Why Isn't Hiroshima a Nuclear Wasteland Like Chernobyl? 

Hey so you just straight up stole my title AND thumbnail huh?

Heart attack? FDR's last words were "“I have a terrific pain in the back of my head.”, and died of a cerebral haemorrhage.

I was fortunate to visit Chernobyl in 2006, 20 years after the event. Much of the destruction of Pripyat is mainly down to lack of maintenance. There was no specific damage to Pripyat from the Chernobyl explosion. The buildings were so poorly constructed that after 20 years of not being looked after, they are disintegrating - tiles falling off walls, windows falling out of their frames. Any metalwork is just rusted away. Most interesting is the return of nature. They had a sports arena, still there, but the sports field looks like a forest with hundreds of well developed trees growing out of the field. You also see the roads breaking up as trees grow through the asphalt. The forests around the site are also well populated with wild animals - wolves and bears had been sighted when we were there. As someone who worked my whole career in nuclear power station operations, I was appalled by the culture that allowed such an event to happen. On a positive note, the formation of WANO (World Association of Nuclear Operators) following Chernobyl has resulted in much better sharing of best practice, whether thats in training of staff, maintenance, management or any of a wide area of aspects of power station operation. Chernobyl had a flaw in its design - known about by the Russian hierarchy - but not transmitted to the operators, and not addressed in their training. Basically they were set up to fail, and the management style of dictatorship didn't allow for anyone to question anything.

You're mostly correct, but there's even more to it. I was ironically operating a nuclear reactor in the middle of the Pacific on a submarine full of nuclear warheads when Chernobyl happened, so I'm reasonably well versed in this stuff. The reason Plutonium is such a desired weapons material, and the reason you need much less of it, has little or nothing to do with the "mechanism". Shotgun-type weapons are easy and almost foolproof, which is why Little Boy was already built before the Trinity test proved the much-more-complicated Implosion-type weapon would work. What makes Plutonium-239 so good is that it releases on average 2.7 neutrons per fission, while Uranium-235 only releases 2.43 average neutrons per fission. Since chain reactions are really just a numbers game, that makes it easier to create a highly supercritical reaction using far less material. The vast majority of the Chernobyl core wasn't even U-235, it was overwhelmingly U-238, since the reactor was based on a Plutonium breeder design that irradiated U-238 to make Plutonium. U-238 will fission, but only when hit by a very fast neutron, while U-235 can fission with both fast and moderated (slow) neutrons. The other thing to keep in mind is that nuclear fuel isn't highly radioactive, or it would decay before it ever got used. It's really more of a chemical toxicity hazard than a radioactive one. What is left after you fission it however, is radioactive as all hell, and and Chernobyl was nearing the end of it's core life. That meant it's core was chock full of Cesium and Strontium goodness just waiting for a chance to visit the European countryside. The explosion itself wasn't nearly as powerful as a nuclear bomb, put it was still a nuclear event, peaking at several hundred times the rated power of the core. The Hydrogen and steam explosions were icing on the cake. What remained was a superheated mess, both from the power excursion and from the normal 7% residual decay heat from the most radioactive and shortest-lived fission products. All that heat was trapped in the remains of the core, with no operable cooling systems to remove it, so it got hot enough to vaporize tons of those longer-lived fission products before the Russians could bury it under 5,000 tons of Borated sand. Pretty much a "fallout factory outlet"...

Stayed in Hiroshima recently. It's a beautiful city with its own identity, very different to others in Japan. Loved it.

I lived in Hiroshima from 1996~2002 and have friends there who are "hibakusha" (atomic bomb survivors). Indeed, it is a beautiful city with wonderful people.

Between the fact the bomb exploded far above the ground (so there was relatively little fallout) and the fact a typhoon in September 1945 washed away most of the radioactive topsoil from the city, that's why they were able to rebuild Hiroshima so quickly.

