View Full Version : Chernobyl - many years later
Monica Lewinsky
10-28-08, 06:41 PM
Thought somebody [at least on person] might find an interest in this:
http://forums.filefront.com/s-t-l-k-e-r-soc-general-discussion/379832-my-trip-chernobyl-pictures-56k-ultra-death.html (http://forums.filefront.com/s-t-l-k-e-r-soc-general-discussion/379832-my-trip-chernobyl-pictures-56k-ultra-death.html)
Ya I know we've all seen Chernobyl pics but these are some of the best quality I've seen.
A city, gone, forever.
So sad. There must be lots of ghosts in such a place.
Skybird
10-28-08, 07:15 PM
The shots from the amusement park are great, like out of a Ray Bradbury story.
The sarcophagus over the reactor does not look trustworthy, or am I alone with that impression? :hmm:
Monica Lewinsky
10-28-08, 07:44 PM
The shots from the amusement park are great
I agree with you but the sad part is to see a city [Russian or American or ANY COUNTRY] wiped out for the rest of of our lives.
When some some whacko says "Nuke 'em". makes you think twice on hitting the launch button. This should be another reason outside of the scope of Hiroshima and Nagi of NOT doing it - cause it ain't worth it. . Sorry my spellling is not that great tonight.
The sarcophagus over the reactor does not look trustworthy, or am I alone with that impression?
It is a ticking time bomb that the next generation will have to deal with ... someday. Nukes ... for electric great! Nukes against cities .... not so great ... in war. BAD IDEA. While Russia was the testing ground, it should wake up the world that nuke stuff out-of-control = BAD News and MAY lead to your dingy launched in SH4 to Glow in the Dark. :)
SteamWake
10-28-08, 08:06 PM
Simply stunning.
bookworm_020
10-28-08, 08:35 PM
The sarcophagus over the reactor does not look trustworthy, or am I alone with that impression? :hmm:
It isn't, The roof on it is only a 25mm steel plate as that was the structure could carry at the time they built it. It has rusted through in some sections and leaks rainwater into the remains of the core.
There is plans to do a full enclosure of the reactor site that would last for 200 years or so (better than nothing I guess!) but no one is willing to pay the Billions of Euro that are required to pay for it.
Kapitan_Phillips
10-28-08, 09:42 PM
Those photographs, especially the one in the school featuring the meltdown procedure cartoon made me shiver.
Bone-chilling.
GoldenRivet
10-28-08, 10:56 PM
the map makers on call of duty 4 got it frighteningly close.
A lot of the sniper level takes place in one part of that town, and the extraction point is the amusement park at the base of the ferris wheel.
neat level of the game
FIREWALL
10-28-08, 11:32 PM
That is a real eye opener and a good wakeup call. :yep:
Thx for sharing M.L. :up:
Lets all hope history doesn't repeat itself.
Falkirion
10-28-08, 11:33 PM
Wow amazing...I was born in 86, 2 months after the reactor had gone up. Absolutely eerie to see a whole town abandoned.
Also reminds me of COD4 mission to Pripyat, walking through that deserted town creeps me out but its amazing how close to accurate the dev team got it.
Excuse me but visiting a radio-active contamminated site as a "tourist"...! :o
Are we completely losing it! :yep:
God! :nope:
Kapitan_Phillips
10-29-08, 03:46 AM
Excuse me but visiting a radio-active contamminated site as a "tourist"...! :o
Are we completely losing it! :yep:
God! :nope:
The radioactivity is nowhere near lethal levels, and the tour was led by a qualified guide. Nothing unusual about wanting to see the place, just as it isnt unusual to want to see Ground Zero in New York.
HunterICX
10-29-08, 03:47 AM
The sarcophagus over the reactor does not look trustworthy, or am I alone with that impression? :hmm:
The sarcophagus was to last for just 100 years, if it happen to collapse then large amounts of radioactive dust and particles would directly be released into the atmosphere again.
also the ''Upper Biological Shield" (a concrete slab) which was placed before the accident has been thrown upwards by the explosion and the only thing holding that up there is some debris. if it collapses it further exacerbate the dust conditions.
it is something to worry about :-?
