13:48 It's easy to miss, but the helicopter did not fall because of the radiation. The blades got caught in the crane's cable. The pilot was probably blinded by the smoke.
And it happened in October during the cleanup, not in April. The pilots had no visibility and were being guided mostly by radio, but the radiation was still extensive enough to interfere with the radio signals. Much like if you tune between stations now, some of the static you hear is actually remnant cosmic radiation from the Big Bang.
@@GeraldH-ln4dv Nah, you can actually watch the video on youtube. View range was fine. What they think happened was the pilot was suffering from some radiation sickness and became disoriented and let the helicopter drift till the blades found the cable
@@panzerwolf494 Nah. That is not what I've read about the incident. At that point in the cleanup, by October, the radiation capable of entering the cockpit of a helicopter, through metal or even glass, not enough to cause the disorientation related to acute radiation syndrome. The major initial radionuclides released in the explosion, cesium-137 and strontium-90, were covered by the mix that they used to put out the fire. The rest of those two were spread over what is now the Exclusion Zone and much further by winds. Also covered by the fire dampening were the major components left of the core, u-238 and 239 plus np-237 from their decay mode and neutron capture and a small amount of pu-238 from the irradiation of np-237 over the three years since Reactor #4 came online. Other radionuclides present in the core are not significant. The third largest release after cesium and strontium was iodine-137 and it has a half-life of just 8 days. It was almost entirely decayed away by October. So that just leaves the relatively small amount of the radionuclides exposed enough to have any effect on a pilot in a helicopter. Most of what was left exposed have beta- or beta+ decay modes. Beta radiation cannot penetrate metal. Alpha radiation cannot penetrate a sheet of paper. Only gamma radiation can get to a pilot in a helicopter, but there weren't anywhere near enough gamma decay mode radionuclides left exposed by then for that to happen.
@@GeraldH-ln4dvWell, that’s incorrect about it being in October. Here’s an entire article from 1996 and see the section on Contaminated Helicopters which is at the end of the article. According to a 1996 article, the helicopter crash happened within the first two weeks of the disaster. Here is the entire content of the article from FlightGlobal: Operation Chernobyl 30 July 1996 Ten years ago, helicopters played a major part in preventing greater catastrophe at a nuclear reactor in Chernobyl. Tony Booth/MINSK ON 26 APRIL, 1986, the number four reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, began to melt down after a turbogenerator experiment went wrong. A sudden power surge caused the graphite core to burn fiercely - threatening to ignite the neighbouring number three reactor. A similar graphite fire had occurred at the Windscale nuclear-power station in the UK in 1957, but that fire was quenched by a massive wave of water. This option was not possible at Chernobyl because not enough water could be pumped into the reactor core - and too little would cause an even greater catastrophe. The decision was taken, within 36h of the accident, to employ helicopters to drop a mixture of sand, lead, clay and boron directly on to the exposed reactor core. The boron was to absorb the neutrons in the core and prevent the fire from re-igniting, and the lead was to stem the flow of radiation which was shooting 3,000ft (900m) into the sky. The sand, dolomite and clay were used to bind the mixture together. Soviet air force and civilian helicopters from as far afield as Siberia, more than 3,000km (1,600nm) away, were scrambled in an effort to seal the cracked reactor. Five Mil helicopter types were used for the clean-up operation: the Mi-2 (Hoplite), Mi-6 (Hook), Mi-8 (Hip), the combat Mi-24R (Hind) and the heavylift Mi-26 (Halo). They were also used to provide liaison capabilities, for humanitarian missions and to drop supplies to the thousands of "liquidators" on the ground, assisting in the clean-up operation and preventing the fire and radiation from spreading The versatile Polish-built Mi-2 light-utility helicopter fulfilled one of its military roles as a reconnaissance aircraft when used to measure radiation levels some distance from the main reactor. It was also used for messenger liaison, but was not flown in the reactor area until radiation levels had significantly diminished. The 42,500kg Mi-6 heavylift helicopter, with its payload capability of 12,000kg was used to drop sand, lead and boron on to the cracked reactor. Debris, smoke and the reactor chimney all posed hazards for the pilots trying to reach the drop site. They were assisted by ground controllers who timed their approach paths and instructed the crews on exactly when to drop their loads. Military Mi-8s were used to lower supplies to ground workers. Later, fitted with external spray systems, they helped drop a bonding mixture over the reactor area to prevent contaminated dirt from spreading. Aeroflot-supplied versions executed precise drops of the chemical in bulk form, using their own pilots who were trained for Arctic oil-pipe laying and fire-fighting control in the former Soviet Union. The Mi-8's four-axis autopilot gives it added yaw, pitch and roll stabilisation under any flight conditions. This made it ideal for precision flying close to the exploded reactor. The Mi-24R had been designed for nuclear, biological and chemical warfare, and was first identified by the West through its missions at Chernobyl. Col Etuev Vassilivich says: "The Mi-24R is specially designed for this kind of deployment. The nose-mounted machine gun can be replaced by a highly accurate dosimeter [radiation monitor], which is a standard variant on this type of combat helicopter. These Mi-24 variants were then used to assess radiation levels, take ground samples and find the safe paths needed to lead civilians out of the area." The