The real irony on chernobyl is that because of the exclusion zone and no human involvment, it is now one of the most nature like places on earth.

10:20 The additional fact about air-burst explosions is that the reflection off the ground actually doubles the strength of the outward traveling blast wave, increasing the destructive potential of the bomb. ANOTHER thing most people would find interesting is that it was only Reactor #4 that had the meltdown and explosion, the OTHER three reactors were virtually untouched, so after decontamination THEY REOPENED (Reactor #1 on 1 October, 1986, Reactor #2 on 5 November, 1986, & Reactor #3 on 4 December, 1987), and KEPT OPERATING. Reactor #2 had a fire in 1991 and was shut down, Reactor #1 shut down in November 1996, and the final reactor, #3, was finally shut down on 15 December 2000 ... OVER FOURTEEN YEARS after the disaster.

Of interest. At 3:32 there is a picture of the exploded reactor 4. In the end of the building not destroyed, is reactor 3. It never ceased operations throughout the disaster, and it was in continuous operation until the year 2000 when is was closed partially due to international pressure. In 1991 there was a turbine fire in reactor 2 plant, causing it to be closed permanently. Unit 1 was later closed in 1996. The decommissioning of all 4 reactors is slated to be completed by 2065. They are currently looking at the possibility of upgrading the sarcophagus of reactor 3, which is currently in its 2nd iteration since the accident on April 26, 1986 at 1:23:58 am.

They knew before they dropped the bombs a air burst would allow the radiation to dissipate and a ground explosion wouldn’t have. They just had to prove it the initial test explosions we’re done on stands elevating the explosive mechanism. Also a air burst covers a larger area.

You know, now that you mention it... That is a BLOODY GOOD QUESTION! Thanks for answering it. People always overlook the sheer mass involved. I should like to add two relevant points: First, according to my sources, LittleBoy barely made the threshold to be considered a nuclear detonation versus a nuclear deflagration. Not that a large nuclear deflagration would be discernible from a small nuclear detonation if you were at the site at the time. The difference between those two might be worth your time at a later date. Second, as you mentioned, Chernobyl was a meltdown, not a nuclear explosion. Nuclear explosions are deliberately tailored to be as efficient as possible, that is to say, fission as much fissible material as possible before the heat and pressure buildup scatters it. Nuclear reactors on the other hand are deliberately designed to fission as ineffectively as possible while still maintaining a chain reaction, precisely to _prevent_ scattering it. Even if a nuclear reactor didn't have orders of magnitude more fissible material in it than a bomb, due to its ineffectiveness as a bomb, a much higher percentage of it would remain to be scattered in the atmosphere.

Your content is so educational. I love it.

Shamelessly stealing not only a thumbnail, but an entire premise behind an editorial is very 2023 RU-vid of you to do. Shoutout to Kyle Hill.

To be honest, there were times that this thought came up, but I always assumed that the bombs were peanuts compared to what happened at Chernobyl. Thank you for the enlightenment. For some reason Chernobyl has fascinated me for years. When I got my hands on the HBO Chernobyl series, I started watching at 11 pm and only went to bed at 6 am after I'd watched it all. Later I watched comparison videos (real versus HBO) and information about the elephant foot. I've watched scientific documentaries about the wildlife and I watched a video about how they put the new dome in place. Besides all this, I love watching horror movies of all kinds. But actually going to Chernobyl and visiting Pripyat feels like next level horror, a kind I don't want to experience and that has nothing to do with the radiation but with what I think (from what I watched on videos) is the most eerie, unsettling environment in the forsaken city, knowing how it all went down.

This was very interesting and fascinating. I was very intrigued given that I randomly found this. You answered a question I never thought I wanted answered. Thank you and keep up the great work.

Amazing video. So much knowledge. Literally a knowledge bomb.

Great Video. Looking forward to more such interesting explanations.

This question bothered me also. Thanks for this video

I've watched a couple of videos about this topic, but this one is by far the most convincing. I don't think anyone before mentioned that massive difference in the amount of fuel!!!

