My father was in Kiiv when it happened (I was born in 1989) and was not told to evacuate or to not drink/eat the contaminated food. They were huddled in their homes not knowing what was happening for days.

As a result, I have been robbed of my ability to have biological children and have several other health issues. My half sister on my dad's side also has health issues.

This could have been avoided if there was quick and decisive evacuation of the area, but no they tried to lie. I even watched the video of the man in charge of the plant at the time (he survived, the stubborn jerk, into his 80s!) and he insisted he wasn't to blame at all.

But so many lives were harmed, by the narcissistic people in charge at the time.

Whew thanks for reading.

What was here before the reactor exploded, was it just another wall for the reactor hall? Or was there something else. Additionally is this where Kodemchuk is buried under debris, or is that somewhere else?

Picture is Probably from 1970s

Source: https://pastvu.com/p/2025494

I understand it was the graphite tips on the control rods that ultimately caused the demise of reactor 4.

But was this a singular Achilles heel of the RBMK design or were there other fatal flaws that would have otherwise eventually caused a major incident?

What do you think about my documentation ? its not complete yet but i just completed chapter 1

In the hit show chernobyl the guys are shown needing to push big pieces of graphite of the roof from the core (idk if this is real or happened) anyways they dont wanna use men cause its very dangerous

I was wondering if maybe why they couldnt just use a very long stick from far away (maybe with wheels on the bottom to move it obvsly with heavy machinery cause it would be a very long stick and heavy) and someone could guide them where to push the stick with binoculars or from helecopter. my boyfriend says this would not work but could it?

(Plz dont delete i cant ask in show reddit cause they fucking dont let you post)

I got my hands on these dose rates from this Article/book https://www.rri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/NSRG/en/Karpan2008English.pdf

Legend for first Document:

• Flag: Radioactivity sources higher than 200 roentgens per hour.
• Star: Radioactivity sources higher than 1000 roentgens per hour.

Measurements taken on July 25th, 1986, by Yuri Samoilenko and V.V. Gobule

Notice from Karpan on second document

Notice: Exposure dose rates are given in milliroentgens per hour in those cases if only some figures are shown. However in case of the most contaminated spots figures and letters are given. In this case one needs to understand that exposure dose rates are expressed in roentgens per hour.

Chalk River? I mean meltdown specifically not just accident

Or did he get something higher or lower?

https://www.planetminecraft.com/project/chernobyl-leningrado-control-room-n-2/

I spoke with someone this year who said their grandfather's Volga is still locked in a garage somewhere in Pripyat. Would be cool to see all the cars left behind locked doors we've never seen before, if we ever get to access those garages.

I kept thinking about the interview Alexander Kupnyi did with Alexey Fatakhov (former Senior Reactor Control Engineer at Chernobyl) and how valuable to me was information I learned from him. Specifically, about ORM, what it exists for, and what were the operators allowed to do with it.

The interview is in Russian, with no subtitles available (sadly), so I decided to translate (and paraphrase) some part of it, hopefully you find it interesting. Link to the interview - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZJVnvhgFIc

For convenience, I'll mark Kupnyi as "K", and Fatakhov as "F". Operational regulations are called the "reglament" in Russian, so I'll use that word, as well.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

F - The reglament did not forbid operating the reactor at 200 MW thermal. Different matter is that it was a bad power level. And they knew this.

K - What is your take on what happened in the control room, step by step?

F - A lot of witness accounts, and in the comission report, they say that Dyatlov forced Toptunov to raise the power. I think that the situation was somewhat different. He didn't force him, he told him off for being unable to raise the power on his own, due to lack of experience. As per Tregub's (previous shift supervisor) memories, Tregub stepped up to help and, along with Akimov and Tptunov, they managed to raise the power. Although, according to Dyatlov, he saw that power was already being raised when he got back to the control room from his walkabout. Raising the power was not against the then-existing rules. It was complicated, though.

K - How did they raise the power?

F - By withdrawing control rods, naturally.

K - About the rods. What do the rules say, about the minimum number of control rods?

F - The concept of Operational Reactivity Margin, measured in control rods, as well as the concept of a Xenon pit, is described in the RBMK handbook, written by its constructors. It talks about how, when there's a change in power level, reactivity drops, and in order to compensate for this drop, there needs to be an amount of "spare reactivity" available, before power level change is executed. And then, this spare reactivity can be spent, all the way. By withdrawing all of the control rods, so that the reactor could be kept running at the desired power level, until Xenon poisoning levels out. This concept of [reactivity] margin is there so that it could be used, when needed.

Before the accident at Leningrad NPP in 1975, everyone considered ORM simply as this spare reactivity needed for times when there's a threat of a Xenon pit.

K - So, prior to that even in 1975, it was considered perfectly normal to withdraw all of the control rods.

F - Yes, and that's exactly what they did when there was a power drop - they withdrew all of the control rods. Power started rising rapidly, and that's when positive void coefficient came into play. A fuel channel or two ruptured, also damaging channels around them. They narrowly avoided a major disaster. There was an investigation, the causes were established, and a program was developed to fix this issue. But it was slow, and in these 10 years, it didn't get to Chernobyl Unit 4 in time. And the findings about the cause of the acident were classified, and were not communicated to the operators at CNPP.

That's when the rule about "15 control rods minimum" was introduced. But this parameter was not considered as fast-changing. It was for nominal power level, and whenever a fuel rod was spent and needed changing, ORM would fall below miminum (could be taken all the way down to 0), until that rod was swapped with a fresh one, upon which ORM would go back to normal. After the disaster, a new rule was made to keep ORM at 26 - 30 rods, and in emergency situations, 15.