bulk of work at Chernobyl was carried out by Mi-26s, as only they could withstand the tremendous heat and radiation above the exposed reactor core for any length of time. All drop missions were monitored by closed-circuit cameras, standard equipment in this type, allowing the pilot to observe the target and slung payloads on a television screen. This equipment gave the Mi-26 the edge over the Mi-6, as the former could be hovered over the crater for longer, executing drop loads with a 100% success rate. The Mi-6s could not hover and loads had to be dropped at speeds of about 110kt [60km/h] over the reactor. The Mi-6 crews had only a couple of seconds to complete their drop missions - achieving a success rate of about 50%. *Radiation dose* Vassilivich flew from 27 April until 1 May, by which time he had received his permitted radiation dose. This, for all helicopter crews, was 25 roentgens in three days. Once at this level, crews were never allowed to fly over Chernobyl again. "There were 30 Mi-26s altogether, seven from my unit," says Vassilivich, "and between sunrise and sunset we flew missions from a sector 15km from the reactor. We could not fly at night as it was too dangerous going so close to the rector without adequate light." On the first day, crews dropped sand through the open door of the helicopter, one sack at a time, but then technicians developed a way of using containers attached to small brake parachutes to make the job more effective. The new containers were dropped from a specially mounted quick-release mechanism from a height of 1,650-2,000ft. Up to eight sacks at a time were then able to be dropped from a net slung beneath the helicopter. On the first day of operations, 96 missions were flown. On day two, this number had almost doubled, to 186. The Mi-26 can carry an internal or external maximum payload of 20,000kg - but only about 2,000-3,000kg could be dropped at a time. A full payload dropped from a safe hovering position would have further damaged the crippled reactor and run the risk of more leakage. The full crew on the first missions of two pilots, flight engineer and navigator was soon cut to two pilots and the flight engineer. The other crew members were quickly considered unnecessary for these types of missions. From 28 April, Mi-26 crews were instructed to also drop lead on the open reactor. This was first delivered as pellets and shrapnel and later as heavy sheets. The crews first used some of the lead to cover the flooring in their helicopters - thus cutting down their own exposure levels by two and a half times. Col Oleg Chichcov (now retired) was serving as an Mi-26 instructor in Siberia when the disaster happened. By 3 May, 1986, he had trained ten new crews for Mi-26 operations over Chernobyl, hand-picked from existing Mi-6 personnel. Chichcov says: "The problem was not training the Mi-6 crews to fly the Mi-26, as it is a relatively easy conversion, only taking 4h flying time, but it was harder training crews to deal with its external payload capabilities." He arrived near Chernobyl on 4 May. Chichcov adds: "Helicopters were flying from four or five sites at different safe distances around the reactor. At least ten Aeroflot Mi-8s flew from my base which was further back than the others." The Mi-8s were loaded with many litres of the bonding agent to douse the whole Chernobyl site after the military helicopters had covered the reactor with their payloads. So much was needed that a specially constructed railway was laid from the main track to the improvised base. This enabled the substance to be piped straight into tankers and then directly into the Aeroflot Mi-8s. In all the dangerous missions flown in those critical two weeks, only one helicopter was lost. Chichcov recalls: "There were very large cranes around the reactor, and when the blast occurred some of them were swinging free. I was assigned a mission to fly over this area, but I refused to do so until the cranes were fixed." The crew that relieved Chichcov agreed to take the mission. Unfortunately, it took the helicopter too close. The wind carried the crane and - coming out of the Sun - the crew did not see its arm swing into them. The arm clipped the machine's main rotor. It shattered, killing all the crew instantly when the helicopter hit the ground. *Contaminated helicopters* Helicopters were washed down at the end of each day's operations, but large amounts of radioactive debris had been sucked into the engines. In addition, the undersides of each machine became highly contaminated. Vassilivich says: "Some of the first helicopters used were grounded on 1-2 May and in just those two days the grass around them had turned yellow from the radiation from the aircraft." By the time the main clean-up operations ended, on 13 May, 1986, more than 5,000t of mixture had been dropped on to the reactor. A fire-fighting tactic which had never been used before was pronounced successful to the world's press in Vienna on 13 May , but helicopters continued to be flown on missions over Chernobyl until the end of 1986. All machinery and vehicles used in those crucial two weeks were dumped in purpose-built machine graveyards to await destruction and burial, as they were considered to be too contaminated for continued use. Helicopters were no exception. The Air Force Ministry in Belarus claims that, since 1986, every machine used has now been destroyed and buried as radiation damage caused to the engines and lower fuselages deemed them unfit to ever be flown again. _Source: Flight International_
Officer in question was the General in charge of the Russian nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare branch of the Army. He later said he made the decision to do it himself because he knew that if he sent in someone lower in rank and the powers to be didn't like their readings, they would be ignored. If he did it, his answers could not just be swept under the rug and ignored.
I heard that since this show was made too many people were going there and messing with it (taking souvenirs... brilliant!). They filled the room with sand to prevent that.