Really insightful video. I’ve heard some of the things you describe here, but not all in one place. Thanks for the good research on this one.

An excellent discussion and research. I learned a lot. Thanks.

Thanks Ricky, this was a fantastic video. Your content is very informative, and well delivered. Another Home run Sir, please continue with great content.

Great video and I have always wondered about the very questions you answered. Amazing facts and very interesting. You have a new subscriber !

Well done, great animations. You are a great educator

I've wondered this myself. Thanks

Fairly decent information regarding the difference between Hiroshima/Nagasaki and Chernobyl. Now, talk about Three Mile Island and the Japanese incident and how these two events are even more negligible.

Makurazaki Typhoon took a big chunk of radiation to sea, Then Godzilla was born 🐲

Thank you for your hard work on this

This is a very interesting video. Thank you. I am so impressed with your choice of subject and your excellent, clear, coherent presentation, I've subscribed to your channel and am looking forward to watching your other videos. Thanks!

So essentially the energy was used in the bomb and small quantity of material and in Chernobyl it was Cherned up 😊and spat all over by a small explosion.

To stay on the topic of Chernobyl, I think your take on the new dome would be very interesting. Also, is there cause for concern regarding the elephant foot?

Woah. This totally blew my mind - definitely thought of meltdowns as giant explosions. Thank you!

Dark subject matter. I appreciate the factual lens you used minus the Homer Simpson joke. Once again great work Ricky.

I always wondered about that. Very interesting explanation. Thank you.

Very informative! Thanks.

Thankyou! I've always wondered this exact question myself.

Thank you for this information I always wondered it but could never figure it out myself

Enjoyed the topic and your information I have also enjoyed may of the informative information most of your commentors have made. The Sciences are of great interest for me. Have not understood all that of nuclear science but have least learned something today thanks to your post. Now to read up on how nuclear medicine works 😊

Wow this was such a great educational and experience in this video 🙌

You twice showed an aerial view of the Itsukushima temple at Miyajima. That's on an island across from Hiroshima and over 10 miles from Ground Zero.

I saw a video awhile back about Chernobyl saying a good bit of wildlife is back living in the area and a few people. I'm wondering about that. Interesting video. I'd never thought about the differences between cities that were hit by nukes and the Chernobyl event. I find your videos very interesting and informative.

I went to Hiroshima recently, very quiet compared to Tokyo. The whole time I was there I felt uneasiness like if all of the ghosts of the victims who were vaporized 70 years ago were watching me. Then I went to peace park and it felt so calm there. The locals are very friendly towards Americans. It’s just crazy to be at a city that was completely wiped out by a nuclear bomb only 79 years ago.

15:40 fun fact - that’s “Battleship Island” off shore from Nagasaki. Named for the build up of buildings above an active coal mine

This is a amazing video. I never new the differences in the 4 levels of bomb detonations.

Very interesting content - gracias!

Mastered harnessing the atom is a bit of an overstatement. We're still just boiling water...

I love your videos.

Excellent, thank you!

ah, thank you, finally I understood why the nuclear explosions didn't leave much residue after all. it makes a lot of sense. I wondered exaclty the same thing for years, it felt like you were answering my question. Great video, excelent research and exectution, you got one more subscriber.

As someone said, FDR, didn't die of a heart attack, but while sitting for a portrait, he collapsed and died of a cerebral hemorrhage?

Very interesting info!

Hi Ricky. I visited Chernobyl & Pripyat with a friend in 2008 whilst on an Eastern European road trip. What crazy places they were, feeding bread to the huge radio active catfish in the reactor cooling lakes to standing on the roof of abandoned hotels in Pripyat. The levels were still really high back then, we got served a 3 course meal from a lovely lady with the biggest beard I've ever seen plus all the dogs had limbs missing. We even had to stand in a huge geiger counter to measure our radiation intake before we could leave. Armed checkpoints making sure we had the correct documentation just added to the experience, what a memory! Plenty of photos too!😊

Great breakdown thx

I remember learning about Chernobyl in middleschool 10 years ago. It was event to remember. My homeland is Latvia and I remember teacher telling after that disaster, the radiation reached Baltic and those days were very hot and that USSR were hiding this so many people caught sickness, still are sick and died.