HunterICX
AVGWarhawk
10-29-08, 07:11 AM
I had watched a program concerning this on the history channel. It is like a true ghost town. Something from a sci-fi movie. Truly incredible, sad and spooky all in one.
XabbaRus
10-29-08, 07:17 AM
Interesting, I only found out about it through kiddofspeed and her account of HER journey turned out to be a fabrication, ie how she rode through etc...
I'd love to do the tour.
Konovalov
10-29-08, 07:17 AM
Truly incredible, sad and spooky all in one.
My thoughts exactly. Viewing those photos and the You Tube video was chilling. Personally I'm in no rush for a holiday to Chernobyl any time soon.
rifleman13
10-29-08, 07:30 AM
Very sad pictures...
The most bustling city in the old USSR, turned into a ghost town in a matter of days...
What a real waste! :nope:
On a lighter note, reading further down that forum I came across this thread...
wow, that's amazing, it must have felt very weird to stand in front of that apocalyptic side ^^
and.. no glowing penis for you I hope lolz http://forums.filefront.com/images/smilies/winknudge.gif
Excuse me but visiting a radio-active contamminated site as a "tourist"...! :o
Are we completely losing it! :yep:
God! :nope:
The radioactivity is nowhere near lethal levels, and the tour was led by a qualified guide. Nothing unusual about wanting to see the place, just as it isnt unusual to want to see Ground Zero in New York.
Two weeks ago (I think), I cot a documentary on the Odyssey Channel and the presenter eat some food of there, even if the guide dissuaded to do this. After the tour they went to hospital and the guy went to a chamber to have the radioactivity measure. The chart showed a big valor in the stomach area, but it was a non lethal valor. After he said that the people there believe that vodka helps to drop the level of radioactivity in the body so they all went to a drink!
The photos are a great time capsule!
Schroeder
10-29-08, 11:19 AM
Really spooky and sad.:cry:
I've always found the Red Forest to be the spookiest place when it comes to Chernobyl. No idea why, I get chills everytime I see/read stuff about it. Maybe because it was the most heavily radiated area or maybe because of the story behind it's name.
Skybird
10-29-08, 02:01 PM
the pics all remind a bit of the atmosphere in the movie "Stalker".
I personally like the mood of industrial areas that are rotting and no longer work, and nature takes back the ground, and gras between the metal, and bushes breaki g up the concrete. The transitoriness of things, the change of life is breathing in every scene, is creating a tense feeling of melancholy and adventurous excitement at the same time. You feel split, you feel being pushed back and pulled forward at the same time, you want to see more, but you are afraid to dare moving on.
What a place to create a film in, what a setting for a novel, if only the author manages to get it right! Tarkowskiy already came very close to it.
The "Red Forest". I believe that is the nuclear plant in the background.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d2/Red_forest.jpg
the pics all remind a bit of the atmosphere in the movie "Stalker".
I personally like the mood of industrial areas that are rotting and no longer work, and nature takes back the ground, and gras between the metal, and bushes breaki g up the concrete. The transitoriness of things, the change of life is breathing in every scene, is creating a tense feeling of melancholy and adventurous excitement at the same time. You feel split, you feel being pushed back and pulled forward at the same time, you want to see more, but you are afraid to dare moving on.
What a place to create a film in, what a setting for a novel, if only the author manages to get it right! Tarkowskiy already came very close to it.
When the second state tv channel had the "5 noites, 5 filmes" ("5 nights, 5 movies/films), one time were the filmography of Tartowskiy, but I missed "Stalker". Never saw movie, yet!
The creepy thing about Stalker (the movie) is that it was made a few years before Chernobyl, but was in so many ways a foreshadowing of it. That movie however was shot in not much better an area - a half-demolished chemical factory complex in Estonia. In one scene, you see foam on the river flying - that's actually real hazardous chemicals discarded into the water.
Ironically, a large number of cast and crew who worked on Stalker would die prematurely of cancer some years after shooting the movie in that location, including Tarkovsky himself. Talk about authenticity of the Zone's hazards...