Due to the wind direction, the Swedish nuclear powerplant recording high radiation was Forsmark 120 km north of Stockholm. For several years it was recommended not to eat berries, mushroom, fish and game from a large area in mid-Sweden. It's still recommended not to eat wild boar because they dig in the ground to find their food, thus carrying high cesium levels. By the way, you will have to wait til ep 5 for the explanations, and I recommend paper tissues for ep 4 😭.
The quality of the acting is phenomenal. Jared Harris was brilliant in "The Crown" as Elizabeth's father. Stellan Skaarsgard is amazing in "Andor". You could not have cast this better.
If there was anything GOOD that happened, it was the sick galvanization of Poland, Sweden, etc that THEY were clearly being subjected to the Soviet sins by air-flow, and thus achieved some moral authority in their complaints. "No man is an island" arguments were squashed under "we're all on this Big Blue Marble together" realizations, which should have always been apparent with various "Little Ice Ages" following giant volcanic eruptions and atmospheric 'adjustments' in one place affected so many others.
I get that it's cool to hate the Russians these days, but in there defence they had no reason to trust the "West." Also they more or less had it covered anyway and where they didn't, they did eventually accept outside help. So this comment is just not true.
Yes, they were too concerned about protecting their nuclear technology from the West. Like we'd want it? It likely had something to do with the massive Duga radar (aka- "Woodpecker") located very nearby. Never mind that we already knew about it. I think Gorbachev (in the show, not the man) said it best "Our power comes from the perception of our power!" Which I translate to mean "We must keep up appearances!"
@@IgoZoom1 I remember seeing a few months ago China revealing they had ''discovered'' how to make things invisible. They had a giant press release and simply showed this technology for refracting light that the rest of the world has known about for decades. Communism is so hilarious.
@@IgoZoom1They would be embarrassed if they accepted something like that. The United States also refused the Soviet Union's assistance. If the same incident happened in the United States Remember the two countries are in a cold war
This series is a rough - but ultimately satisfying - watch. I look forward to watching along with you on this devastating/gratifying journey. So many heroes. So many hardships.
With radioactive exposure, the immediate danger starts at its highest and then goes down very quickly. The atoms that produce the strongest radiation release it the fastest. Getting people protected from radioactive dust needs to be done as quickly as possible. At the very least "stay indoors and keep all windows shut". The first hour and the first day are what matters the most. After two days, the dust is still very nasty stuff, but what you've been exposed to before that was on a completely different scale. Immediate warning to stay inside and evacuating the next morning would have made a massive difference in radiation exposure for the people nearby.
I'd say if you go outside after two days, you'd better have a dosimeter handy, one that reads gamma radiation. And protective shielded clothing to handle beta. Alpha is not dangerous, will be stopped by skin and paper, unless you breathe it in or digest it. Then it's 20 times as dangerous as gamma. There are still hotspots near Chernobyl your dosimeter will warn you not to get too close (distance and time are key factors). Hundreds of orc invaders got sick with acute radiation sickness for digging trenches near Chernobyl, one of which died. That was in 2022, 36 years later. Where the nasty stuff had undergone at least one halflife cycle. Also, read up on Kramatorsk radiological accident, involving caesium-137. Truly nasty stuff with a problematic half life, think the part in question measured only something like Ø9mm x 6mm thick - tiny watch battery in size basically. Lost, and ended up being mixed in with the concrete used to erect the building.
In this episode, there were a few things the makers of the show changed for various reasons. For one thing, the character who said that they should close off the city in the first episode and is evacuated in this one, did not exist...he was added for dramatic purposes. Also, the helicopter crash did not happen so soon after the explosion...it really happened months later in October, 1986, and had little to do with radiation. As I mentioned in my comment to episode 1, once you are done with the series, the History vs Hollywood article on the show is a must read.
The Geiger Counter scene at the end of this episode was so spooky. I expected chatter from the radiation, but the devices screaming their terrible static noise was just awful.
What's so terrifying is that the ionizing radiation must have perforated the material separating the anode and cathode in the battery, causing the batteries' destruction. What is it doing to the divers? And although it is never addressed (probably because of dramatic limitations), It is safe to assume that the electronics in the radiation counters would eventually also be destroyed and they would stop working. What's worse, overpowering counter noise or silence? Fun fact: Each little tick of the counter is made by a particle hitting the counter tube. The fact that it has become a deafening sea of white noise is horrible.
@@kinokind293 All 3 workers survived for decades and died fairly recently. The water (and their suits) actually protected them from most of the radiation.
The phrase "we are dealing with something that has never happened on this planet before" is so chilling, a man made doomsday that's leaking out and they have no easy solution on stopping it and the clock is ticking.
When someone starts talking about how bad something is and they start using words like “entire continent” and “never happened on this planet before” take a moment to clear the doodie out of your pants, then run.
