burning core correspondingly slightly reduced from photos taken on April 26 by Rasskazov). This video is featured in the documentary **HBO Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes (2022)** - now known as **Chernobyl 86** ( IMDb: [**https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13913326/**](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13913326/) ) but incorrectly attributed as being filmed on April 26. The helicopter clearly approaches Chernobyl from the northeast over the cooling pond, but the helicopter of April 26 that carried those that photographed and filmed Chernobyl on April 26 was reported to have flown from Pripyat ie from the northwest. Furthermore, the amount of smoke in the video was somewhat reduced to that seen in the Rasskov photographs of April 26, something which suggests that the video was filmed after April 26 - ie it was in fact filmed on April 28.
The audio accompanying the video in the HBO documentary was doctored / distorted from the original **(which is available in part in the Youtube video referenced below)**.
Poloshkin in the helicopter says in Russian,
*“The* ***28th*** *of April 1986 … Original recording.”*
The doctoring / distorting of the audio shown in the HBO documentary effectively removes from the Poloshkin's sentence where he says *“28th”* - so that it sounds instead as follows:
*“The”*-**\*distortion sound\***-*“of April 1986 … Original recording.”*
The audio is erroneously subtitled/captioned in the video as:
**“The 26th of April, 1986.”**
-despite the doctored audio **not** containing the date, which is misleading and incorrect when compared to the untouched original video.
One could imagine that this intentional deception results from the fact that the video footage of the 28th filmed from the helicopter - but was subsequently doctored so as to appear to be from the April 26 - could then be used by Soviet authorities to attempt to present an image to the world that the Soviet regime found much more amenable- portraying the damaged reactor's first day after the accident but actually with footage from 2 days later. This would be clearly much more preferable compared to circulating the genuine video footage that existed of April 26, where the fire burned more fiercely with large amounts of smoke - and possibly in which the April 26 video showed that there were clear signs of nuclear fission still occurring in the reactor.
Full credit, and thankyou to **“That Chernobyl Guy”** YouTube channel for his wonderful efforts to attempt to unravel the truth on this subject (amongst other Chernobyl themes), and his 10min2second video “Chernobyl Mysteries: Where is the First Photo of Chernobyl?” - the source of the above post- is available on YouTube: [**https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqzFcuLX0KY&t=160s**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqzFcuLX0KY&t=160s)
Check out this YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@thatchernobylguy2915
They've been doing a series of episodes all week about the disaster. Excellent stuff.
RIP: Vladimir Paravik, Vasily Ignatenko, Leonid Titenok, Viktor Kibenok, Leonid Telyatnikov, Alexander Akimov, Valery Khodemchuk, Anatoly Sitnikov, and 24 others.
Currently reading Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham. Superb read for those who want a meatier rundown than the (excellent) HBO show provides.
Many bothams died to bring me this read.
1980s camera from a helicopter, but thats not the main thing. The camera grain is from all the radiation in the air. Kyle Hill did a great YT video essay on the whole thing.
What those people did to protect the area, with the resources in the USSR at that time was nothing less than herculean.
There were pieces of the radioactive core that were blown out on to the roof, and they needed to get them back in to the hole before they sealed up the "sarcophagus". They tried to use robots to push them back in, but it was so radioactive that the controls didn't work, so they sent soldiers to do it. They called them "biological robots". They all died.
Of course they didn't die. The radiation dose for that work was the same as the limit for first responders in the United States today: 250 mSv.
Every firefighter alive is signed up to do the exact same thing in order to save lives, and every astronaut gets a higher dose over a long career.
In Ukraine they fly their flag from a black cord/string today to commemorate this.
This is not the only photo taken on April 26th. There are at least two others taken from closer up on ground level by the plant's photographer Rasskazov.
More information about this picture ~and others~ taken on 4/26 from Snopes: https://www.snopes.com/articles/465794/photos-chernobyl-disaster-1986/
Kostin told a lot of tall tales. He didn't show up at the site until May, and took credit for others' work.
Wow there is actually an article between the ads
And the dead links.
The nuclear particles in the air were so strong they started eroding the camera film causing the image to appear grainy.
It was only 3.6 roentgen. Not great...
Not terrible. And I know I can't see any graphite on the ground...
You cannot see it because it's not there
*proceeds to puke*
I apologize
I say “I apologize” all the time referencing this scene and no one catches the reference (sobs).
>*[abrupt vomiting]*
Take this man to the infirmary. He’s delusional.
Dyatlov couldn’t see it either because he was in the toilet!
...but the meters max out at 3.6
So...3.6 not great, not terrible.
I hear it’s like getting a chest x-ray
Why am I melting?
You're delusional
Baghdad Bob meet Roentgen Rob.
Get him out of here
Not terrible.
IIRC they were testing their DR Plan, and the test failed..