Love the name of your channel.

If you do go to Chernobyl sometime, make sure to book a private tour and 2 days. We have been there twice, first on a big bus with tourists then the second time on a private two day tour staying in a hotel in Chernobyl. It's such a difference that you can't even explain it in words. Just save up the money for the two day private tour its ao worth it.

Thank you for the explanation relating to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as I too had wondered the same thing.

Interesting, I've always wondered about this.

Sheeeesh the thumbnail hits hard

My dad was stationed outside of Nagasaki as part of the army of occupation. Told me a story of him and his buddy driving a jeep into the city & finding a cast iron pot bellyed stove & dragging it back to the hooch. Dad said he slept very close to that stove. I said "that's why you're still here! Early form of kemo!"

I used to attend auctions and once found a chamber of commerce brochure from Hiroshima dated less than 5 years after the bomb dropped! I was astonished, even though I knew it was now a thriving city, that it was a recovering city so soon. Thanks for the explanation.

You know I enjoy this video well done

No misinformation, just some very well researched data and a logical explanation of the reasons why Hiroshima is not a nuclear wasteland. Well done!

Great video idea.

When you started the video my immediate reaction was, it's probably due to the amount of fuel that was actually used in the reactions and the speed of the reactions. The bombs were quick reactions with all the fuel being used in an instant. The fuel for the plant is a slow burn that takes longer to use. The stored energy still remains. Spent fuel rods are nowhere near as radioactive and we use them for munitions due to the metal density. My .02 cents for two bit. I hope you had a great thanks giving! Love the videos!🎉

One other thing, the reactor in #4 had no containment. It was used to make weapons grade plutonium.

I was thinking about this yesterday.

Excellent video

I believe the difference between chernobyl and Hiroshima / Nagasaki, is that when the chernobyl power plant exploaded, the core melted into a substance that ate through the floor of the power plant hitting it’s final resting place. When the elephants foot was made and now known as corium. Or known as the dealiest nuclear fallout substance, it took all elements of what it ate through and created whatnit is now. Ontop of that material also being vented into the atmosphere before they built the sarcophagus to the chernobyl powerplant. The Nagasaki and Hiroshima bomb was created as a hydrogen bomb, i’m not an engineer, of any types but after some research i believe that the chemical make up of both Elephants foot ( waste at the bottom of Chernobyl plant ) and the Nagasaki / Hiroshima bomb are hugely different. Then making chernobyl not habitable for many many years to come.

Nicely researched video on the nuclear

I’m glad to see you guys got of the fence. Not about this issue or this topic. I started watching you guys because it was obvious you do a great job. But I did take a break. It is unfortunate that it was this topic that brought me back to your content, however am looking forward to having a look at previous content, and your future content. Thank you very much, you guys do a great job.

great video, champion.

