rickpnick

2 comments by rickpnick on Oct 13th, 2012

Last night, I watched some YouTube videos on the Chernobyl disaster. I've always been interested in this disaster. That's part of the reason I love the STALKER series, (I could write another blog on all the things I love about the STALKER series!)
A lot of the videos were releases of this documentary that came out in 2006, made 20 years after the accident. It didn't go into the specifics about how the accident happened, but it concentrated on the aftermath and efforts involved in the containment and cleanup.
I was especially struck (and saddened) by the heroism of the people who responded to this disaster.
Of course, most were not told of the real hazards they were facing during their attempts to seal up and clean up this man made disaster.

Miners were brought in to dig a tunnel to under the reactor and also a chamber directly under the reactor. This chamber was made to cool down the reactor above and to keep it from melting down to the aquifer under Chernobyl. These miners dug the tunnel and chamber by hand and shovel! The chamber was ultimately filled with concrete.
"Liquidators", was the name given to one half million soldiers and civilians who were brought in from all over the Soviet Union. They cleaned up the dirt, ash and debris from the accident up to 30KM from the reactor (The Zone as it's called). They even bulldozed and buried whole villages.
"Bio-robots" was the name given to a select few Reservists from the Soviet Army. They were used in areas where mechanical robots failed due to the high levels of radiation! These men, outfitted in lead-sheet lined outfits they made the night before, were used to shovel off graphite chunks from the roof of reactor #3! They could only be on that roof for 45 seconds because of the intense levels of radiation, enough time for them to scoop up only 2 shovel loads of the highly irradiated graphite and throw over the side of the roof!
All of the above mentioned people (the miners, the "liquidators", and especially the "Bio-robots") were exposed to levels of radiation far in excess of accepted safe levels. Many have died from this already, many more will die as a result of their exposure.

Playing the game STALKER will have a little more of a somber note for me, because it will always remind me of the sacrifices so many valiant people made to contain this disaster and keep it from becoming a much greater disaster for the world.
I hope you get to see these videos and see what I'm talking about.
Rick