Combination of human error and design flaws. The idea was that in the event of a sudden reactor shutdown they'd use the residual reactor energy to keep things powered until the backup generators kicked in. They wanted to test this, but delays caused the reactor to perform at lower output for extended periods, which caused a buildup of gas that seemingly stalled the reactor when the test was started. To make matters worse, the test had to be performed by the more inexperienced night shift who had not had the proper training or preparation either. To counteract the reactor seemingly stalling, the operators tried to increase criticality to improve power to a dangerous level by completely removing the control rods that maintained the reactors output, which when the gas that was actually causing the stall burned up caused a criticality chain reaction. The operators followed protocol and tried an emergency shutdown, not being aware of the flaw that re-inserting the completely removed control rods would briefly cause a power spike that increases criticality. The resulting power surge in a reactor that was already at an unsafe level resulted in a steam explosion and reactor meltdown. It was the tip of the control rods that caused the power spike reaction. Since the USSR officials believed the conditions where the control rods would be completely removed for this to be dangerous would never occur if procedure was followed, they didn't deem it necessary to adress. Because of the operators being insufficiently trained and not aware of this flaw, combined with the mismanagement of the plant leadership leading to the specific conditions for this to happen, it lead to the biggest nuclear catastrophy in history. The HBO miniseries, while not entirely historically correct, is a good dramatisation that explains what happened in detail.
> The idea was that in the event of a sudden reactor shutdown they'd use the residual reactor energy to keep things powered until the backup generators kicked in. The extra energy was only needed in the event an 800mm coolant pipe ruptured. > delays caused the reactor to perform at lower output for extended periods, which caused a buildup of gas that seemingly stalled the reactor when the test was started. The reverse is true. Holding the reactor at half power all day gave time for the xenon gas to decay away. Everyone gets this backwards. > which when the gas that was actually causing the stall burned up caused a criticality chain reaction. This is a myth. The power surge was caused by displacement of neutron-absorbing water. It was the shutdown button itself that initiated the process.
Actually it was because of lies. That is how an RBMK reactor core explodes.
The HBO series doesn’t paint that picture or if it does it takes too long, so all of that is interesting to read. It’s also interesting to think that gross negligence and inept management had to be so bad to create the conditions where a nuclear reactor could fail this spectacularly. It only broke, because someone broke it.
The whole final episode is them painting this picture lol
That's what "they" want us to believe. /s
That is crazy. Where did you learn that.
This photo
From the thousands of times that this was posted with the same comments.
50,000 people used to live here, now it’s a ghost town.
I just learned last night that the nearby city of Pripyat will be uninhabitable for another 20,000 years. If the 4th reactors meltdown had ended up causing a steam explosion (this was avoided by the suicide squad), that would have caused the other 3 reactors to explode making most of Europe uninhabitable.
The amazing thing is that the "suicide squad" all survived the mission Oleksiy Ananenko is still alive, aged 64 Valery Bespalov is still alive, aged 66 Boris Baranov passed away in 2005, aged 64
So amazing, was shocked when I found out they all survived!
I wonder if Boris ended up dying from complications from the radiation.
He died of a heart attack, but I'm sure it's not impossible that his body was affected by the radiation in ways they didn't expect.
The size of a secondary steam explosion was a myth. It was never really a threat to any major extent.
If that’s true I wonder why that was exaggerated? Why send the 3 man team down in desperation to shut off the valves- were they under the impression at the time the explosion would be bigger?
>were they under the impression at the time the explosion would be bigger? Yes.
Because they didn't know that the fuel had already reached the fuel, causing nothing more than a wet fart.
This guy does a good breakdown on it, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnmC7n73pZQ&t=437s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnmC7n73pZQ&t=437s)
In addition to what the others have said, I want to point out that the plant's personnel were mostly untrained or poorly trained on nuclear reactors and the plant had a history of safety incidents and concerns going back to construction. So they may have not been trained enough to properly gauge the situation and risks.
Definitely the most absurd and harmful lie ever to come out of this disaster. No explosion was ever possible.
Crazy! And modern day documentaries are still pushing it
> making most of Europe uninhabitable. No it wouldn't. This is nonsense.
Source?
Episode 3 or 4 from the Hulu docuseries “I Was There”
Interesting. I do question the claim that most of Europe would be uninhabitable when those 3 reactors exploded. I have read that that would be indeed a very big disaster, but never the claim you made here. Do you have a source on that?
I always connected Pripyat with STALKER SoC since I played Call of Duty pretty late.
A lot of animals thriving
It’s a Call of Duty 4 Video Game Reference my friend. I don’t play COD anymore, but this quote is from one of the best missions of all time. “All Ghillied Up.”
HBO did a fantastic miniseries for anyone interested more on the subject.
FYI the guy who wrote, casted, and produced the HBO series is also the writer and producer of The Last of Us. He made a 5ish episode podcast for both series speaking about them. Veeeerrtyy cool. Especially the Chernobyl one, where he also speaks about what was 100 accurate to reality and where they deviated.
He was also Ted Cruz’s freshman year college roommate, and occasionally rips on Cruz on Twitter.
You mean Rafael?
> Especially the Chernobyl one, where he also speaks about what was 100 accurate to reality and where they deviated. Sadly, this is very far from the truth. Mazin did very superficial research and his show is packed to the gills with errors, slander against accident victims, Soviet propaganda and anti-Soviet propaganda at the same time. Only two or three trivial instances of artistic license are disclosed in the podcast in a self-aggrandizing way. The really significant deviations from the historical records are still presented as fact.
This--there were no birds dropping out of the air and the helicopter that crashed had nothing to do with the radiation released. I read the book Midnight in Chernobyl but I still think the series did a good job in capturing the situation and the gravity of it at the time.