The differences between the bombs and the reactor are to some extent academic. In both cases there was a sudden unconstrained release of energy that caused the damage. At Chernobyl the energy release while sudden was still relatively slow compared to that of a bomb. Consequently, it developed a much less powerful shockwave thus limiting the extent of damage. At Chernobyl the sudden nuclear energy release was coupled to the reactor's cooling water leading to a steam explosion (not hydrogen, as occurred at Fukushima) as the water almost instantaneously vaporised. This was sufficient to destroy the reactor building. However, the real catastrophe was that tons of graphite moderator (think coal) then caught fire. Sustained by the still superheated molten nuclear fuel, the nuclear chain and chemical reactions continued on for days. This propelled tons of highly radioactive irradiated material into the air spreading it over the surrounding landscape. In the atom bombs the nuclear chain reaction was very fast, all over in less than a millisecond. This created an intense shockwave as the bomb body and immediately surrounding atmosphere was superheated by the near instantaneous rise in gamma, xray and light radiation as well as a flux of high energy neutrons. The airburst meant the material entrained in the nuclear reaction itself was for the most part confined to the vaporised bomb body and immediately surrounding air (out to a hundred metres or so). When the nuclear reaction ceased, this highly irradiated material was quickly dispersed on the wind. During the bomb reaction some gamma, xray, and neutron radiation did reach the ground causing materials around ground zero to become mildly radioactive but this was shortlived. By far and away the worst damage was from the enormous shock wave followed by intense light and heat. If the bombs had gone off on the surface the residual radiation would have been much greater. In Australia in the nineteen fifties a number of surface blast A bomb tests were conducted. Sixty years on, some of those test sites are still too radioactive to enter or linger around. They will likely remain that way for another couple of centuries.

Appreciated the meta-analysis of multiple factors and clear chart of conclusions; but, was surprised at no mention of the effect of the nuclear attacks on life expectancies-a fact long central to survivors' protests for recognition, care, and against nuclear armaments.

Interesting video, I just wish that people would call "The Manhattan Project" by it's proper name " The Manhattan Engineer District" 01:06. Chernobyl was not a nuclear explosion, it was a huge steam explosion that aerosolized and spread the contents of the reactor over a wide area. Basically a "Dirty Bomb".

I was stationed at a U.S. Army military base in Bavaria, West Germany when Chernobyl occurred. We were given a device to take readings of radiation (RADS) in the atmosphere, we had max levels of 175 RADS above normal, the highest the human body can take safely. Other countries of course had much higher readings. A few years ago I was curious and did an internet search which led me to an article where it was said nuclear fallout was still being found in the flora and fauna of Bavaria, Germany to this day. Nearly 57 years old now, has always been in the back of my mind whether I would be affected in some way.

Fun fact: by yield-to-fallout ratio the Tsar Bomba was the 'cleanest' in all of history and other than it being a thermonuclear weapon a significant part of the reason was that its air-burst height was 4km. At that height its huge fireball didn't touch the surface while the shock wave obliterated anything within a 50km radius and shattered windows even 800km away.

Chernobyl didn't explode due to jammed control rods. It exploded because the control rod tips had a positive void coefficient that sent the core well beyond critical when all of the rods were simultaneously rammed in, displacing the water and steam moderating the reactor until then. A fatal design flaw that turned the scram function into a self-destruct button.

The main issue is that Chernobyl had been fissioning for years before it blew up. Thus months worth of fission products were in the reactor, even before it blew up. Many of them were also fairly long lived, which leads to a much bigger release. Chernobyl had more fission products than Little Boy had U-235 (by mass). That explains why Chernobyl is still radioactive.

Great One.

Very good analyses why one nuclear explosion is different from another type.

Pripyat had been on my bucket list for years while other destinations simply ended up higher on the list, until I saw a Dutch documentary (for which I was unable to find any English sources mentioning it online right now) in which a frank conversation was held with a local tour guide. This guide confessed that most of the radiation-contaminated soil had been removed, but in certain spots, it was left and actually collected. These were the spots where the guides would hold their Geiger counters to show tourists how bad the radiation still was. The guide also confessed that most of the items left in the buildings were placed there to increase the appearance of personal drama and distress. In other words, you're mostly looking at an orchestrated show, which reduced my interest greatly. The Geiger counter purchased by the Dutch documentary team was smuggled into the area as well and proved the story of the guide. In fact, they checked it on their flight back and found radiation levels in an airborne plane are higher than they are in Pripyat. To top it off, they talked to locals who had an orchard within the highly dangerous contaminated zone. These people admitted they were forbidden to sell their produce to tourists and foreigners to keep up appearances, while they themselves had been eating the food for decades without any adverse effects. If I recall correctly, these people included an elderly lady who did not show any signs of poor health. So I am honestly confused about the situation in Chernobyl and its surrounding. Is it all hugely exaggerated in order to keep the tourist business going? I mean, what about the Russian soldiers stationed there right now? What about the employees operating the remaining reactors near ground zero? There is an article online mentioning how for decades the people who prevented further escalation in Chernobyl had died afterwards, while they were very much alive for years or decades afterwards, so there has been a lot of disinformation.

