Chernobyl (HBO Mini Series)

[llewop]

Steamer said:

How would death actually occur? As in - what would be the physical effect on the body? Would it be sickness and organ failure?

More often than not it tends to be infections - one of the effects is to knock out your immune systems.

But yes, organ failures can be cause of death, physical effects can be a bit weird: there is a phenomenon of appearing relatively 'healthy' after a significant exposure that inevitably will lead to death. There are also plenty of variation in symptoms, depending on the exposure pattern: whole body/partial body/external or internal and then into the specifics about what material (and in what form) if it is an intake - some will be organ specific, such as iodine which will doubtless get mentioned in future episodes - goes to the thyroid, so get thyroid cancers, for example. In contrast Litvinyenko's Po-210 went everywhere, so shredded everywhere.

[Lazadude]

In effect, radiation alters the reproduction of cells by mutating them.

This either results in no further reproduction (when your cells die, they arent replaced. So organ death), or extra growth (cancers).

Plus when they hit the bone marrow, it prevents red and white blood cells from being made. Which means nothing to help you fight infections.

[marksx]

The fireman who picked up the graphite, minutes later his hand was physically burned/blistered (?). Would that really happen?

[Lazadude]

llewop said:

His message was 'everything is fine, that can't happen (even though it just had)... get on with it'.

The most interesting thing about Chernobyl is not the failed testing but how it got to that state, the power of people and minds/mindsets.

For example the USSR had known about RBMK issues and kept them suppressed, Since when the government says things can't happen then they can't happen.

Extreme faith in those above you. If you don't, you get shot as a traitor.

For example the guy they sent onto the roof to look into the open reactor. He knew it was a suicide mission, he know that the reactor was dead. But he had to do what he was told and was escorted by an armed soldier. He comes back with lethal dosage (Think the roof was something like 30k Gy/h) to then be shouted at and told he didn't know what he was looking at.

[RTB]

marksx said:

The fireman who picked up the graphite, minutes later his hand was physically burned/blistered (?). Would that really happen?

Maybe not quite that dramatic but yes, radiation burns can appear very quickly. Radio-therapy patients often suffer from radiation burns during or shortly after the procedure (my mother in law did). Usually just reddening of the skin but sometimes the skin can blister or peel. We've all suffered radiation burns when we've been sat outside the pub on a hot sunny day and forgotten the suncream (just not ionising radiation).

[Lurking Lawyer]

marksx said:

The fireman who picked up the graphite, minutes later his hand was physically burned/blistered (?). Would that really happen?

I took to Google after watching last week's episode, wondering exactly the same thing.

Radiation burns are definitely possible. Severity depends on the nature of the emitter and the severity of exposure. Makes sense, I guess - sunburn is just overexposure to a particular type of radiation. Beta burns (shallow surface burns) were common in the first responders.

That was a pretty grim Google rabbit hole I disappeared down after that initial search.... :/

[RTB]

llewop said:

I hope not! His message was 'everything is fine, that can't happen (even though it just had)... get on with it'. My point is that the actual number of deaths and potential deaths are known and established; having someone trot out figures of XXX deaths or showing more than actually died is taking artistic licence or 'for dramatic effect' too far.

I hope they don't do that either as it will spoil it. The political a personal dimensions will be much more interesting than spending the whole series watching people running around with the sun tans.

It just made me smile that you hoped the programme makers don't over egg the dangers, whilst the plant/shift manager were telling the plant workers that they were over egging the dangers

[Welshbeef]

If today you had access and we’re able to walk down to the elephants foot wearing nothing but speedos and tough boots for the terrain sat there to watch all of season 8 Game of Thrones what would happen?


Or would I need to choose one episode of he Simpsons before I slip into a coma and die?

[andyjo1982]

Watched the first episode Sunday night, and second tonight. That second episode, was brilliant, and much needed. First was good, but (as not much of a sciencey person) I had a lot of questions. Second episode made much more sense.

The explosion has always been something I've been aware of, but its hit home what really happened.

Cant wait for Ep3

[McGee_22]

llewop said:

FourWheelDrift said:

Terminator X said:

Watched it last night, very good. Why did they all seem to be adamant though that the reactor could not blow up?

TX.

I think they were talking about a nuclear blow up, a reactor is not like a bomb it can't explode like one. The explosion was a high pressure steam explosion like a old steam engine going bang. It just blew everything else apart around it. They thought they had all safety concerns covered with plenty of water cooling and the rods that control the power, but one problem (the test that went wrong) caused the rods to jam when being inserted into the core, inserting the rods reduces power generation and heat. If they couldn't be inserted the power and heat continues, with not enough water cooling due to the first problem during the test and the the jammed the rods the temperature continue to increase very quickly and what water left in the system turns to vapour and that vapour expands and blows up.

