Chernobyl

[Figgygal]

Anyone watching?
I work in the nuclear industry but not in a direct technical role
It's fascinating

I can't believe how casual they all are

Though everyone speaking in very English accents is a but offputting

@Gingernaut
Brilliant thanks - will watch this tomorrow

I know I'm in the minority but I'm finding the British accents annoying, I would rather Russian actors and subtitles

It's utterly horrific though...I was a teenager when it happened so while I knew it was a massive disaster I didn't really comprehend the seriousness of it

It's not a happy watch.

I remember it, as I worked in a laboratory which handled radioisotopes.

One of the scanners was so sensitive, it picked up the increased background radiation levels caused by the radiation blowing off the European continent towards us.

That, and the panic about iodine. We had to take iodine tablets to prevent the uptake of the radioactive iodine from the 'fallout'.

Watched it earlier and funnily enough can't sleep now.

The bit at the end with the bird 👀. The ash falling on the carefree kids.

I was 8 and remember watching the news, they were predicting the cloud to reach the U.K. What with that and the lovely AIDS tombstone advert, and the heroin one. Doesn't really make you nostalgic for the 80s.

Sorry I worded my question badly.

I think I just assumed that radiation causes cancers not that it would cause spontaneous burns / bleeding. I was confused by the fire fighter who picked up that block of stuff whilst wearing heavy duty gloves and then a minute later his hand was blistering.

I felt so bad for the worker they made him up onto the roof to look directly into the core. He knew he was a dead man. Amdbthen when he got back down to the bunker you can see them screaming at him whilst he's just sat there. Dying. So chilling.
It's the flat out denial that anything could possibly be wrong that got me.

Also they're releasing a podcast after every episode to discuss it. The Chernobyl podcast. Has the director on it. I'm going to listen on the way to work so that'll be cheery!

I was only 3 when this happened so too little to remember it. But we were shown a documentary on it when I was in year 6 (11 years old) and it really freaked me out. Watched the first episode and it was bloody horrific. Not the best thing to watch before bed. All those people stood on the bridge no idea what was going on as all that ash fell on them 😓

I know you can't compare against modern standards and this was the first time something on this scale happened but look at when Fukushima was affected by the Japanese tsunami there was immediate international disaster response here denial, inaction and a prioritisation of the control of information.

I'd have told the execs to go up to the roof themselves if they were so convinced nothing was wrong. That idiot plant room supervisor who ignored everyone until he threw up made me furious.

@BoRhap
You have acute and chronic effects of radiation exposure.
Chronic being cancer induction. The amount of radiation exposure is proportional to exposure. So the highest the dose, the higher the risk. The cancers then don't develop for many many years post exposure.
Acute effects are not risk based but are wholly dependent on the exposure level. Below that level nothing will happen. Above that level you will get an effect.
The lowest level effects being erythema and hair loss all the way up to central nervous system shut down and death. It's the later these liquidators would have got due to their huge levels of exposure.

Sorry
The amount of radiation exposure is proportional to exposure.

I meant
The amount of radiation exposure is proportional to the cancer risk

I watched it on demand earlier in the evening and was glad I did, not really bedtime viewing, the bit at the end was horrible with the bird and all the children playing and the ash falling down.

It wasn’t cheery but it was great TV, brilliant story telling.

Imagine a nuclear plant exploding and calling the civilian fire brigade and no-one questioning it.

And the hospital having no special ‘incident at the plant’ protocols.

And the disbelief/denials!

About 10 years later I visited Ukraine and in said something like ‘ooh isn’t it hot?’ to which my host replied ‘yes, because Chernobyl’ and then fell around laughing.

She was a doctor so while all the other kids were ‘business as usual’ she shipped hers off to grandma’s in Georgia or Azer or something for the whole summer but wasn’t free to tell other people to do the same.

Yes I thought it was very good, the bit when the iodine tablets were mentioned at the hospital and they seemed to have no clue

I couldn't watch it, even the ads for it have really scared me

The radiation causes acute burns at high doses (think extreme sunburn and quadruple it) as it consists of alpha and beta subatomic particles which hit the skin and get absorbed by the body and gamma rays which go through you.

Chronic radiation poisoning is where you work at relatively low doses for a period of time and the radiation causes cancerous mutations in the cells of the body.

The boy that got me was when they kept saying the monitor only measured up to 3 röntgens (they were measuring the dose at 3 röntgen), and that supervisor guy was saying that’s not too bad, not great but not disastrous! Why the fuck did they not get out the other monitors sooner? He kept saying it wasn’t necessary I mean wtf?!

Most horrifying was the “control of information” that went on that cost so many their lives.

I have it recorded and am plucking up courage to watch. My DD was conceived at the time and ironically she is a science teacher. As radiation knows no borders I remember reports that welsh sheep were found contaminated. I knew we would not get the full story and hoped we would be ok.

We are in Cumbria and at the time the border for the restrictions was at the end of our road! It was a worrying time with three pre school children.

I was 13 when this happened so remember seeing it on the news.

The effects of radiation poisoning were portrayed in BBC drama Edge of Darkness back in 1985. I remember watching it with my dad near to Christmas and asking him "whats wrong with that man" So learnt about it due to that series.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_of_Darkness

Cant watch Chernobyl as i dont have Sky.

But i saw this article shared on Twitter a while back.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/feb/05/dogs-chernobyl-abandoned-pets-stray-exclusion-zone

This show has haunted me all day today, and I've been googling articles and all stuff today. The radiation sickness/burns scenes were horrific.

I help organise a visit to the UK for a group of children from areas of Belarus still affected by this disaster. Last night I actually found myself holding my breath watching it. Having visited exclusion zones in Belarus and seeing how families still live it truly terrifies me that we carry on using power stations like this 😢

@confusednortherner If you look at the risk of death by mode of energy production per unit of energy produced you will find nuclear has by far the least risk (and actually the least number of actual deaths). There are so many deaths from fossil fuel production throughout the whole cycle: mining accidents at the start through to pollution-induced conditions at the end. This is why it is still used when there are literally no safer alternatives to meet rising demand.

watched this film as a kid

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Syndrome

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident

confused what a lovely thing to do