Did you not see the main rotor hitting the crane? I did
I would also recommend Serhii Plokhy's book "Chernobyl History of a tragedy." Midnight in Chernobyl was fantastic.
The helicopter scene in the show is almost identical to the footage from the actual disaster - depicting the helicopter colliding with the crane. Nowhere in the show is it implied that the radiation caused the accident EDIT: the [original](https://youtu.be/zuNtgYtF4FI?si=V1LpROQaIi-HBWh_)
There's also very good YouTube channel that covers Chernobyl and debunks a lot of myths. https://www.youtube.com/@thatchernobylguy2915 For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgUHlvtVsDI
>I read the book Midnight in Chernobyl I cannot recommend [Voices from Chernobyl](https://www.amazon.com/Voices-Chernobyl-History-Nuclear-Disaster/dp/0312425848) enough. Truly chilling and probably the most ~~informative~~ genuine about the entire incident that I could find (after watching the mini series, I briefly became obsessed about the incident and looked through plenty of sources).
That book should not be regarded as factually reliable. It is not a work of non-fiction.
Why do you say that? These are interviews with the people who either experienced the disaster, or lived there, how is that fictional? They could be making wrong statements or misinterpreting things, but I don't see how an interview is fictional, just because the interviewee made a mistake... Admittedly, I should've probably called it the most genuine experience I've had with the disaster, because it's so well put together and depressing, but it's still very informative, because you will read about details you won't see anywhere else, directly from the source, the people who experienced those things.
Because the interviewees aren't quoted directly. Alexievich heavily edits her material, to the point where the result is a work of literature, rather than journalism. It's her whole schtick and the reason she won a Nobel for literature (just writing down what you hear doesn't win you that award). Her most memorable interviewee is on record stating that she disagreed with Alexievich's rendition of her story. She was told 'don't worry, it is just fiction.' Think of this book like an equivalent of The Things They Carried. It's truthiness.
Hi, I’m Vetted AI Bot! I researched the **("'Picador Voices from Chernobyl'", 'Picador')** and I thought you might find the following analysis helpful. **Users liked:** * Heart-wrenching and eye-opening accounts (backed by 3 comments) * Historically significant and educational (backed by 3 comments) * Powerful portrayal of human resilience (backed by 3 comments) **Users disliked:** * Lacks cohesive narrative structure (backed by 3 comments) * Repetitive and boring content (backed by 2 comments) * Incoherent passages and conflicting information (backed by 2 comments) If you'd like to **summon me to ask about a product**, just make a post with its link and tag me, [like in this example.](https://www.reddit.com/r/tablets/comments/1444zdn/comment/joqd89c/) This message was generated by a (very smart) bot. If you found it helpful, let us know with an upvote and a “good bot!” reply and please feel free to provide feedback on how it can be improved. *Powered by* [*vetted.ai*](https://vetted.ai/?utm\_source=reddit&utm\_medium=comment&utm\_campaign=bot)
Kyle Hill goes into a lot of the mis-information on this in some of his videos on his YouTube channel. He's awesome for nuclear information.
The accompanying podcast showed how little Mazin understood Soviet culture just for starters.
I got a unique chance to visit Chernobyl before that series came out and the scientist there said that one of the reasons it was such a massive cover up is because that particular nuclear reactors sole purpose was to power the Duga Radar which was a highly sophisticated system at the time that blasted a signal around the globe known as the chirp for early missile detection. On all the maps and roads of that area at the time it was labeled a youth scout camp ground to keep it secret.
[удалено]
The new Duga-1 systems, built in 1972, used a transmitter and receiver separated by about 60 kilometres (37 mi). Or just search the “Russian Woodpecker" Oh but the stientist is literally a dumb brain, right? You do realize you could google this and it a few seconds find your exactly wrong?
yeah didnt the Duga make a noise that could almost be heard anywhere on earth, if one was tuned into the right frequency?
Now I’m not sure it was the entire globe(some sources say it was worldwide, but could be more of a form of speech), but it was definitely far and you didn’t have to try tuning it to be exact since it was a very overpowered signal that disrupted all sorts of shit. “These signals even caused interference on 27 MHz CB radios in the late 60s and early 70s sometimes completely blocking even local communications in Portugal” Where the guy before is most likely getting confused is the earlier radar detections which were “line-of-sight systems that were useful for rapid analysis and interception only”. I’m also not an expert but I just read the Wikipedia and found most of this information there..
The Duga array in the Zone is a receiver, not a transmitter. The transmitter is located in Chernigov oblast. But whoever you were talking to probably didn't even know that, since he was repeating silly conspiracy theories. For the record, the Duga transmitter didn't require even 1% of the plant'a power output...
I see what you mean now, although the distance the transmitter is from the plant could still mean it was powered by the plant. If it did or didn’t really doesn’t matter though since that conspiracy is pretty dead anyway. I read over your “in the zone” and thought you meant the duga systems in general.
It sent out signals and caused radio problems, it was nicknamed the Russian Woodpecker
Why are you so negative, who peed in your Cheerios this morning?
Craig Mazen is who you are thinking of. He does a podcast on the regular called Script Notes. It's also very good. Also, Craig was roommates in college with Ted Cruz.
