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It's not just according to Elana - The sarcophagus is indeed disintegrating.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#The_need_for_future_repairs
Has anyone ever been to Pripyat (the Chernobyl ghost town)?
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It's not just according to Elana - The sarcophagus is indeed disintegrating.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#The_need_for_future_repairs
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aha, so there is a plan of action, leading to the dismantling of reactor 4. All interesting stuff. Saw a program recently about the fire incident at the Windscale plant in England... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windscale_fire close to Sellafield. (Where I have actually visited.)
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Part of the reason the area is so bad is because the reactor actually exploded, letting a huge radiation cloud out through fires and a destroyed radiation shield. The West didn't know about it until workers in Sweden discovered elevated radiation levels on their suits. This compared to Three-Mile Island, which was built right and was entirely contained.
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I recognised that picture in the first post as being from a book by Yann Arthus Bertrand called "Earth From The Air" or something like that... amazing place, and you can creep around a virtual Pripyat in Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare if you so desire! Funny how no other cities are named in that game but Pripyat is specifically mentioned, even in the title sequence. I wonder if that's because it's the only city on Earth with a population of zero? (hence nobody to offend)...
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Found another site that has some good photos from Pripyat, Chernobyl and the power station.
http://nikongear.com/Chernobyl/Chernobyl_1.php
http://nikongear.com/Chernobyl/Chernobyl_1.php
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Thanks. Those are some awesome shots. I'm surprised how trashed the place looks, but I'm sure people were in a haste to leave. I would hope it wasn't looted
.And that deterioration of the cement is fascinating. I never thought it would get to the point of collapsing buildings. If that continues, this place might get pretty dangerous. And it would sure make for a very eerie landscape in fifty years or so.
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Some of those are incredibly familiar - the makes of COD4 must have seen these pictures...
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Thanks. Those are some awesome shots. I'm surprised how trashed the place looks, but I'm sure people were in a haste to leave. I would hope it wasn't looted
It was. Police started shooting looters on sight after radioactive TVs appeared in the Kiev markets.
Eerie-er, you mean?
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Eerie-er, you mean?
Meh. We're talking about the difference between what you see in a "realistic" video game and the type of things you would see in a sci-fi movie that takes place 1000 years from now that doesn't have any hope of becoming a reality.
Yikes. That would be really scary. Did he see the radiation cloud? When I did my little report on it last year, they described a giant green glowing cloud drifting over the place.
EDIT: Anybody know what these streaks are? They look like blood or paint splatters, but white. And is that a solar plant or a hatchery of something?
I was just poking around there in Google Earth and it really is pretty creepy. And does anybody know if the actual town of Chernobyl is habitable? I didn't see any cars there.
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From Wiki:
The Chernobyl City and its surrounding suburbs are now home to nuclear scientists, maintenance officials for the Chernobyl Power Plant, Liquidation Officials, doctors, physicists, and most of all, radiation physicists. Although Pripyat, a neighboring city to Chernobyl remains unmaintained, Chernobyl has been renovated and is now home to more than 500 permanent residents, including visitors to the Zone of Alienation who stay at a local lodge in the Chernobyl suburbs.
and I read that some evacuees went back to their homes after the disaster.
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Yikes. Are the radiation levels that far down by now? The place really isn't that far from the plant, although it could just be down wind.
It was Soviet Russia. They weren't as open with their media as we are. There are pictures of after, but I would be that they tried hard to cover it up entirely.
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T'would seem so, and heck according to the site I posted earlier(http://nikongear.com/Chernobyl/Chernobyl_3.php) it is possible to have a tour around the station
That would be soooooo interesting to go around there if it is indeed safe as that photographer shows.
Wish there would some better close-in shots of the sarcophagus, and see exactly how the concrete is looking after all this time. From what I read, its all very dodgy at the moment.
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T'would seem so, and heck according to the site I posted earlier(http://nikongear.com/Chernobyl/Chernobyl_3.php) it is possible to have a tour around the station
That would be soooooo interesting to go around there if it is indeed safe as that photographer shows.
I would take any pictures though.... Handling a camera might not be the best idea. And Wiki says that Chernobyl is outside the really bad areas, and is in a so-called "periodic control" zone.
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As did the residents of Pripyat. Kiddofspeed tells that the residents, in the earliest stages of the blow-up, climbed on the tallest building in town to witness what was going on - and actually, many were on the roof seeing that very explosion when it happened.
They're not down enough - estimates are that around 2500, the area will be liveable again.
These folks are just stubborn - they go in there despite the danger, claiming it's better to die of radiation in a place you love than die homesick somewhere else. And for some reason, they claim to be completely healthy.
T'would seem so, and heck according to the site I posted earlier(http://nikongear.com/Chernobyl/Chernobyl_3.php) it is possible to have a tour around the station
That would be soooooo interesting to go around there if it is indeed safe as that photographer shows.
Wish there would some better close-in shots of the sarcophagus, and see exactly how the concrete is looking after all this time. From what I read, its all very dodgy at the moment.
Apparently 'The Zone' is safe enough for (short) visits, even with organized tours. It's just not safe enough for full-time living. And, of course - it's safe within the margins. The roads are safe enough - but take a few steps towards a car, old house, or even some woods, and your Geiger-meter should start ticking twice as fast. And, of course, never come close to odd hills - they might be contaminated burial sites.
That Kiddofspeed girl has a few photographs of rotting cars, with the Geiger-counter showing - when far away, it shows around 200 in that area (ten times the "safe" reading). When close up, the figures triple. They're like radiation-traps, apparently.