Skybird
10-29-08, 05:24 PM
When the second state tv channel had the "5 noites, 5 filmes" ("5 nights, 5 movies/films), one time were the filmography of Tartowskiy, but I missed "Stalker". Never saw movie, yet!
That is strange since Stalker arguably is Tarkowski's most popular and well-known film. If you do not know it, see it. He did it many years before Chernobyl, but in one scene, in the far away background, you can see the reactor of Chernobyl - and that in that movie, in that given scene of industrial collapse and breakdown... spooky. Some say it was almost like a vision of things to come.
On the original topic - that is a place I will almost certainly visit sometime in the next few years. It fascinated me for as long as I can remember, and I have personal relationship to the catastrophe - it is almost certain that I was in fact affected by the fallout, since the day after it happened, I was out playing in the rain with my parents i Leningrad, downwind from Chernobyl. The fallout in the Leningrad area (with the exception of some parts to the south which were completely defoliated - it was eerie seeing the trees still without leaves years later) was not that severe, but as a 2-year-old apparently it did hit me. I developed an unexplained rash that got worse over the next couple of years, and at one point even had to be hospitalized. It was eventually put down to 'neurodermatitis', which is an odd and poorly-understood skin condition, of which there was never any history in my family. I gradually recovered from it and now it's almost gone, but it was definitely an issue for me as a child.
Close friends of our family lived in Kiev at the time, and of course noone was told about it. The May 1st parade was still on that year, 5 days after the explosion. They were saying how everyone's ears were ringing at the parade, but the officials were silent. One of the members of that family, a firefighter, actually wound up being a 'liquidator' at the nuclear power plant - one of a truly tragic bunch. I am not sure precisely what he did there, but he came back suffering physically and psychologically. Noone really understood him and what he was going through, either, tragically enough - until one day, he took out a shotgun and literally blew his own head off in front of the entire family.
Terrible things this catastrophe did for some people. It certainly has affected a lot more people than some realize.
21 years since Chernobyl and still no super heroes. :(
bookworm_020
10-29-08, 06:35 PM
Here is what they are planing to do for the long term at chernobyl
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Safe_Confinement
The new NSC:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=jvEDVuGOJ6Y
When the second state tv channel had the "5 noites, 5 filmes" ("5 nights, 5 movies/films), one time were the filmography of Tartowskiy, but I missed "Stalker". Never saw movie, yet!
That is strange since Stalker arguably is Tarkowski's most popular and well-known film. If you do not know it, see it. He did it many years before Chernobyl, but in one scene, in the far away background, you can see the reactor of Chernobyl - and that in that movie, in that given scene of industrial collapse and breakdown... spooky. Some say it was almost like a vision of things to come.
Well, until that week, I never head about Tarkowski's and his films.The first film of that week and I saw it was Solaris! Liked much so, decided to see every movie that the channel would broadcast. But in "Stalker day" I went to the house of my colleges to play risk and celabrate a birthday, so I forgot to see and record. Got to buy solaris and stalker DVDs!
Ironically, a large number of cast and crew who worked on Stalker would die prematurely of cancer some years after shooting the movie in that location, including Tarkovsky himself. Talk about authenticity of the Zone's hazards... :huh: Never know that, Damn!
In the topic, and after knowing what you told us CCIP, one can not say "small world" since any nuclear disaster afects the all world.
Skybird
10-30-08, 06:02 AM
Well, until that week, I never head about Tarkowski's and his films.The first film of that week and I saw it was Solaris! Liked much so, decided to see every movie that the channel would broadcast. But in "Stalker day" I went to the house of my colleges to play risk and celabrate a birthday, so I forgot to see and record. Got to buy solaris and stalker DVDs!
Solaris indeed is the other of the two of his movies I like best. Difficult (well, all his movies are difficult), but beautiful is also "The Mirror".
http://www.amazon.com/Mirror-Margarita-Terekhova/dp/6305744114/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1225365136&sr=1-3
Pictures like these always sends shivers down my spine!