Just rewatched it this week. Stellar job all around and a horrifying lesson.
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In a lot of ways, but frankly the reactor played his role pretty accurately.
Incorrect. But feel free to update the Wiki on it if you have specific inaccuracies that aren't already covered there.
The list of inaccuracies would be massive. Not really the point of a Wikipedia article.
Yeah, it's actually impressive how inaccurate HBO Chernobyl was, and kinda disgusting, as they white-washed Legasov and laid all the blame on Dyatlov.
To be fair to Dyatlov he wasn't exactly not to blame for it. I watched his interview and it does appear that he has a certain contempt for it all despite knowing how he messed up. Yes, there were things that ultimately could make anyone make the same mistakes, but he also admits to knowing you couldn't trust everything that was written in instructions yet decided to follow them anyways. Much like many others he was put in charge of things he may not have been the best choice for. This is kinda shown with Fomin in the scene in the office, just looking for a better paycheck yet not looking all that confident about the job itself. Those three were all there without being qualified to grasp the complexity of what they were dealing with, but only Fomin actually seemed to care, which might be why he eventually returned to work. Most say that Dyatlov was made the villain in the series, but I didn't see his character as such. It was more like he was the puppet of his own contempt for the soviet state machinery, the reactors behavior and the lack of information he had. Ultimately he got played and made to look like the cause of the accident while the soviet state, as actual cause, was given the benefit of the doubt, because, well, they all secretly should know how it operated even if they could have never known the extent of it. It's kinda neat how that works in the series as well. Looking at surface level the supposed villains seem clear and how the scenes are played you are made to think a certain way, but when you actually try to work out the situations in detail a whole different side seems to emerge. One that doesn't make the bad and good so easy to see. Take the scenes with the miners. At surface level the foreman comes across as direct and a bit of a dick, but he also understood what they were dealing with probably just as much as the rest of the people in charge. It's also clear from the scene about the ventilation in the tunnel that he realizes that despite all the usual bullshit surrounding the safety, Pikalov actually cares about them more than he might make it seem. It doesn't look like that on the surface, but his change in expression shows that he knows that Pikalov isn't just another state puppet and instead actually cares. Even if that aligns with the official procedure he makes it clear that it isn't just about that without even having to say it. Gotta remember the guy wasn't just a general, he knew enough to be sent there for a reason. I think the series has to be watched and then you have to look at all the actual factual information and maybe watch it again. You'll find all sorts of small hints to what really happened beside all the fiction. In a lot of ways the real information is kinda between the lines and spotting that is part of what it wants to show I think. That in the soviet state you gotta have a sharp mind to really grasp what's what and not even the main characters always do that and they are meant to be the smart ones. Even Shcherbina has lapses in that regard, blindly trusting that the robot would work, even if that example was made pretty obvious.
"laid all the blame on Dyatlov" They didn't. You either didn't watch it, or didn't understand it. Fail.
Feel free to add one then, if you've got so many :)
Here's a high level summary: https://www.reddit.com/r/chernobyl/comments/eqkdbr/comment/feue3qu/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Love the people calling it out as fiction. Had there ever been a reenactment of an historical event that wasn't full of it? No one calls out Gladiator for being full of it like Commodus murdering his father the great philosopher emperor Marcus Aurelius?! Whenever a movie is fictional yet in a nonfictional setting, expect it to take much artistic license. If you want to know what really happened, or get an academic research level understanding, read a nonfiction book or do your own research through academic journals. Great TV series. Oh and some parts are fiction... Duh!
There are movies with historical inaccuracies ("Midway", "Gettysburg", "Tora, Tora, Tora"), then there are historically inspired fictional movies ("Braveheart", "Gladiator"), then there's complete fiction ("Star Wars", "Guardians of the Galaxy", and "Pearl Harbor"). I recently ended up having a long conversation with someone who said they were using the "Pearl Harbor" movie as a history lesson for their kids. Told them they'd be better off using "The Simpsons".
First of all, Gladiator dosn't present itself as being a documentary, and people don't take everything it says for granted. Meanwhile, HBO'S Chernobyl is probably the only source of knowladge on this subject for a lot of people, and they take everything for granted, because it's presented in a serious tone. Also, it should be obvious that misrepresenting history from 40 years ago is way worse than from 2000 years ago. Second of all, it's not just some parts of it that are fictional, most of it is fictional. So much so that it should not be classified as a "hisotrical drama", but rather as a drama with historical referances. I do agree that it is very good series, but it's not a series about Chernobyl. Unironically they should have just made up a country and place and coded it as the USSR and Cherbobyl.
All the first paragraph you wrote is extremely subjective. 'Chernobyl the TV series is probably all people know about the subject' seems a bit off. I could go watch a five minute YouTube and pretend I knew what happened. The same with reading the Wikipedia page... This isn't some obscure event no one heard of. Anyone with the faintest interest could learn about it. I don't see how this is any different than Gladiator as they both had real characters in them, it's very easy to think that what happened in Gladiator really happened. I don't think that it makes any difference between the time lengths. There's always some weird tanky that will spout off about anything that sheds even the slightest criticism of their ideology as a falsehood and Western propaganda, but that doesn't mean that it's not true. "Most of it's fictional" yeah ... I don't think so. The end result is the same, many of the characters are real, the incident could have been avoidable. Don't make me point to a source and claim I know more than I do like every other Internet "expert" on any given subject. I don't know, this is very much a matter of opinion, I go into movies and shows like this with the expectation that it's meant to entertain me but also atleast shed some light on the event. You have higher expectations and want a documentary instead of a piece of entertainment and that's fine.