@@enderswolf NAAAHHHHH, fk that, if I hear that kinda stuff I am running with the loaded pants. That can be dealt with later, rare cancers or decomposing while you are still alive cannot. Medical problems as a result of radiation can be mitigated if you remember keeping 3 factors as low as possible and those variables when used in tandem can determine the dosage you got. Distance from source, Amount of radiation released by the source, as well as time exposed. Keep all those to minimum and you have amore favorable outcome. If I book it immediately I am much more likely to live, a few seconds matter, especially the stronger the dose. Though to be fair when the scale is continental the odds you will be completely fine are slimmer but the further you are away the less affected so either way, I'll take a shower when I get overseas, I'll even sit the whole ass flight like that if it means avoiding the worst of it.
_Technically_ there has been a nuclear reactor open to the elements. About 1.7 billion years ago there was a natural nuclear fission reactor in present-day Gabon. It would have been under ground, though, and covered in water rather than above ground and open to the air. So a similar situation, but not the same, and not since around the time fungi first evolved on Earth.
@@StarkRG ^This is true, though this is the first time a man made fission reactor exploded and was piping radiation into the atmosphere, that is more what he was going for I think lol. Though it wasn't even the first reactor explosion, in '61 the SL-1 reactor in Idaho exploded when the operator pulled the largest central control rod out of the 5 rod reactor and resulted in the deaths of the 2 nearby and causing the operator to be killed and literally nailed to the ceiling by the control rod.
The bit near the end with the Geiger counter crackling away like that was added in for dramatic effect to basically give the viewer the sense of doom the men going into the facility probably felt. After watching a few nuclear engineers/physicists react to the show, there's some details here and there they pointed out that were exaggerated for drama.
@@VerowakReacts Exactly! Oscar worthy performances! And then theres also the heavy and eerie feeling ontop of everything due to the fact that it actually happened. I remember my mom mentioned that she kept me inside the home when the radiation was detected in sweden 😦
Hello there! This is my fav episode! Ulana Khomyuk's speech gives me a goosebumps everytime! Also other desk conversations of state was great! By the way I would like to tell that It's so beautiful thing that experiencing your reactions, priceless mimics like you are actually a known person to me in time. Also cruel that you dont see our reactions while watching you. So we all have to accept the rules of the distance and circumstances right? :) All I can do is that giving a one big like and sending you my best regards
She is such a great character!! I want to see more of her, it's gripping to hear whatever she has to say. I just want to tell you that I absolutely appreciate and love your comments. It makes me happy to know that you enjoy them, I just like being able to make other's day better, no matter how small it is 🥰
I was 5 when this happened, living in west germany. And i have a very distant memory about that time when we were not allowed to play outside, my parants watching scary news on Tv all day and how my father had to throw out all the Sand in our gardens sandbox.
@@VerowakReacts True and kids, even that young realise more than we might think. I remember these "cold-war" times as kinda scary, picking up this and that like threat of possible nuclear war from News my parents watched or secretly watching the movie "The Day After" in the late 80s from behind the couch with my brother when we were supposed to be in bed. Anyways, HBO's "Chernobyl" is a great show and i cant wait for your reactions to the rest of the episodes. Love your reactions.
This show is not entirely accurate. Some things have been exagerrated for dramatic purpose, so please don't take it for face value. It's not a documentary, it's entertainment.
To make the situation for the divers even more terrifying, in reality they didn't even bother giving them flashlights as they knew the lights would be destroyed in minutes of them entering. Those 3 brave souls had to find their way in total darkness, directed only by the pipes and their own memory.
19:55 As reference ln the Soviet Union. Minimum salary 70 rubel per month . The factory worker's salary is 150 rubel per month. The salary of doctors and scientists is 200 rubel per month. The salary of the factory director and mayor was 300 rubel per month. And the highest is the president's (general secretary) salary of 800 rubel per month. This low salary is because Soviet very much have Lots subsidized like = Free house , Free health care, Free education up to college ,free child care, Paid maternity leave, Pay parental leave.Large subsidies on public transport and bread .
Just for your information, a total body exposure of about 400 roentgens is considered a lethal dose (LD50 - the dose of radiation that causes death in half of patients)
When this catastrophe happen when i was 7. I was living in Belgium at that time and i remember that for several days we didnt have school and we cant even playout side.
There have been some crazy deaths from radiation like Louis Slotin who was doing an experiment with the “demon core” and had a mistake which gave him a lethal dose of radiation, he died 9 days later. He was a member of the Manhattan Project. There was a guy in Japan who got hit with I believe 4 times the lethal amount and they kept him alive as long as possible due to his families wishes. It was really disturbing what all they did to keep him alive instead of just letting him die which made him suffer longer.
a fun bit - in Pennsy US. 1979 > A reactor had a problem. , maybe a week after the movie ' China syndrome' came out that was a kinda parallel theme I know like none of the tech details but the timing was interesting
The general who did it himself was a WWII hero who never put his men in a situation he wouldn't want to deal with.. The three workers have the right names of the workers (the general, too) The lights really did go out on them due to the batteries being destroyed by the radiation. I look forward to seeing your reaction to Episode 5's epilog.