But, there was no indicator in the control room that would show the current ORM value, when there were fast changes in reactor parameters that could affect ORM. Not just fuel burnup, but also feed water temperature, pressure, etc. There were no instruments to reflect ORM during such fast changes.

When Unit 4 operator raised the power to 200MW, all they had was an ORM printout, made half an hour ago by the SKALA computer, showing ORM of 19 rods - within the acceptable limits.

About 10 seconds before AZ-5 was pressed, ORM returned to its normal value of 15 rods.

Has anyone bought this? I recently got it after being very obsessed with everything Chernobyl and radiation and it’s actually really cool i’m eventually gonna paint it to actually look more like the power plant.

https://youtu.be/oyUOCtzMs5M?si=4L4II2rKviwxIMqy

I wish to know since I wanna start using it as one of my sources regarding the disaster and the story... Is it trustable?

https://youtu.be/qKQH1CybYic?feature=shared

I know this footage is pretty well known, the narration and music along with the shots of Pompeii lead me to believe there is very likely a feature documentary that this footage was taken from and I am very interested in finding it.

It's nice to revisit an old That Chernobyl Guy videos like this.

His book "How It Was" can be read here docs.google.com/document/d/1ZA6SUYBkE_YV0L2EXp9qGWvCqgDGTW3E5bfJubUm2Yw

You wouldn't believe the amount of hate and prejudice that Russians still have for him. For them, he is the criminal, and Legasov the hero, while in reality it was the other way round.

A pebble of uranium in a cloud chamber (or Wilson chamber), a scientific instrument that makes ionizing radiation visible like an X-ray. The different trails: The thick, short lines are caused by alpha particles, while the longer, thinner ones indicate beta particles. The gamma particles are not visible because they have neither mass nor electric charge, but electromagnetic charge, and they even expand through walls, just as the telephone company can't imagine tons of these expelled from reactor 4.

Almost 50 years of experience with RBMK reactors.

From turbine operator to Senior Turbine Control Engineer, Senior Unit Control Engineer, Senior Reactor Control Engineer, Unit Shift Supervisor, and finally Plant Shift Supervisor.

From the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant to the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

Despite having met many “veterans” of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant, we have probably never encountered anyone quite so kind, warm, and open.

He experienced an AZ-5 actuation no fewer than three times. 😃

Nikolai Suvorov, Plant Shift Supervisor at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant we could write an entire book about him. For now, however, we invite you to watch this small selection from our conversations with him. 😎

They built a nuclear power plant for electricity. Then they decided to test what would happen if it failed or there was a power outage. While it was in operation. Would it have worked if an AZ-5 earthquake had struck? They could have turned it off first and then tried that test with a normal light bulb to see how many seconds it stayed on, right? As we know, Russia has always lied and lied even then. Lies and imperialism are in their DNA. Unfortunately, the Russian population is born to lie to itself, and that's how those in charge work.

Chernobyl is not the story of Soviet mistakes or malicious intent. It's the story of how normal, intelligent, and responsible people, following the cumbersome instructions of the KGB and the Kurchatov Institute that everything had to be secret from the West and perfect, attempted experiments, tests that were well known from Ignalina 83, that the rods inserted into AZ-5 had an increase in fission in the first few meters. But they were kept classified. They INTENTIONALLY created the perfect conditions for a nuclear disaster.

Note: The Kurchatov Institute was 100% convinced that a nuclear reactor could not explode but only boil water into steam. This is a very serious flaw; if a pressure cooker doesn't vent, it explodes. OK! These are the basics of boiling water. What kind of physicist are you if you don't know the basics? So they were capable of colliding atoms and sending it to the critical phase? But didn't they know how water boils? The graphite moderators had the first few meters of entry in semi-cold water but what if the water boiled and turned into steam? And offered resistance? And created oxygen bubbles? Did they stop right? Elementary physics ok!! The graphite moderators were in free fall not forced, Precisely in that section that the reactor increased dramatically in power? It was INTENTIONAL! The reasons? We don't know? Duga-3 which sank the enormous expenses incurred for a radar that was worth as much as an amateur CB I don't know? The contracts for the 5-6 never came to fruition due to lack of funds due to the greediness of the responsible people afflicted by corruption. The project was for six nuclear reactors allocated the funds in the contract estimate did not reach the fourth, the 5th was partially built and that's where the funds ended up. This is my opinion. So why not create a problem that needed more funds? To get to 5 and 6 and live another 20 years at the state's expense? And make the workers and their families work for another 20 years in Pripyat? They created the problem! Like all workers in multinationals do. But not knowing that it was nuclear radiation, the problem got out of hand. The Russians have been like this all their lives: they plan highways, they asphalt a kilometer and then tear it down overnight and redo it the next day, so the works constantly need funding for a long time. All the Soviet republics function this way, salaries are low and the works have to be extended as long as possible to put bread on the table. So these are not malicious intentions but a system to survive in an autocratic and despotic regime like Russia. Which unfortunately led to atrocious consequences. No one knows what happened to the 5 villages in Belarus covered by the first radioactive cloud on the day of the explosion? Is there no word on anything? I assume all the dead and the villages abandoned. The area is called Homyel'skaya. The cloud hit them immediately on the 27th. The wind carried thyroid cancer deaths to Belarus, the children of deformed children. I won't tell you about them. But keep quiet, Russia wasn't letting anything slip! Only 31 firefighters died in the Chernobyl disaster. The homeland comes before a single person.