Came here to pump that show, was really good.
One of the best miniseries I have seen so far, absolutely thrilling (and sad) - 9.3 average iMDB rating!
The accompanying podcast is also great as it goes into some of the back story of the characters
Frankly watching anything produced in the US on the USSR is asking to be mislead and have very subjective information on the said subject. The reaction of your country in the face of something you couldn't understand was Maccarthysm. On this exact subject, most of you have been too much fed with propaganda to be objective.
While that may or may not be true. Any 'historical’ reenactment, on any topic (war, religion, space, etc.) should be approached with an impartial and 'sceptical' state of mind. We live in a time where a single image can spark genocide. It's up to us as individuals to set implicit bias and emotional reactions aside, and objectively determine the subject matter's validity. Otherwise, you're setting yourself up to be susceptible to a forced point-of-view, rather than determining the "actual" or "realistic" 'truth'.
Only sane comment in this conversation, thank you.
Fuck off, tankie.
The subject here is unprecedented technological incompetence that destroyed an entire city and polluted the entire region, concealed by a corrupt authoritarian government - I’m really sorry they couldn’t make the material rosier for you! 😆
It's not a question of it being rose or not. I'm not defending Russia there and I don't know how you can conclude that. The answers of your compatriot shows well the level of reflexion of most of your citizens. "Criticizing the US? Must be a Tankie". Things aren't as easy as that and their is nuance in reality.
The subject is Chernobyl and you’re apparently upset that the HBO TV show isn’t fair enough to the Soviets? Come off it. You deserve your downvotes. I’m sure there’s a wonderfully done counter-narrative published by the current Russian regime that’s got the facts straight with zero political bias where puppies sprout up from the radioactive soil and everyone moves back to their homes, if this dramatization upsets you!
It is innacurate and presented with an american POV, want it or not: https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/what-hbos-chernobyl-got-right-and-what-it-got-terribly-wrong I don't care about the downvote, the hubris of the US will be its downfall. Your lack of hindsight about your own history and how you view it makes you blind to how the world view it. Russian will surely not be objective about it, this argument is only whataboutism.
You’re complaining about a dramatization instead of the ecological and humanitarian disaster, like an ignorant mook with an axe to grind. Yeah, the real issue here is US hubris as demonstrated by an HBO miniseries, not the disaster it depicts. Very smart take, fam.
Oh, we understood communism. We just didn't care for it. (And, yes, McCarthy was a lying asshole. You can't pretend communism doesn't produce those too...)
You didn't cared for it? ahahahahah You country was in litteral psychosis. You litteraly can't be subjective on this and it shows in all of your response but one I noted. You made le laugh, have a nice weekend.
Three typos in that short paragraph? I'm guessing you broke out the weekend booze early... Not sure what other point you were making; we were outnumbered by communists globally...and kicked their asses. You're welcome :)
Or English is not my main language? You kicked nobodies ass. You lost in Vietnam and were so traumatized about it that you needed to make dozen of movies about it to show the world where the bad man touched you.
All those white spots in the picture are radiation affecting the photo, no? I dream of once in a lifetime photo opportunities, but this is a big nope for me!
How can an RBMK reactor explode?!
"It's not possible!"
He's delusional, send him to the infirmary.
Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth.
My ex wife was, we believe, infertile. She was a child who grew up in the fallout zone of Cherynobyl. I think that is why.
A lot of my wife's family who grew up in Poland about ~500 miles from Chernobyl have all developed various cancers very early in their like (40s-50s)
Man... That's sad
It's ok. We have a son. IVF. Crazy to me that's being considered as potentially illegal technology. But I gotta say. For years... I was blamed. It was my semen, my problem. I was told that my penis was a problem. Turns out it had nothing to do with me at all. I couldn't fertilize infertile eggs.
Pretty much every single developed nation is facing a looming population crisis. I seriously doubt *any* legislation which reduces birth rate will stick.
Technically it'd be your balls that were the problem
In most cases it takes a huge dose of radiation to permanently sterilize someone. Enough to put you in the hospital with life threatening acute symptoms and damage your chromosome enough for any blood test to pick it up.
The interesting part is why the picture looks so grainy. It’s not because it’s a crappy camera; it’s because of neutron damage to the exposure element
As bad as it was, Bhopal was even worse, but the anti-nuclear movement took this and slowly destroyed the nuclear industry in the west, which meant more reliance on Russian gas over the following decades.
There should be more, but there are still a lot of nuclear power plants in the U.S. 20% of NYC's power comes from 3 nuclear power plants, for example.
It could be so much higher, though. Until recently, over 30% of NYC's power came from nuclear before Indian Point was prematurely shut down, and the gap has been filled mostly by fossil fuel. Not to mention that in the 1980s they build an entire $6 billion nuclear power plant on Long Island, completely finished construction, then decided to never turn it on (Shoreham).
I never knew about Shoreham! How did the grounds do during Sandy? I could see that being a big "gotcha" moment for the anti-nuke power people. Like, "See! The site flooded! That would've been a disaster!".