She also tells the tale of the forest near Pripyat. Apparently, it received such a large dose of radioactivity, that it even started to glow red at night, earning the name "Red Forest", until, for safety-reasons, it was completely buried below a meter of dirt. Not that it helped much - that place, along with the Pripyat graveyard and a few "hotspot" buildings, are places which even protection-equipped scientists don't dare to enter.
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Most of the bad stuff went North, so I would assume the town is down to reasonably safe levels for shorter periods of time.
Yeah. Metal has a habit of picking up radiation. If I went there, I would be avoiding all things metal at all costs.
That forest sounds pretty interesting. Radiation is fascinating stuff. I find it hard to believe that the wildlife there would have been unaffected. I also heard reports of people going out to hunt 3-eyed bears and things. But I guess in the end it was a good thing that the Soviets built most of their buildings as boring blocks of cement. I wouldn't want to go near the place if it was all steel and glass like more modern buildings.
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Many of the smaller, countryside-buildings contain wood, which is to radioactivity what a sponge is to water. Wouldn't touch those either.
It amazes me though - animals actually flourish in that environment, having no human opponents. Though it doesn't surprise me that they're existent - apparently it takes twice the radiation to kill a chicken than it takes to kill a human - and cockroaches are a hundred times more resistant.
And sightings of freaky mutations haven't been photographed, and zoologists claim they're just rumors - apart from a higher percentage of albino swallows, apparently (!!!).
It amazes me though - animals actually flourish in that environment, having no human opponents. Though it doesn't surprise me that they're existent - apparently it takes twice the radiation to kill a chicken than it takes to kill a human - and cockroaches are a hundred times more resistant.
And sightings of freaky mutations haven't been photographed, and zoologists claim they're just rumors - apart from a higher percentage of albino swallows, apparently (!!!).
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How does wood hold up in the stuff? I would imagine it would be pretty eaten away because of the radiation and normal rot.
It really is amazing how much of an impact we have on the natural world. But I wonder if something about the radiation makes the animals fare better. There seem to be a lot of well developed trees in the area that probably weren't there before.
McLaren
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Not exactly. See below.
Although this is true to a degree, all the workers are actually taken by train to a town somewhere nearby. According to the policy, the workers must live in that town. If they refuse, they lose their jobs.
The evacuees that returned are mainly elderly folks.
The radiation levels are not low everywhere. The amusement park, factory, & now, many of the buildings' interiors are being discovered at pretty unstable levels.
There is rare footage of the 200+ buses that evacuated all the citizens. Search Youtube for either Pripyat or Chernobyl, Last Day.
There are supposed to be pictures of a model of reactor 4. There are pictures of the outside of sarcophagus, but there will be a new one. Afterwards, there old one will be torn down.T'would seem so, and heck according to the site I posted earlier(http://nikongear.com/Chernobyl/Chernobyl_3.php) it is possible to have a tour around the station
That would be soooooo interesting to go around there if it is indeed safe as that photographer shows.
Wish there would some better close-in shots of the sarcophagus, and see exactly how the concrete is looking after all this time. From what I read, its all very dodgy at the moment.
BTW, that tour does not happen anymore. The fellow actually got extremely rare permission to enter the factory. Anyone else does not have a good chance as most the workers are not even allowed for 10 minutes near the reactor.
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It all shows how dangerous something as simple as radiation can be.
Keef
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It's simple I suppose, and you can't avoid it unless you have a detector. You wouldn't even be able to feel anything but you'd find out that you've only got a few more weeks to live. It'd be so easy to just say "nah, it won't do anything" because you can't see it or feel it or anything.
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Simple? I think it really shows that we shouldn't play around with the stuff without the necessary precautions.
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The radiation sickness, everyone suffers it if the human body is exposured to a LOT of radiation in a short time. If its over a long time the following symptoms build up very slowly:
After an hour, if your body is heavily polluted with radiation you begin to vomit (with blood), you skin peels off slowly and turns red, white foam builds up at your mouth and blisters grow all over your skin, you will start to bleed internally and you may loose your eyesight too. - Hardly what I call ''cant feeling it''. In other words, you get fried alive.
That happend to people several miles away from the reactor getting in contact or inhalating the radioactive dust.
That also happened to crew members of a russian nuclear-driven submarine repairing a running and leaking reactor. Crewmembers which survived the fail of the reactor said that they saw a purple glowing circle at the top of the reactor while they repaired it. - 2 feet away from their bodies.
Interestingly a lot people survived mentioned symptoms.
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The firemen who came to extinguish the fire at the plant were fried alive within seconds of entering the scene. Even now, nobody dares to touch the fire-extinguisher cars that were present - they're among the most radiation-polluted things in the whole area, barring the actual reactor.
And apparently, the helicopter pilots who dropped sand, lead and water on the fire (burning Magnesium doesn't stop burning easily) died just a few weeks after the fire - the last one, apparently, died not long ago, after battling Leukemia throughout his life.
And apparently, the helicopter pilots who dropped sand, lead and water on the fire (burning Magnesium doesn't stop burning easily) died just a few weeks after the fire - the last one, apparently, died not long ago, after battling Leukemia throughout his life.
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It almost seems like they were the lucky ones. I know I would rather have than than live for a few years after suffering through cancer every day.
I'm sure that a good portion of the people involved in the cleanup were dead not long after the blast. Radiation is bad stuff and there was a lot of it there.
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