Captain Nemo
10-30-08, 11:09 AM
Excuse me but visiting a radio-active contamminated site as a "tourist"...! :o
Are we completely losing it! :yep:
God! :nope:
The radioactivity is nowhere near lethal levels, and the tour was led by a qualified guide. Nothing unusual about wanting to see the place, just as it isnt unusual to want to see Ground Zero in New York.
But you wouldn't want to hang around there for too long.
Some interesting pics there. Surprisingly they kept the rest of the nuclear plant going generating electricity until December 2000 when a decision was taken to shut it down for good.
Nemo
Jimbuna
10-30-08, 12:08 PM
Pictures like these always sends shivers down my spine!
As long as it's only shivers and not radiation sickness :o
Those poor poor folk...and in particular the children :nope:
I found this on youtube...rather good
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=bSRC1_OZPIg
Contact
10-31-08, 06:12 AM
I would like to take a trip there.. To feel that horrible emptyness walking across deserted town and hearing the wind blowing in the nomans land :o Chilling place..
Kapitan
11-01-08, 06:51 PM
What strikes me as odd is that the plant still offers work to a great number of people working closely inside reactor 4 and that the plant was offically closed down till 2000 either now i would have thought that once that plant blew that was it finnished but apparently from what i read it wasnt till 2000 that it stopped running im going to check that out in a moment.
OneToughHerring
11-02-08, 03:28 PM
At the time I was a kid living way up north here in Finland. I remember them saying that the moss that reindeers eat was said to gather up a lot of radiation and that radiation would concentrate in reindeer meat. Too bad since I've always liked reindeer meat a lot.
What strikes me as odd is that the plant still offers work to a great number of people working closely inside reactor 4 and that the plant was offically closed down till 2000 either now i would have thought that once that plant blew that was it finnished but apparently from what i read it wasnt till 2000 that it stopped running im going to check that out in a moment.
:o Give owwa!
Yes, that is correct. The plant kept running until 2000 - Ukraine simply could not afford to shut it down for a long time. It provided a fairly big fraction of the country's energy, so even with one reactor down it kept going.
In fairness, this was not a huge risk. As long as the sarcophagus was stable, the workers weren't under any unusual risk. The wind blew the fallout away from the reactor, and the plant itself (besides the blown reactor) was by and large not contaminated. So, they kept it running until the country could afford to have it switched off.
Bulky radiation suits?
Decontamination chambers?
Or just high unemployment and a high wage offered?
Kapitan
11-03-08, 05:38 AM
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1071344.stm
There we go the last remaining reactor in chernobyl (reactor 3) was shut down in 2000.
Kapitan
11-03-08, 05:42 AM
Bulky radiation suits?
Decontamination chambers?
Or just high unemployment and a high wage offered?
Chernobyl was ment to become the worlds largest nuclear power plant there were plans to build a 5th and 6th reactor and maybe more in the future, wages at the site are probably pitiful even 8 years after it shut down the site still employs over 2000 people who live in the restricted zone.
Chernobyl was invisaged to produce as much as 70% of the whole of ukraines power obviously with what happened it now only produced a fraction untill now when its turned off other plants have to take up the strain.
You can visit chernobyl as a tourist you do have to have a chemical shower though so i have red i dont plan to visit but feel sorry for the peoplewho lost everything there.
Bulky radiation suits?
Decontamination chambers?
Or just high unemployment and a high wage offered?
None of the above, really. As I said, from what I've read the remaining parts of the plant were left relatively uncontaminated. The fallout travelled with the wind and left the site (outside of the immediate explosion) relatively unaffected. As far as I know, the plant itself is much safer than Pripyat.
Monica Lewinsky
11-03-08, 08:41 AM
Since starting this thread, I never envisioned there would be that much interest in this topic.
On another forum board, I mentioned that I have the National Geographic series called "Seconds from Disaster" one called Meltdown at Chernobyl available for downloading and watching and there has been a high interest there.
It is 45 minutes long, no commercials, and is 400 meg in size, and in the DivX video format. I have it on my Home Server available for you to download and then watch if you want to. The second video was made by TLC and is another Chernobyl - "How did this happen?" video.