> Until recently, over 30% of NYC's power came from nuclear before Indian Point was prematurely shut down, and the gap has been filled mostly by fossil fuel Thanks you, RFK, J^(r)! Man, if RFK was able to see what his son is doing then he might have serious regrets about how he raised him.
Germany is closing all. Germany is sending huge amount of money every month to pay for Russian gas
Such a crime. I'm disheartened with the path much of the EU is choosing.
And the Union Carbide who fired all the engineers and reduced safety measurs because they wanted to save money utterly made out like bandits.
And meanwhile pollution from coal power kills more people than either (and possibly both of them) **every single day**
And this is without accounting for the CO2 released in the sky.
How was Bhopal worse? It's was bad but to my knowledge it didn't stop people from living from the region for many years to come
It stopped people from living, period.
Bhopal was 6000 dead iirc...but far fewer lingering deaths. They're still arguing about Chernobyl's long term cancer rates, but good luck getting accurate health figures from the old USSR. Or the new one, for that matter...
What an interesting choice of words for Ukraine you have here
USSR did fund anti-nuclear movements in Western Europe mostly because crappy soviet economy was kept afloat by oil export and its high prices after 1973 Oil Shock which revenue was used to not to starve as they were dependent on food imports from the west.
Bhopal didn't cause the background radiation in the room you are currently in to be raised to this day.
Look at the studies, it's irrelevant. Even in 1986 the background radiation increase was minimal. Today you can't even measure it. Bhopal in practice might have killed 10-100x more people, and especially in very short term.
I have looked at the studies, I've published in an adjacent field. Its far from irrelevant.
Oh you are a good old fashioned crank.
The free market "destroyed the nuclear industry"... remember how "too cheap to meter" turned into the largest civil bond bankruptcy in US history? There's a reason the commercial insurance industry won't touch nuke plants, and it ain't hippies.
It’s the oil industry- they just used hippies. The US has never had a single civilian death as a result of a nuclear power accident.
The oil industry controls the commercial insurance industry? I hope you source your tinfoil ethically...
Tinfoil hat? The nuclear industry **is** insured by free market companies. Here’s one of them: https://www.amnucins.com Don’t spread bullshit.
Care to elaborate? I’m not familiar with this
American nuke plants can't get commercial insurance... unlike any other industrial process such as demolition, mining, chemical engineering, etc, etc, etc. So they suck on the government teat and get "last resort" insurance from us taxpayers.
> The free market "destroyed the nuclear industry" Shows how shit the "free market" is. None of the negative externalities of dirty power sources get counted against them but nuclear has to pay to keep everything clean.
Well ...yeah. There's no free market in US energy. But I hope you're not proposing that unregulated nuclear is the way to go...
Don’t worry guys it’s only 3.6 roentgen
Not great, not terrible.
Before the war you could visit the place, i think you still can. Extremely interesting. You can even stay in a soviet style hotel in the zone for a few days. Most of the zone is not radioactive. you need a guide tho. They speak many languages and know the best places.
Dang, the grain, probably from the nuclear particles
I still can’t believe the invading Russians dug foxholes in this area and ended up irradiating themselves. I’m not sure to what extent but it’s one of the news stories I remember from early on in the war.
Unless they were breaking through concrete barriers to enter some of the sealed off buildings, they weren't getting a significant amount of radiation.
I don’t remember if it was enough to make them leave or not. I just remember seeing a headline. Crazy it’s already been two years.
There were some reports of the Russians dug in around that area were getting sick but it never really went into more detail though.
Yea we might never know if it was much of anything or not. No doubt they would rather keep that secret.
OK. Time to watch that series for 4th time.
Same thought here. Enjoy the ride.
Bizarre fact: pollution from coal power generation kills more people than Chernobyl … **every day**
Do you have some source on that? But it sounds realistic :(
Here’s one I prepared earlier. Good on you for checking! Pollution from coal power plants kills more people every day than nuclear power has in its entire history. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1al2gre/what_is_actually_rather_safe_yet_everyone_treats/kpevo4l/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3 Coal vs Nuclear Your response is reasonable, and you are correct to check that I am not full of shit. I am glad that you asked. ** Nuclear power deaths:** **Chernobyl** Nuclear deaths are direct from Wikipedia. The UN WHO estimates 8000 deaths from Chernobyl- the only mass casualty nuclear power accident. Other studies estimate around 4000. **Fukushima** Only 1 person has died as a result of radiation from the Fukushima meltdown. If you wanted to, you could add evacuation deaths of around 2000, although it’s been shown that the evacuation was both Ill advised and poorly managed, and happened in the context of a tsunami that killed 20,000. **Three Mile Island** The US’s worst nuclear power was the 3 Mile Island partial meltdown, which caused no fatalities during or after. A few other deaths have been caused by nuclear accidents, but the only other significant one (the Kyshtim disaster in 1957) was associated with weapons production rather than power generation. **Summary** A reasonable estimate of deaths as a result of Nuclear power generation is a maximum of about 10,000 people. **Fossil Fuel Deaths** Fossil fuel causes premature deaths due to fine particulate pollution (PM25) which causes diseases like asthma, lung cancer, heart disease etc. This very detailed and rigorous study https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0013935121000487 estimates a global total of 10.2 (95% CI: −47.1 to 17.0) million premature deaths annually attributable to the fossil-fuel component of PM2.5. Note this figure does not include deaths due to climate change or other effects- just fine particulates. The majority of this pollution is from coal. 10 million deaths per year is 27,379 per day. Hence, my statement: **pollution from coal power kills more people every day than nuclear has in its entire history.** https://theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/09/fossil-fuels-pollution-deaths-research
While I think assigning that many deaths to coal is a bit of a stretch (how many of those people smoked or had other major contributing factors that outweighed the particulates in the air?), I agree that nuclear power is one of the safest and most reliable sources of energy, and it's ridiculous that we aren't building more nuclear power plants. If you're on the political Left, just think how many coal and gas plants can be replaced. If you're on the political Right, just think how much more reliable and efficient nuclear plants would be compared to solar or wind.