Edited to add, the heat fractured the rods - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#E...

The conviction it couldn’t blow up was based on an insufficient understanding of the reactor characteristics such as the positive void coefficient, a specific problem, particularly in the context of the test and removing control rods, was the control rods had graphite ends, so when they started to motor them in, initially there was an increase in reactivity.

The specific reactor operating characteristics are dependant on the exact physical make and assembly of the RBMK reactors and are absolutely critical and key to understanding what happened, and more importantly why the operators did not understand what was happening. The positive void coefficient, the localised increase in reactivity as the graphite tipped rods were inserted, the slow response of the reactor control rods under scram conditions are all elements that contributed to the disaster.

I operated and maintained Royal Navy Pressurised Water Reactors for quite a few years and as well as seeing the confidential reports on the Chernobyl accident, there were also confidential in depth analysis of Three Mile Island and other Nuclear accidents.

Certainly on the Submarines I was on there were always formal and informal discussion on the limits to which we operated, the justifications behind them and the physical effects upon the reactor under these and also the emergency limits that as military operators, we were also allowed to operate to. Included in these were, again formal and informal, theoretical studies of the reactors physical response to specific component failures, system failures, multiple and consecutive failures, and perhaps most importantly, discussions regarding control and indication failures and our response as operators to them.

I'd like to think we were highly professional operators who tried always to think a long way through the sequence of events we were planning, and what we might or should do if anything untoward should occur; certainly when we were called upon to operate in emergency conditions we did so with utmost diligence across the entire plant to keep the submarine, crew and reactor entirely safe, controlled and understood at all times.

[Lazadude]

Welshbeef said:

If today you had access and we’re able to walk down to the elephants foot wearing nothing but speedos and tough boots for the terrain sat there to watch all of season 8 Game of Thrones what would happen?


Or would I need to choose one episode of he Simpsons before I slip into a coma and die?

Depends is the answer, as everyone reacts differently. I suspect You wouldn't reach the elephants foot before keeling over.

Funny thing about radiation, you'd definitely be dead but it's not like a gun shot where you just keel over.


Eta, this week's episode was another good one. Very much party politics meets unknown science.

Edited by Lazadude on Tuesday 14th May 22:04

[Welshbeef]

McGee22
How close did Chernobyl and Three Mile come to utter disaster on a scale so many multiples of what actually happened.

Also if the water bath wasn’t drained in Chernobyl and it went bang killing millions - as I understand it the cores all 4 would be totally open with rampant runaway Fission. Given it would be utterly uninhabitable how would anyone be able to stop it?

[Lazadude]

Welshbeef said:

Also if the water bath wasn’t drained in Chernobyl and it went bang killing millions - as I understand it the cores all 4 would be totally open with rampant runaway Fission. Given it would be utterly uninhabitable how would anyone be able to stop it?

Letting non self taught people (mcgee etc) answer the first bit.

The second bit, they wouldn't. If they couldn't do something like the current containment method, it would be a world wide contamination issue. The world would be changed/ended dependant on the impact.

[Welshbeef]

Lazadude said:

Letting non self taught people (mcgee etc) answer the first bit.

The second bit, they wouldn't. If they couldn't do something like the current containment method, it would be a world wide contamination issue. The world would be changed/ended dependant on the impact.

How long would the cores be in runaway Fission? (Didn’t Fukushima have something like 40 or 100 tonnes of uranium) are we talking weeks/months or years to decades or infinite/as good as.

[Lazadude]

There may be info out there that's classified etc, but as far as I know the amount of fuel and the amount of "scientific/research matter" was never told by the USSR

[Welshbeef]

Petrifying really isn’t it.

Yet now we are proving tidal wind and solar power is both risk free and great for the environment and cheap too.

[The Hypno-Toad]

Bloody hell, episode 2 was even more scary!

[B17NNS]

Welshbeef said:

Petrifying really isn’t it.

Just a bit. I vaguely remember it happening as a kid. What are the chances that the situation would be handled any differently under Putin?

[Welshbeef]

B17NNS said:

Welshbeef said:

Petrifying really isn’t it.

Just a bit. I vaguely remember it happening as a kid. What are the chances that the situation would be handled any differently under Putin?

Back then what Position did Putin hold? We know he was KGB but from this series it looks like everything is discussed in Committees with comrades

[Pesty]

Enjoyed it.

Did a woman really save the world or is that but made up?


Skarsgård and Harris are great at this.