Watching it but it's hard to do so. I'll just say that I thought I knew what had happened, but I didn't, not really.

The details in this mini-series are interesting.

What isn't news is just how screwed up their slavish devotion to the musings of a bunch of dead guys who knew not one whit of how the world works. That, more than anything is why the communist/socialist model never, ever works. And to think there are people who want that fucked up ideology here... makes me want to vomit.


SIGmonkey: There are many scenes that are like totally rad. Like some kinda weird fusion of feed materials.

While we had our Two Mile Island mess, we also had little known meltdown in the desert just west of Idaho Falls. This was the Army SL1 experiment that killed 3 immediately. The failure to follow procedure once again took it's toll.
Mike
Link

I remember TMI like it was yesterday, it happened right about the same time as a movie came out with 'She Who Shall Not be Named' and Michael Douglas if I recall.

There was also a BBC Top gear show perhaps 6 years ago where the croup drove into Chernobyl and I was surprised at the amount and rapidity in which the forest started to take over, and the condition of the buildings and infrastructure. Quite amazing.

Will have to try to watch the show when I get off travel.

I've seen both episodes so far and I am pleased with how they have done it. First, the actors are not trying to fake Russian/Ukranian accents if they are not native speakers. Secondly, They appear to have accurately portray the Soviet Communist predisposition to 'form a committee' or call up an existing committee to solve various problems. Also, the illustration of protecting ones 'turf,' in spite of insurmountable evidence to the contrary: DC Shcherbina blowing-off the physicists' pleas about the severity of the disaster; the Party Head in Minsk doing the same to the female physicist as well.

Lastly, the portrayal of the everyday Soviet 'Joe' that had to work under this system and the courage and sacrifice shown by those people.

quote:

Originally posted by sigmonkey:
It predict glowing reviews.

Not all of them. I read one critic who had a meltdown, but his argument didn't hold water.

quote:

Originally posted by rusbro:

quote:

Originally posted by sigmonkey:
It predict glowing reviews.

Not all of them. I read one critic who had a meltdown, but his argument didn't hold water.

quote:

Originally posted by mo4040:
Also, the illustration of protecting ones 'turf,' in spite of insurmountable evidence to the contrary: DC Shcherbina blowing-off the physicists' pleas about the severity of the disaster; the Party Head in Minsk doing the same to the female physicist as well.

I've come to learn that the female physicist is actually a fictional character. She never existed. Her character is meant to represent the thousand or so actual physicists who were involved in the "clean-up" effort. The writers apparently wanted to truncate all of their rolls into one character. The scientists knowing all too well the reality of the situation went against the party to ensure the correct steps were taken.

I mean, wow. I just never knew how close it was to full out nuclear fallout.

Just watched the first and second episodes. Very well done. I have read some on the Chernobyl incident and this is very interesting. The actual phone call audio that night to the Military Fire Station being used was chilling.

I know a cleaning lady who lived in Kiev at the time that happened. It took the gov't 4 days to notify them as to what happened. She also told me that all pregnant woman were rounded up to have the pregnancies terminated. Many of her friends' children are in wheelchairs or are infirm from the exposure. She stated they were never told the truth during or after the accident. She hasn't watched any of the series and is not sure if she wants to. I did a lot of research on this years ago. Documentaries, books, interviews, etc and so far the series seems to be pretty accurate, and pretty depressing.

I read recently that the attempts to put out the fire and stop the reaction could have gone MUCH MUCH worse and may have actually ended up with a couple million people dead, Ukraine uninhabitable for thousands of years and Poland and East Germany screwed too.

Interesting to see that an international safety consortium actually built a huge new containment structure in 2017 over top of the original 1986 "Sarcophagus".

This is excellent television. The portrayal of the slavish dedication of people at all levels to a self-serving narrative of denial is amazing. The sacrifices of so many, whether intentional and informed (the workers going back into the plant) or not (the populace) is horrifying.
What a government. It's all about the people - and you can't possibly take care of them if you care anything about them.

There were water tanks below the safety floor of the core, containing 7000 cubic meters of water. The nuclear pile, along with the sand and boron dumped on it to douse the fire was melting through the safety floor. Had the incredibly hot mass reached the water in these tanks, there would have been a thermal explosion, not a nuclear explosion, when the water was instantly vaporized.
Well, how big could that be? Not very big, right? The estimated size of the explosion was between two and four megatons and it would have vaporized everything within a 30 kilometer radius, including all of Kiev and most of Minsk. All the nuclear material in the damaged reactor, and all the nuclear material in the remaining functioning reactors would have been blasted out in all directions, resulting in a permanent disruption of the food and water supplies for approximately 60 million people, and would have made the Ukraine and Byelorussia uninhabitable for at least 100 years. Damage would have extended to as far away as East Germany.

So, again, I had no idea that this was possible. Had it happened, it would have changed the course of history and would be affecting us to this day.

7000 cubic meters, I had to put that into perspective for myself...

That’s equates to 1,849,204 gallons of water
Enough water to fill just over 2.8 Olympic pools
For a weight of 7,711 tons of water

That’s a lot of hooch to vaporize instantly, little easier to understand the scale of potential damage. For me anyway.

Ahhhh i want to see this so bad. Ill have to wait for a dvd release. It sounds absolutely fascinating!

The American perspective, April 28, 1986. Man, this was back when we relied on shows like Nightline. No slanted political BS or PC nonsense, just the news. Lots of information packed into 22 minutes.

^^^ I miss reporting like that. The wife and I are going to start watching this, maybe tonight.

It is excellent so far. Highly recommended.

Just watched episode one.

Damn. I've learned a lot about radiation at work, so most of the first episode was very cringe-worthy.

We will be watching more.

Series of interesting photos of Chernobyl.

http://knowledgeglue.com/amazi...-chernobyl-disaster/