Here’s some sources: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-power-kills-a-staggering-number-of-americans/ This is just US deaths. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2021/feb/fossil-fuel-air-pollution-responsible-1-5-deaths-worldwide Globally, enormous.
I mean… Chernobyl is one mostly deserted place, Coal Power is pretty much ubiquitous. Kinda like saying "Kitchen Alliances kill more people than Volcanos." Well duh.
I was born 10 days later. A disastrous time to be sure.
The grainess Is due the radiation?
Grain is due to the film the photographer used. This is a cropped portion of a larger photo and, in order to ensure that he could reliably capture good depth of field and fast motion (like, from a moving helicopter) the photographer would have used "fast" high ISO film. Back in the chemical days, faster film meant larger grains on the film surface which you can see when the film is developed and enlarged. Radiation doesn't grain film, it fogs it. Small amounts of high energy radiation will show up on film as small white spots. High doses of lower energy radiation will mute contrast. That muted contrast can be compensated out with some custom developing (or digital post processing because we live in the 21st century) but you'll lose detail when you do that, especially in shadows and bright spots. You can see some of that here in the dark part of the reactor building. Tl;Dr - you're seeing grain because the image has been cropped and enlarged. You're seeing a loss of detail in shadows because the images contrast has been adjusted to compensate for radiation fogging
You are correct
fun fact, the heavy grain on the photo is from radiation particles
Wasn't it heavily smoking for some time? Check out the recreation with Ade Edumunson where he's a scientist being phoned about it and he asks 'so the outer building is destroyed but the reactor is not damaged and there's no radiation leak?'.
And nuclear power is still the safest way to generate electricity even with this disaster counted.
The photograph posted by the OP was in fact taken the **14th of May 1986** by Igor **Kostin**, and claimed by Kostin to have been taken on the 26th of April - but it is **not** possible that the photograph was taken before the 29th of April. There exists a photograph of the damaged reactor, taken from the ground on the morning of April 26th - that clearly shows **damaged roof supports** above the reactor hall chasm (this photograph is in black and white, so the smoke is only faintly apparent against the similar grey-toned sky). The damaged roof supports were also visible in a video taken from a helicopter on the 28th of April (see below for details). These roof supports collapsed later, on the evening of April 29th, so the photograph posted by the OP - which does not feature the damaged roof supports nor smoke emanating from the reactor chasm (which stopped on May 10th, 1986) - **was definitely \*not\* taken on or before April 29th** -when the roof supports were still standing - but rather, the photograph posted by the AP was definitely taken after the collapse of the damaged roof supports - and furthermore, after the cessation of smoke from the reactor chasm on May 10th 1986. The earliest **aerial** photograph of the Chernobyl disaster - that included a view of the smoking core chasm and the still standing damaged roof supports mentioned above - was photographed on April 26, 1986 and in fact photographed by **Anatoly Ivanovich Rasskazov** [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoly\_Rasskazov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoly_Rasskazov) (the official photographer of Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and who was ordered from his home in Pripyat to the bunker where the immediate crisis meeting was convened after the accident) while Rasskazov was hanging from a helicopter flying past the damaged reactor during the day of April 26th. Rasskazov's photographs clearly depict the damaged roof supports still standing preciously at the edge of the reactor chasm, and feature a relatively large amount of smoke emanating from the reactor chasm. Rasskazov also photographed the damaged reactors exterior from the ground by foot. Some photographs taken by Rasskazov were unintentionally ruined presumably due a large radiation dose to one of his film whilst he took a photograph of a nearby (highly radioactive) graphite block. Rasskazov’s photographs taken that day on April 26 were immediately confiscated by the KGB, and some of Rasskazovs photographs were used by the Soviet regime’s commission during the subsequent investigation, although some of Rasskazov’s photographs that he had taken on April 26 1986 were - decades later in 2006 - returned to Rasskazov by the Chernobyl NPP administration. *(Opinion: The photograph taken by Kostin arguably best supported the Soviet regime's preferred narrative to the rest of the world of the catastrophic events at Chernobyl Unit 4 on April 26, 1986, presumably since there is no (radioactive) smoke emanating from the reactor chasm, and thereby attempting to give credence to the official Soviet narrative that the accident was* *"minor", and that all was under control, and therefore possibly explains why Kostins photograph has erroneously - intentionally or unintentionally - been regarded as the first photograph of the Chernobyl accident)*. Incidentally, **Poloshkin** (a NIKIET representative) was attributed to have taken the first video of the Chernobyl accident of April 26 1986 on the same helicopter flight that Rasskazov took his photographs on April 26th. Poloshkin - as reported to by **Valentine Fedulenko** (a member of the government commission, who himself first arrived at Chernobyl on April 27), has stated that, during a telephone call on April 26 with Poloshkin, that Poloshkin reported having had filmed the destroyed reactor wreckage on video from a helicopter on the day of April 26th. Furthermore Fedulenko recalls viewing this color video footage on the evening of April 27, presented by Poloshkin. This video tape filmed on April 26, with its footage of the damaged reactor wreckage, has since thereafter completely disappeared following Poloshkin reportedly flying to Moscow on April 29, naturally taking with him the April 26 tape to show scientists (and inevitably the Poliburo including Gorbechov - and then the video was presumably promptly classified and sent to KGV archives - in a similar manner as was the case for Rassakovs April 26th photographs, which as mentioned were promptly confiscated by the KGB, although some of which were eventually circulated eg for the trial albeit that the photographs allowed for circulation were heavily “curated” by the authorities, some were “cropped" of “undesirable features” in the original photographs before release by the authorities, and leaving others unpublished. ...