The main difference is the bombs were designed to explode and had just the right amount of nuclear fuel to do the damage but the nuclear reactor left plenty of fuel exposed to the elements after the explosion.

9:30 Air burst also works with the surrounding land for the bowl effect

Windscale accident was the first .. my grandfather used to tell stories of his upside down lathes and how tooling uranium would burst into green flames..

Something else to note is the particulate size. A larger radioactive mass will take many half-lives to reduce to an activity of background radiation. In a nuclear explosion, most, if not all, of the fissile material and products are vaporized, the particle size is tiny, and the material is essentially diluted. By comparison, the meltdown at Chernobyl ejected and spewed 'chucks' of radiative mess, most of which didn't go very far (less dilution) and thus will continue to radiate for a very long time before the particles are small enough to reach a low activity.

The air burst was the first think that came to my mind. That was why the first atomic bomb named Trinity was detonated atop a high tower.

14:00 The mass would be the first thing to look into! Strange to put it last.

Differences between Hiroshima & Chernobyl: At Hiroshima, The Little Boy released a huge amount of radiation in less than one second in an air burst. Very little radiation got into the ground. But at Chernobyl, the reactor released a collosal amount of radiation on the ground, and over several days. That's why Chernobyl is uninhabital now.

There's still years in the mountains here in Norway, when mushrooms and reindeer meat (since reindeer eat lichen) is contaminated (mainly by cesium I think) and is not usable as food, because of the Chernobyl fallout. So it was an incredibly damaging catastrophe, to be sure.

My wife and I spent some days in Hiroshima in October. It's a beautiful city with a great focus on promoting peace.

I'm surprised you did not mention the Elephant's Foot in this video.

The Dyatlov picture attached at the beginning is Oleksyi Breus. A member of the staff that night.

Wow, great information Just watched the movie Oppenheimer. I was actually wondering this exact question.

i can already check off that bucket list point, was there a few days before the new sarcophagus was pushed over it. what i didnt ecpect was the kind of mass tourism in that area. the other reactores worked like normal for quite some time and the workers are relativly save. they tryed to clean up alot of the area or buried the smaler structures, nature is taking back the area and buried the bad stuff under a layer of new soil. so over time that stuff will be a good bit underground wich is an extra layer of shielding, but i wouldnt want to dig a hole for my house in that area. but thx for the video, explained quite a bit, was also sometimes wondering a bit about that, my theory would have been that most of that material in the explosion gets used up to make that big blast leaving less to radiate the area.

It also makes a difference if the explosion is in the air, as Hiroshima was, or on the ground. Ground explosions or reactor melt downs, are more dirtier, more contaminated, and the after effects last much longer than explosions in the air. Air explosions are diluted a lot more quickly than ones on the ground. Those on the ground are more strongly concentrated lasting a longer time.

I think the fuel mass is the major factor here...There was 3000x the Uraniam at Chernobyl.

The difference isn't because of the air-burst, it has to do with what you hit on earlier in the video. Also, Chernobyl didn't use primarily U-235 or it would have been a bomb. Unstable isotopes like strontium don't stop being radio-active because it's in the air as opposed to the ground. Unstable isotopes do however stop being unstable after they stop being the isotope that's unstable. Bombs are designed to get all that fissile materiel to skip half-life altogether and decay right away, while reactors are only meant to accelerate decay rates, not bypass them altogether.