Dyatlov was made a scapegoat. He could be a tricky and difficult person to work with, but he was not a reckless idiot like they depicted him to be in this drama. He was given more responsibility than he wanted and was placed in an awkward situation with responsibility and manpower even before the day of the test accident.
Apparently it was not his first accident. He had been irradiated at an incident at another reactor and had lost a child, possibly due to the contamination. In my opinion he definitely was at fault but he did what he did because the Soviet system created conditions that would push people into doing jobs when they were told to even if they knew it was unsafe. It took exceptional people to rbuck the system.
@@MH-jx1hc That was a submarine reactor (ref wiki). Received dose on that event was 100 Rem (1.0 Sv) and caused mild acute radiation sickness. Received dose in Chernobyl was 650 Rem (6.5 Sv, 50% dead after 30 days - he was in the other 50%). 1 Rem is approx 1 Roentgen, so when he says "I've seen worse" he's referring to his own accident, and fully believing they're only measuring 3.6 Roentgen (3.6% of his previous experience). Never heard his submarine accident in relation to his kid who died of leukemia. "The last interview with Dyatlov", found on youtube, leaves an impression of a highly competent man, even if the rumors of him being hard to work with are true. I don't see a problem exaggerating personal traits for the sake of dramatization in order to engage the audience, but the ending prologue *should* have stated this. Also, the way "thermal explosion" is described, makes it sound like we're talking about a thermonuclear explosion rather than a steam explosion. Megaton range? That's larger than any fission bomb ever made, with fuel not of military grade? Flattening an area of 30km radius? Disappointing. I find it hard to believe the scientists her character represented would use that kind of wording. Which is an unfortunate choice in the show, as at leaves the impression that nuclear power plants are unsafe to this level.
Chernobyl was Dyatlov`s 2nd nuclear accident, the 1st was on a nuclear sub the radiation killed his son(Leukaemia)... and with how the soviet world works was Chernobyl revenge ??
@@kylereese4822 Leukemia? Yes. Related? Very likely not. Why automatically assume causation when many kids died from Leukemia since long before this? Also, there is nothing known about the sub accident. If it was a criticality accident, there is no radioactive dust to bring home. He was exposed to 100 Rem causing mild acute radiation sickness, but somehow exposed son to more? It's not a contagious disease. Revenge? Are you even serious right now? Or everything has to be a conspiracy? Yikes, what a mindset!
Protagonist - hero - focaliser - main character. Four words with drastically different meanings, and people almost always get them wrong... same for antagonist, anti-hero and villain. A good example is "Star Wars - Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords", where the main character is the hero and the antagonist while the villain is the protagonist and the focaliser position changes between them, while most of the rest of the main cast are anti-heroes to varying degrees.
Just fyi, since not everyone notices: the helicopter that crashed hit the cable of the big crane. You see the cable getting cut and the hook falling, but it’s easy to miss and instead assume the helicopter was somehow “torn apart” by the radiation, but it simply hit something and crashed. There’s real footage of the crash from back then; the series matched it well. Terrible either way.
Honestly, at this point in the show, everyone’s on the ‘Boris Scherbina hate train’. Skaarsgard plays his roles so damn well. Edit: Originally posted when you heard him say he didn’t need the professor.
I think most people misinterpret when Toptunov (?) said "But we didn't [do everything right]", I see most take it to mean he knows something we don't, but I've always interpreted that line to mean " _evidently_ we didn't do everything right, otherwise we wouldn't be in this situation".
A pretty consistent part of nuclear accidents is responders not believing the readings on their dosimeters. It's one of the dangers of nuclear reactions' invisible damage--rational assessment of the danger runs up against what I guess you'd have to call hope.
12:30 - two innocuous people at the bar, just asking a few questions, right? This entire show is a fantastic glimpse into the culture of Soviet secrecy, fear and control.
I think this show, especially this episode, is the best thing to be on TV since “Breaking Bad”. The surprising thing for me is, both “Chernobyl” and “Breaking Bad” are shows on subject matters I would not typically be drawn to: Soviet nuclear power and illegal drugs. Yet, in both cases, I was so drawn into the story, I was totally emotionally impacted at the end of each episode. Now that’s good TV.
The fireman's wife was ignorant and driven. Reminds me of a saying that stupid and highly motivated people are dangerous because there is no end of the mischief they can get up to.
I grew up in Moldavian SSR, neighboring Ukraine. My mother has an enlarged thyroid that need surgery. I just reconnected with my school buddy who still lives in Moldova, his mother has an enlarged thyroid she just had surgery done on. Curious, isn't it.
Originally helicopters had to fly directly over the core and a man in back would open the door and push bags of sand and boron out. Then one guy realized they could load it in parachutes slung under the helicopters and just cut them loose over the building and cut the time they had to be over the core remarkably short. Even some of the experts and townspeople joined in loading the helicopters since the sand was already there, the Pripyat river already being a sandy area
Fukushima was pretty scary as well.. I read at some point that if it went full meltdown, Tokyo would be uninhabitable due to radiation. This is horror movie shit and we live in it.