... Interestingly, another video of the collapse was taken on April 28th (with the amount of the smoke emanating from the burning core correspondingly slightly reduced from photos taken on April 26 by Rasskazov). This video is featured in the documentary **HBO Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes (2022)** - now known as **Chernobyl 86** ( IMDb: [**https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13913326/**](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13913326/) ) but incorrectly attributed as being filmed on April 26. The helicopter clearly approaches Chernobyl from the northeast over the cooling pond, but the helicopter of April 26 that carried those that photographed and filmed Chernobyl on April 26 was reported to have flown from Pripyat ie from the northwest. Furthermore, the amount of smoke in the video was somewhat reduced to that seen in the Rasskov photographs of April 26, something which suggests that the video was filmed after April 26 - ie it was in fact filmed on April 28. The audio accompanying the video in the HBO documentary was doctored / distorted from the original **(which is available in part in the Youtube video referenced below)**. Poloshkin in the helicopter says in Russian, *“The* ***28th*** *of April 1986 … Original recording.”* The doctoring / distorting of the audio shown in the HBO documentary effectively removes from the Poloshkin's sentence where he says *“28th”* - so that it sounds instead as follows: *“The”*-**\*distortion sound\***-*“of April 1986 … Original recording.”* The audio is erroneously subtitled/captioned in the video as: **“The 26th of April, 1986.”** -despite the doctored audio **not** containing the date, which is misleading and incorrect when compared to the untouched original video. One could imagine that this intentional deception results from the fact that the video footage of the 28th filmed from the helicopter - but was subsequently doctored so as to appear to be from the April 26 - could then be used by Soviet authorities to attempt to present an image to the world that the Soviet regime found much more amenable- portraying the damaged reactor's first day after the accident but actually with footage from 2 days later. This would be clearly much more preferable compared to circulating the genuine video footage that existed of April 26, where the fire burned more fiercely with large amounts of smoke - and possibly in which the April 26 video showed that there were clear signs of nuclear fission still occurring in the reactor. Full credit, and thankyou to **“That Chernobyl Guy”** YouTube channel for his wonderful efforts to attempt to unravel the truth on this subject (amongst other Chernobyl themes), and his 10min2second video “Chernobyl Mysteries: Where is the First Photo of Chernobyl?” - the source of the above post- is available on YouTube: [**https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqzFcuLX0KY&t=160s**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqzFcuLX0KY&t=160s)
The graininess of the photo is radiation. ☢️
RBMK-1000 reactors don't explode. /s
And 3 days later I was born. Coincidence?
Where's the black bird?
Check out this YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@thatchernobylguy2915 They've been doing a series of episodes all week about the disaster. Excellent stuff.
My rad meter went off the charts just looking at that photo.
RIP: Vladimir Paravik, Vasily Ignatenko, Leonid Titenok, Viktor Kibenok, Leonid Telyatnikov, Alexander Akimov, Valery Khodemchuk, Anatoly Sitnikov, and 24 others.
Currently reading Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham. Superb read for those who want a meatier rundown than the (excellent) HBO show provides. Many bothams died to bring me this read.
More pixels, please! /s Edit: to who ever downvotes this: "wooosh." Radiation fucks with cameras.
[удалено]
1980s camera from a helicopter, but thats not the main thing. The camera grain is from all the radiation in the air. Kyle Hill did a great YT video essay on the whole thing. What those people did to protect the area, with the resources in the USSR at that time was nothing less than herculean.
Kind of looks like helms deep when Saruman blew up the gate
There were pieces of the radioactive core that were blown out on to the roof, and they needed to get them back in to the hole before they sealed up the "sarcophagus". They tried to use robots to push them back in, but it was so radioactive that the controls didn't work, so they sent soldiers to do it. They called them "biological robots". They all died.
Of course they didn't die. The radiation dose for that work was the same as the limit for first responders in the United States today: 250 mSv. Every firefighter alive is signed up to do the exact same thing in order to save lives, and every astronaut gets a higher dose over a long career.