Send me a PM, I'll send you the link, user name, and password to download it. The only thing you HAVE TO HAVE is the DivX viewer installed. There is a free version, so there is nothing to buy.
http://www.divx.com/
I have seen a few docs on why this happened and they seem to agree on thise things:
1) It happened during a safetytest to see if the pumps could supply enough collant to the reactor of the steam was cut of to the turbines.
2) The had to lower the power of the reactor to do so.
3) The poweroutput became too low and the had to raise it again and the reactor became unstable and ran out of control.
Various sources has their version.
1) During the test the reactor came close to shutdown and they pulled out all but 5 rods - eventhough the minimum was 26. The inccident was because if a "drum" where the hot water/steam and cold water passed through and the reactor control. There was 2 people controlling the reactor, the one who controlled the "drum" and thus the supply of coolant to the reactor and one controlling the rods in the reactor. Bad/lack of communication and coordination was the cause.
2) Discovery channel had this view...
The reactor is flawed in design so it becomes unstable at low power. The man in charge of the test disregards the test rules that state it should be run a 700-1000 Megawatts..he wants to do it a 200 Megawatts.
The reactor comes to a complete stop and they only leave in a few rods at the very top, leaving the bottom of the reactor free to build up power. But they cant read that power level. When the turbines are shut off less water is let into the reactor and the power buildup at the bottom accelerates. They discover the reactor is spinning out of control and press the emergancy button that will lower the control rods into the reactor. Unfortinately these rods are tipped with grafite and will upon entry cause a surge in power. Normally not a problem, but when so many rods enter at a time when the reactor is already accelerating its a disastor - leading to a steamexplosion. A 2. explosion follows, that blows the top of the reactor containment.
Anyone got comments?
XabbaRus
11-06-08, 03:37 AM
This bugs me when they say it is a flawed design. The type of reactor, a boiling water type is known to have a problem at low power. Very well known in fact and hence they knew not to operate it at low power levels.
However the stupid idiot at Chernobyl was a politcal guy who decided on the test and was told by his engineers it was dangerous. He overruled them.
They wanted to see if the free wheeling turbines would operate the pumps long enough. Obviously not.
The thing about the graphite tips though true is misleading. When they tried to scram the reactor in normal circumstances I doubt the power spike would have been that great. However by the time they did it this time the reactor was out of control.
HunterICX
11-06-08, 04:42 AM
A human error that costed lives and scarred the landscape forever.
EDIT: found this on youtube - Chernobyl : inside the sarcophagus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X3Z2B7z0vU
the other parts can be found in the playlist
HunterICX
conus00
11-06-08, 05:52 AM
It is really scary to see the pictures and I agree with most of the posters that the dev team of COD4 did a tremendous job recreating the scenery. The pictures also bring a personal memory when I was, on my way to the vacation in Croatia, driving through this tiny village somewhere in former Yugoslavia. It was shortly after the end of the civil war there and the village was completely deserted and you could see grenade craters, bullet holes in the facades of the buildings and soot smeared all over it. I will never forget the eerie spine chilling feeling I had back then...
Very interesting pictures. Certainly a sad story and a good lesson for humanity. Not that I think too many have heeded it.
This bugs me when they say it is a flawed design. The type of reactor, a boiling water type is known to have a problem at low power. Very well known in fact and hence they knew not to operate it at low power levels.
However the stupid idiot at Chernobyl was a politcal guy who decided on the test and was told by his engineers it was dangerous. He overruled them.
They wanted to see if the free wheeling turbines would operate the pumps long enough. Obviously not.
The thing about the graphite tips though true is misleading. When they tried to scram the reactor in normal circumstances I doubt the power spike would have been that great. However by the time they did it this time the reactor was out of control.National Geografic said that the minimum of rods was 26 - they only had 6 in.
NG also stated that when they tried to scram the reactor the heat was so great that the reactors structure had changed so much that they couldnt get the rods in.
They do seem to agree that running the reactor at such low power was problematic. The manual that stated the test to run at min 700 Megawatts seemed to take this into account.
vBulletin® v3.8.11, Copyright ©2000-2025, vBulletin Solutions Inc.