I was 10 or 11 when this happened. In Canada, I remember them mentioning this and it was slowly more and more serious (as far as what was known) I actually remember the Challenger explosion that same year being talked about a lot more. Partly because I saw it live (our teacher wheeled in a TV which was EXTREMELY rare back then) and also because the teacher cried when it happened (which was the first time I saw an adult cry) I do remember how a science teacher told me how the accident shows how bogus the "duck and cover" drills were (like hiding under a table would help if a nuclear bomb goes off)
Unfortunately, Chernobyl was not the first time something like this happened. Chernobyl was simply one of the worst events, but it was still one of many. You can get an E-book called Meltdown which tells about all the radioactive accidents from 1945 to the present day.
That was a heartbreaking 💔 situation for all involved and further more it killed a whole area of our planet. Poison ☠️ radiation ☢️ sickness is no joke. Usually ends in death.
The thing is that the CPSU had become part of the government bureaucracy, and was almost entirely tied up in the work of the state, which was the industrial and economic development of the country. Because very little of the economy was private sector, there was no official separation between politics and the functioning of the economy. The CPSU didn't just have an industrial policy, it was its industrial policy. The primary consideration for everyone to advance within the system was political loyalty: loyalty to their immediate superiors, and loyalty to the party as a whole. But second to that was competence in helping grow the economy, and further develop the USSR's productive capacities, using the central planning system. So it was extremely difficult for people to think outside the box of just increasing production as fast as possible, even though they gave lip service to all sorts of high minded objectives in terms of social welfare, health and safety, environmental protection, high culture, civic beautification and so on. That was all secondary to and dependent on the urgent necessity of developing and modernizing the country. It wasn't that they didn't mean all that - millions of party members were working voluntarily and part time on such work, and organising public campaigns to help with building public parks, cleaning up pollution, repairing historic buildings and churches, building clinics and creches and so on. The official unions did a lot of that work, with funding coming out of the budgets of the big industrial concerns. But for plant managers and apparatchiks in the industrial ministries, all the incentives were based on production, and that led to increasing amounts of corner-cutting and lying about their numbers to ensure that they met their official output targets and secured as much of the available national investments funds as possible, even if they weren't actually re-tooling or developing new product lines with it but were just using it for general costs. And without independent media or an independent judiciary, the only way to police everything, to deal with gross incompetence or corruption was the KGB, even though the KGB was also part of the system. But it was often the KGB where you could find conscientiousness and accurate information, rather than just the reciting of the propaganda. In a full employment system with strong employment protections, often the only way to get rid of dead wood and promote younger talent, was through a political purge conducted by the KGB, and that became harder to do after Krushchev's reforms, with the shrinking of the prison system and stronger emphasis on continuity and not interrupting production, especially under Brezhnev, which resulted in more cronyism and complacency in the higher ranks.
I have a vague recollection of seeing that helicopter accident on the news in the UK. It happened a few weeks later I believe, not that early. The rotor blades broke clipping the crane cables, that's why it went down, it wasn't because of radiation. I was in high school at the time iirc. A number of scenes in this show recreate scenes which were shown on the news.
I've actually had to have IV fluids put into me via my elbows back when I was in 8th grade since at the time I was down due to dehydration so I can say from experience it's a nervous experience. Series recommendation are parks and recreation followed by Bleach and Bleach thousand year blood war
As for "what if" question, well, the scientists were in totally uncharted territory, but the most familiar part of it for them was Soviet Union itself. They knew they were in between radioactive rock and a very hard place, and they needed to handle both the disaster and the politicians with utmost care, mitigate the former and placate the latter. Truth (which is one of main motifs of this show) had no value in USSR and they weren't giving it to politicians - so it's hard to say how much they colored the thermonuclear explosion size and danger and the probability of the event itself. But there's no doubt it would make already bad situation worse. Chernobyl disaster in its "milder" form was already a cause of Warsaw Pact dissolution and USSR's downfall five years later, so it's safe to say, more violent disaster would make that political change much more violent and chaotic. It is likely in my personal opinion that the explosion would be much smaller than described, and its death toll would be lower by several magnitudes - but the death toll of global crisis it would start could match or even exceed the scientist's predictions for the explosion. All in all, there's only one thing I can say with near certainty: I wouldn't be alive to write this comment :P
I was 20 when this happened. And at the information was never forthcoming from the Soviets. For years all we had was our military satellite photo and one very grainy black and white photo smuggled out of Ukraine. It was of the blast hole in the roof of the building, it is actually recreated in Legasov and Shcherbina's helicopter flight over the plant. but it gives you no sense of scale, so you couldn't tell how extensive the disaster really was. It wasn't until 1990 when the Soviet Union crumbled that any real and meaningful information actually made it to the west.
Trust me, it's worse knowing exactly what happened. I haven't seen the series, but I've seen a lot of videos explaining the disaster and the physics behind it, and I've also seen videos from scientists who have visited the zone and who worked in the zone and in the reactor. When I tried to watch the series, I actually felt sick after watching the first episode, and couldn't watch any more, so this is the furthest I've made it. We'll see how far I make it through your reactions, since I can't be sure we're through the worst of it.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."- Upton Sinclair Now, switch the word "salary" for "life", and that quote explains quite a lot of some characters' actions and reactions in this show. It's a tough watch for us Westerners who have no idea what it's like to live in a totalitarian state like the USSR.
