April 26th, 1986.Follow

not retarded, just mildly off-topic. still in the ballpark so to speak.


wasn't fast enough

Edited, Wed Apr 26 17:34:36 2006 by bbking

Shhh, it's funnier when they keep arguing about it.

The problem at Chernobyl was more ofa technology problem than a cover-up problem. The end result was the same, but the mindset behind the two are very different.

So many people who had the power to make decisions knew so little about what was happening or how to deal with the potential problems that in the end what happened was what always seems to happen in that sort of situation: everyone did things to try to chock the immediate problem at the plant, but nobody took initiative on a broad scale to address the big problem it really was. Business as normal, keep quiet about anything that might embarrass the boss and work twice as hard to pull the situation back together. Lots of businesses run that way, too.

It wasn't malice that killed and injured so many people; it was incompetence and lack of adequate preparation.

As an aside to the Chernobyl tragedy, did any hear about this? I didn't hear anything about it until I got a message from someone about it.

People in Texas think the US is the world.

Some of the pictures found here are truly haunting.

A few thing things I want to mention (not sure if they were mentioned before)...

It is disgusting how the USSR tried to cover this incident up. The only reason why the fessed up is that Sweden started to register huge spikes in radiation and could not figure out why. The began checking all of their own plants and then asked for international help.

Next, the direct area around Chernobyl wasn't the only area hit. Belarus (Bellorussia) took the brunt of the fallout and there are still places in that country, which is over a hundred miles away, that are off limits to people.

Also, some believe the concrete sarcophagus is in danger of collapsing at any time. Others say it is leaking waste into the ground water system. The US has pledged 200 Million to help build a new one. International politics are holding up the construction though.

Lastly, on a personal note. I do not live that far from the Plymouth Nuclear Power Plant in Mass. On some days, you can here the emergency sirens being tested. You kind of freak out if you did not know if it was a testing day...

Thanx to the OP for the link.

I lived in North Wales (UK) when this happenned. Lot of sheep farms were placed under restrictions due to fallout even that far away. Put a lot of farmers out of business. And is still a cause for concern.

Anyone who still feels, after watching this, that dropping nuclear bombs onto human beings is a good and noble way to sort out a disagreement doesn't have the right to call themselves part of the human race.




Happily posting from NUCLEAR FREE New Zealand..

Wasn't there an older movie done about Three Mile Island? The name escapes me at the moment.

I can't look at the pictures without my eyes tearing up. I had to point out the photo essay to Jonwin and found myself crying again at just the intro. IF he wants to watch it, he may but I don't think I could handle it again.

I also remember well the day of the Three Mile Island accident.

A friend and I were heading into Baltimore listening to 98ROCK, when they reported that police cars had gone there. I had just gone to see "China Syndrome" recently too and kept thinking how similar the news stories seem to the movie. I still have to wonder how much we were told, was just to keep us from panicking.

Actually, pretty much every documentary on the TMI incident agrees that what people were told actually increased panic, rather then the other way around. The perception of danger was far greater then the actual danger.

The biggest failure of TMI was a lack of communication. First in training proceedures to the employees. Then to and from the experts who could have assessed the problem quickly but weren't able to due to jammed phone lines (or line as the case may be, there was only one phone line into the control room). Then from the company to the public (they tried to downplay the problem, but did so by being vague both to the governor's office and the press, which only fueled speculation that the disaster was worse then it really was). It wasn't until the one government expert arrived (Harold Denton) who took the time to figure out *exactly* what was happening and was able to relay that to the governor, the press, and the public in clear English that the panic started to subside.

While not everyone knew it at the time (again due to communications and training problems), the only actual danger period was the hours between when controllers shut off the water flow to the reactor thinking it was full and when the experts finally got through on the phone and told them to turn it back on. Once that was done, despite lots of speculation about various other possible catostrophic possibilities, every analysis of the actual physics involved has concluded that there was zero chance of a meltdown or containment breach.

The only actual failure of the system was a single valve that was stuck in the on position.