Surviving Chernobyl

September 3, 2004 9:54 PM

Chernobyl survivor interview -Over at the New Scientist site Alexander Yuvchenko (one of the few surviving workers at the site) talks about the day Chernobyl went kablooie. "...we walked outside. What we saw was terrifying. Everything that could be destroyed had been. The entire water coolant system was gone. The right-hand side of the reactor hall had been completely destroyed, and on the left the pipes were just hanging." "From where I stood I could see a huge beam of projected light flooding up into infinity from the reactor. It was like a laser light, caused by the ionisation of the air. It was light-bluish, and it was very beautiful. I watched it for several seconds. If I'd stood there for just a few minutes I would probably have died on the spot..."
posted by edgeways (12 comments total)

Guardian article/interview with an engineer

Accident chronology, extent of contamination

Reactor design

Time magazine coverage

[Links from /. via MonkeyFilter]
posted by lagado at 10:07 PM on September 3, 2004

"Levi gives an estimated long term total exposure is 29 million person rems with an excess of 3000 cancer deaths above the 9.5 million cancer deaths projected in the same population."

Holy shit. I really had no idea the projected cancer deaths were so high. Awful.

"The Soviet Nuclear Legacy" (old, but relevant)
posted by dhoyt at 11:03 PM on September 3, 2004

Thanks edgeways. Mr. Yuvchenko's story is amazing.
posted by halonine at 1:33 AM on September 4, 2004

A little clarity on exposure measurements. A Roentgen is a given amount of radiation, that is, radiation emitted from a radioactive substance. It is not the substance itself. It helps to think of the radiation emitter as a flashlight, beaming the radiation outward like light.

If you get the radioactive substance on or in you, it continues to "shine" as long as it is there. Once it is removed or eliminated it can cause no further damage to you.

However, different types of radiation, such as alpha, beta and gamma, affect the human body in different ways.
For this reason, the REM measurement was created. REM, which stands for Roentgen Equivalent Man, tries to justify radiation as it affects the human body.

alpha radiation usually only affects the skin, since it cannot penetrate as much as a piece of paper. beta radiation is more severe to the human body, and gamma radiation is very destructive. So REM attempts to base exposure on how much damage has been, or can assume will be done to a person.

But a different measure of damage was still needed.
The reason being, you could receive a huge amount of radiation to just one finger. It could even destroy your finger, but the effects to the rest of your body might be quite limited. And yet, some effects might leave your finger and travel through your bloodstream, such as radiologically caused blood cell mutation leading to cancer.

So RAD, or Roentgen Average Dose was created (though it is now called c/gray). It evened out your exposure, so, for example, 10 REM to just your finger was *equivalent* to 1 REM in your whole body. And RAD (c/gray) is the most useful in measuring the effects of a disaster, like Chernobyl, on people.

Unfortunately, RAD (c/gray) is about as good as you can get, for an odd reason. People vary widely as to their reaction to radiation. Some people can be made sick from a tiny dose, and others are highly resistant. Some people experience symptoms almost immediately, others take years for symptoms to show.
posted by kablam at 7:55 AM on September 4, 2004

I'm mildly disturbed by such a level of knowledge from someone calling themselves "kablam". :)
posted by twine42 at 8:31 AM on September 4, 2004

Incredible. More so than any resonance cascade scenario.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 11:42 AM on September 4, 2004

this is good
posted by advil at 11:53 AM on September 4, 2004

Both the Guardian and New Scientist interviewed the same man, but his first name differs? Odd.

Interesting reading anyway, cheers.
posted by toby\flat2 at 3:52 PM on September 4, 2004

IIRC, "Sasha" is a nickname for "Alexander".
posted by zztzed at 5:16 PM on September 4, 2004

Other trivia, some creepier than others. The Chernobyl accident's two most dangerous products were aerosol Iodine and Cesium isotopes. The heaviest isotopes tended to go straight down, burning their way down through the floor of the reactor, and endanger (current tense) the water table and surface water with both radioactive and chemical contamination. The radiation in the vicintity of the reactor was horrific, and killed hundreds of Ukrainian response personnel with only a few minutes exposure to each, being reduced only when heavy lift helicopters dropped concrete over the reactor (all helicopter personnel died later.)

Severe radiation poisoning can kill very quickly, but if you survive longer than a few weeks, your immune system is almost neutralized for a while, making you susceptible to all types of disease.

The first widescale prophalaxis was because of the aerosol Iodine isotopes. Iodine is readily uptaken by the thyroid gland, and the only preventative is to consume large doses of iodine, to fill up the thyroid to capacity, so excess iodine is just passed through the body. It is reasonably effective, but many people over a wide area, especially children, suffer from thyroid damage and cancer, and will continue to do so for the rest of their lives. Fortunately, the half life of Iodine isotopes is about two weeks, limiting its spread.

Far more dangerous was the Cesium isotopes. Cesium is uptaken into human and animal bone marrow, and is also readily absorbed by plants. The Ukraine was the "breadbasket" of the Soviet Union, and a large percentage of their food was contaminated to some extent with Cesium. Its half life is (I believe) 70 years. The response was to send contaminated crops to every corner of their country, so that virtually everyone had a little Cesium, but (they hoped) not enough for long-term damage.
posted by kablam at 6:35 PM on September 4, 2004

More on Chernobyl radionuclide contamination here.
posted by Sonny Jim at 5:19 PM on September 5, 2004

and how much money/effort has been spent to secure our nuclear facilities here in the "homeland" ... ? i hope they don't decide to hit the reactor upwind from minneapolis.
posted by specialk420 at 10:21 PM on September 6, 2004