I lived in rural England. For years afterwards they used to bring children over form Ukraine and Belarus for holidays so their bodies would be away from the radiation risk for a short while and they could recover a bit. Local families would volunteer to host them. Even in the UK it had an effect. It is estimated that up to 200 children in the UK may have died before their first birthdays because of contamination drifting over.
As I predicted from Ep 1, I was getting more angry as each part of this tale proceeded. "Would I continue?" Yes. Rewatching these makes me re-angered, too.
@@VerowakReacts I heard this was being produced for a couple of years before being released and predicted I'd not only watch it but be angered. Yep! I hope you have some gut-girding anger-level expectations (and expectations). After the final episode's bile levels dissipated, I was surprised that I did go back and immediately rewatch it for specific details (I had made a list), only to be re-angered all over again. ha ha... in the following year, 'all of the boo-birds' indeed came out of their cesspools to bitch and complain. And almost all were valueless to the truthful telling of the tale. "The number of lives" remains a complete mystery - thanks only to putin/soviet-era mindset.
Haha, curious how your opinion of Boris looks like towards the end. :D 8:17 Climate change in a nutshell. :( 13:00 The people at the bar were secret service men, the ones who follow him later in the park. So it was not really willingly said that. 19:31 If completely unchecked, Chernobyl could've made most of Europe and Asia potentially uninhabitable and the wind could've carried irradiated particles even further to other continents of the world. It would've been a global catastrophe. If you want a few more good show recommendations, assuming you haven't seen them yet: The Boys (+Gen V season 1 between season 3 & 4), Fallout, Silo, Arcane, Attack on Titan (subbed)
13:07 "he willingly told people...." Wellcome to communism (or any other totalitarian system). He told them exactly what he could. Every bad decision made in this series (there is a lot of them) must be understood from the knowledge that they are all made by people BORN in a system that has "the system" as the number one priority. You play the (rotten) game or you don´t play at all. The radiation just puts the stakes to the max, the catastrophe is the system.
12:40 He would have caused my panic, which would have lead to his superiors to stop all cooperation. And of course all the Chaos, and it would be to late to help them any way with all the radiation. The "What if", first of all It would look very bad for Eastern Europe, Those European Countries that didn't had the least radiation, would experience a refugee crisis like never before. Food prices would sky rocket, because a lot of farm land would be lost. World Economics can only be described as Chaos. If you think Corona or The Russia-Ukrainan War had a impact on world economics, I believe this would be worse. And a lot more thinks I haven't thought about, would go rampant, possible new conflicts, this was in the later years of the Cold War perhaps this would have ended the USSR.
The lesson in this episode is not about the USSR or reactors or radiation but the reality of reality. All politicians declare what is reality. USSR was especially bad at this, but it happens in the US, UK, PRC, and everywhere else. Real reality wins in the end chomps the deniers in the tender nethers. The USSR decided that there was no danger and this could easily be cleaneduu up. The fallout ignored the politicians and drifted to independent sensors in other countries. And satellites kept passing overhead taking pictures whether the USSR approved or not. The government lies were completely exposed.
Oleksiy Ananenko, Valery Bezpalov and Boris Baranov were awarded the title Hero of Ukraine in 2019. ("Spoiler" for those three, I guess:) Baranov passed away in 2005, thus receiving it posthumously. Ananenko and Bezpalov were alive in 2019, but their current status is unknown, once again because of russian dictatorship.
if the volunteers failed and the heart of the soviet union's agriculture and industry went BOOM GOODBYE, it's likely we wouldn't now be today combatting a still struggling russia meddling in western domestic concerns (ie, no president trump and no brexit).
You wondering how different the world would be today if those tanks had been full and exploded. Likely very, at least in current times with what's happening in Ukraine right now; instead there would be no one there at all.
“What’s the point of having experts if you ignore everything they say” Welcome to the Soviet Union and its policy of Lodi g and sweeping problems under a rug to ignore them. Chernobyl was one of the major reasons to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
I precise, because the show is not totaly clear : The helicopter does not crash because of radiations, but because of its blades hit the crane Real footage : ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-zuNtgYtF4FI.html
Its good to say you are reacting to the series and not real life character because to make this show with good drama and easy for people to understand characters and people had to be changed. Some of the names are real but the show did not have the time to show the hundreds of people working on the Chernobyl issue. It was a huge team of scientists working on the issue not just one or two scientist from a university. They had to create characters to explain what was going on in the background. Great show regardless but as a student of history I really get why some nuclear experts have really complained about the series online and their reactions are good to explain what happened during the discovery and rectification of Chernobyl.
