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ClubMed · 04-26-2002, 04:13 PM

Actually 16 years ago yesterday, it's already the 27th April on this side of the world..

The Chernobyl Nuclear Plant Disaster.

I remember I was at school, playing with friends in the school play ground when our teachers told us to come inside the building and then sent us home.

Nuclear clouds were spreading all over Europe, some traces could even be found in the USA.

Supposedly the sarcophagus is cracked and falling apart. The whole site is still unstable and dangerous.

Hundreds of people suffered radiation exposure, and about 20-30000 had to be relocated.

A few families still live in the forbiden zone, I watched a program on TV about this, they have been abandoned, they cannot leave. No running water or electricity.

Anyone remember this?.

OuTpaTienT · 04-26-2002, 04:35 PM

I remember it. Although I mostly remember watching a documentry that aired shortly after it showing some of the ground zero footage. They had a remote control wheeled robot with a camera go down into the actual core. It was as heavily shielded to radiation as technically possible...even with that the I think the bot only lasted about 15 minutes.

It was freaky because when the bot made it into the core, where there should have been many radioactive control rods, there was nothing there. Turns out all the rods fused into a single radioactive glob and burned it's way through the core containment walls, many feet of concrete, and then through the floor and down to the next lower lever and it was 3/4 of the way through that floor too.

Scary stuff. I think that's when the robot died, they got it too close to the radioactive glob.

They said that when it happened even many of the helicopter pilots that tried to keep a safe distance while still getting pictures are now dead.

Graham · 04-26-2002, 04:36 PM

I still maintain the comms kit for the monitoring system they installed around the UK.
It was a worrying time, and a worrying event considering the number of reactors they still have.

G

edit spelling, again, sigh

Skywalker[TSG] · 04-26-2002, 04:48 PM

The threat of russias failing reactors is still real

the Ignalina nuclear plant is almost identical to Chernobyl
but is almost 3times larger.The plant is in terrible condition