In Russian there is such a concept - “cranberry”. Actually, it's a swamp berry. But in recent decades, another meaning for cranberry has appeared - this is an implausible, ridiculous, exaggerated representation of Russians, the USSR, and Russia in Western films, TV series, and books. A 100% example of cranberries is the Russian cosmonaut in the movie Armageddon. This series is great, but it couldn’t do without cranberries either. This is, for example, threats to throw Professor Legasov, a respected member of Soviet society, who had just participated in a government meeting, out of a helicopter
you know this was real right? even that the dialogue can be in times invented (since nobody was recording what they say, or those KGB recordings are long gone) this was real right? its not fictional as you put in your videos. the dialogue can be invented but not the facts and the disaster itself.
@@VerowakReacts its ALL based on the real life documented issues the world knew at the time + all the data retrieved once the soviet union was dissolved and many classified stuff came out to the public. what is invented is the day to day dialogue between the characters. all the radiation data, the 40 bombs radiation level per day, deaths, exclusion zone etc is ALL real.
You’ve completely missed the point. Legasov isn't scared or reluctant to go to Chernobyl - it's his job, so the idea of that is completely irrelevant. The scene's intent is to highlight Scherbina’s arrogance and ego. He dislikes Legasov, likely because Legasov is a top nuclear scientist, which makes Scherbina feel inferior. As a result, Scherbina doesn't want Legasov to accompany him to the disaster area.
He knew that the reported reading is a significant threat to health with prolonged exposure and suspected that it was much higher. He almost certainly would have been scared to go their because he understood the health implications.
He was senior research scientist, a nuclear chemist. It really wasn't his chosen job to go into nuclear disaster zones and lead recovery operations. Not least because the Soviet Union's public position was that it never had disasters and and it's nuclear power program was totally safe. Unmentioned in the show, Dyatlov had already been heavily irradiated in a prior incident at a military reactor. It's hard to imagine that Legasov ever thought his interest in researching noble gas chemistry came hand in hand with living next to a split open reactor for many weeks.
@@VerowakReacts I don't know how much adults knew either. Finland was a lot closer, but in Canada, the seriousness of the accident was revealed pretty slowly from what I recall
Hi there, I'm from southern Germany and I was 11 when this desaster happened. I remember a little bit the news on TV. We heard german, british, american, swedish and other european experts talking and simply guessing around what exactly happened and what consequences might occur. The soviets simply didn't share any solid Information. So we were told not to play outside, not to eat fruit and veggies from our garden, no mushrooms from the woods, no venison and a few other Things. My parents were very concerned and we were careful even for years. They were measuring the radiation in the soil and water in our area for years. It was definitely increased as the "Chernobyl cloud" as They called it did affect southern Germany, and the neighboring countries I assume, pretty much. And parts of scandinavia indeed. I still remember the Info graphic and map of the news Show on TV. It scared me alot back then.
@@StefanLoferer That's about what I remember too. (The trickle of info I mean-not the "Chernobyl cloud"-Canada was too far away for that. However, it just shows how the world is interconnected. I don't know where Verowak lives exactly, but I saw the haze from the out of control fires a couple years ago, and that was a good distance away from me (there was a wild fire in Canada that took up A LOT of land) If that was a radioactive cloud that I could see, that would be REALLY scary! Only under God's Kingdom will we not have such things. Accidents like this, disasters, or man-made wars (like the atom bombs in Japan)
It was a hold-over from the Stalin era, where it became the norm that if you said something the boss didn't want to hear, it was off to the gulag or a swift execution. Gorbachev was trying to turn the madness around, but for better or worse, it was too late. Interestingly, we've seen evidence of quite a few western corporations following the same pattern - no gulags or executions, but definitely life-changing consequences for upsetting the C-suite and major shareholders.
I lived in wales at the time , clouds from Chernobyl passed over the area in the following days and the rain poisoned the ground , sheep from the hills of north wales were only declared safe to eat in 2012
Similar in Scotland. My daughter works for the Scottish Government Agricultural Department and tells me they still have all the dosimeters they used to check radiation levels after Chernobyl
Midnight in Chernobyl put forward the conclusion that the sand and boron nearly all missed the reactor, did nothing, and the fire eventually burned itself out as it would've if they'd done nothing. Legasov defended it as needing to be seen doing something even though it was pointless.
I was 15 at the time in the UK we ended up having the cloud over Scotland it covered Norway, Sweden & Finland all their sheep were giving birth to dead lambs or birth defects as were the children in the months following in Ukraine. The Soviet Union tried to cover it up, but all the European countries were reporting the high radiation readings that the Soviet's had to confess to the explosion. The chief engineer in the first show was so arrogant that he caused the problems. All the Soviet generals and Skarsgård's character was also arrogant to the point he was so without a clue like all of them except the scientists. But at least Skarsgård's character did end up understanding in the end.
The whole world knew what was going on within a couple of days. The readings were that huge, alarming. And then the Soviets did the unthinkable--- they asked for help.
East German guy here, born 25 days before the explosion. And I fortunately don't glow in the dark... 😅 Since East Germany was part of the eastern block during the cold war news trickled down very slowely at first. Later it was advised to limit the time spent outdoors, wash fruits and vegetables very carefully before consumption and to not pick mushrooms from the forrest (which is a popular activity for Germans in autumn). Apparently mushrooms are something of a radiation sponge. 😅🤷♂️
