
Eye-witness stories from Chernobyl - vkb
https://ironedcurtains.com/2017/06/07/brilliant-blue-sky-eye-witness-stories-from-chernobyl/
======
rdtsc
Remember watching the evening news with my dad when they finally announced it
publicly. They completely downplayed it. In came in as "Oh by the way, an
accident at ChAES happened, next up - sports...".

Here I found the 20 seconds blurb:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ouJjaV_NbY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ouJjaV_NbY)
(sorry in Russian, obviously).

My dad, a mechanical engineer, also specializing in workplace safety was
really concerned and told me. "This is bad. They are probably downplaying the
accident who knows who horrible it really is...".

The fact that people knew government lied routinely in cases like that, nobody
believed them so all kinds of rumors started to circulate.

My mom kept some flowers on the balcony. She claimed they died that year
because of the radiation. I don't really believe that was the cause, but it
just explains the anxiety and worry people experienced.

Then there was a call to go help clean up. They promised money, even better
apartments for volunteers (housing was government provided). Some went and
they came back to a new apartment but they didn't enjoy it for too long.
Others told stories of people burned so badly by the radiation their skin and
meat was falling off their bones.

Another really sad thing happened when evacuees started streaming to different
cities. They were shunned and treated horribly by others. It was paranoia,
prejudices and mistrust. Mixed with lots of irrational fear ("Maybe they are
still radioactive, I wouldn't get near them". I can remember my uncle
saying...). How horrible. Those poor people had to leave everything behind
only to be faced by that kind of attitude.

~~~
AnonNo15
To be fair, the lady from TV announcement said that one of the reactors is
damaged, which is a really bad thing for nuclear power plant.

~~~
desdiv
I think OP's point was that a 20 second blurb, no matter how truthful or
accurate, is downplaying the situation.

If an analogous event happened in the US, all entertainment programming would
be suspended and there would be continuous news coverage on all the major
channels for several days, just like after 9/11.

------
kodfodrasz
The interviews are interesting.

I was a kid those days, and my mother keeps telling me that diary products
were suddenly put on a sale (before the news release). I live in Eastern-
Europe, in the former Warsaw Pact bloc. My father worked in a research
institute, so managed to get a hold of the information before the official
announcements. He told her not to buy any diary or vegetable for a while.

\----

What troubles me is the contant flow on anti-nuclear-power propaganda to HN.
If we accept the fact of global warming, and humanity as its cause, then the
fearmongering about nuclear power should stop, as it is a necessary component
in reducing CO2 emissions while not giving up too much from our lifestyle.
With the lessons learned from the nuclear accidents we have every measure to
avoid them in the future, until the fusion technology is ready, and to have
reliable, zero-emission power in our energy mix.

~~~
cletus
There are a number of problems with nuclear power.

1\. The world's uranium supply won't actually go that far [1].

2\. A lot of places aren't suitable for nuclear reactors (eg they're
seismically active).

3\. We have to trust either corporations or governments to run such plants.
Corporations will tend to maximize short term profits at the cost of long term
safety. Governments will tend to do the same for budgetary reasons.

4\. We'd create a whole bunch of radioactive slag that we honestly have no
good way of dealing with.

So far it seems the best power source we have is hydroelectric. Of course it's
only possible in some places. This can devastate certain species (eg salmon)
but in terms of cost, risks, environmental impact and power output, hydro is
hard to beat if it's an option.

Solar has been on a stellar (pardon the pun) rise for some years simply
because the cost of cells has decreased by way more than I ever would've
predicted.

Widespread electric vehicles are still hindered by the relative expense and
scalability issue of batteries, notably how much lithium we have available as
well as the environmental impact of mining the necessary materials. It does
seem like we're one big battery breakthrough away from completely changing
this landscape however.

Wind has a place but I think will remain a niche energy source.

I increasingly have the view the the economic production of electricity from
nuclear fusion is a pipe dream. The temperatures are too high, magnetic
containment seems too problematic and, worse, the neutron emissions are a big
problem (yes, yes, I know about He3).

This does seem like it's a problem we're going to have to solve this century.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_uranium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_uranium)

~~~
jjoonathan
> in terms of cost, risks, environmental impact and power output, hydro is
> hard to beat if it's an option.

The death tolls tell a different story.

You aren't alone in this belief, but I've never really understood it. Banqiao
dam bursts and kills 170,000 people: hydro is fine, we should do more.
Chernobyl melts down and kills 30: nuclear power is inherently unsafe!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam_failure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam_failure)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accident...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_and_incidents)

~~~
mkesper
You're not taking into account all the people who didn't die immediately but
long before their time because of cancer.

“I know three women my age (between 30–40) who have experienced thyroid
cancer. When one of them was surprised to get the diagnosis, her doctor told
her they see women our age from the Soviet Union very frequently with the
same. Not a coincidence.” — Z. K.

~~~
slackingoff2017
I think it should be kept in mind that the design of Soviet reactors was
incredibly unsafe compared to their western counterparts. Fukushima had four
meltdowns with only a few casualties.

~~~
kodfodrasz
This is not true in this form. There were unsafe soviet designs, but also
there were unsafe western designs. Soviet designs were not all categorically
unsafe. The design used at Chernobyl was a problematic design, but still many
layers of human error had to be involved to create the accident.

Military reactor designs are generally less safe. Civilian designs were
usually OK in the USSR.

~~~
rb1
It's not just the design(s), it is the implementation too.

At Chernobyl the powers at be (accountants?) got involved and decided to use
flammable bitumen coverings on the roof of reactor 3, one would assume to save
money. Unsurprisingly, the roof of reactor 3 caught fire.

~~~
fusiongyro
This is a good example of one of the failings at Chernobyl, but it took many
of them coinciding to make the disaster as bad as it was.

They were required to use another material to build the roof, but they were
also required to be finished with construction by a certain time. Soviet
central planning led to a shortage of the proper roofing material. I'm sure
the decision to use bitumen was either made in ignorance or with the
assumption that it wouldn't matter for other reasons. Lots of mistakes were
made with the assumption that the rest of the system was safe so it wouldn't
matter.

------
doug1001
the OP is a sequence of brief (100 - 500 words) (skillfully edited &
translated) vignettes from people who have first-hand memory of the events
related to the Chernobyl disaster.

i clicked and began reading the first one; two hours later and i just read the
last one. The editor (who compiled, edited and translated these brief
accounts) did a remarkable job, but stories themselves are extraordinary and
compelling--many deeply sad; many of them provide revealing snapshots of the
former USSR.

here's a portion of one from a radiation scientist working in Kiev at the
time:

> Both sides of it were lined up with buses. Dozens upon dozens of them,
> parked bumper to bumper. People were streaming out of them endlessly. Most
> wore house coats, pajamas, tapochki (slippers),…. Very few passengers had as
> much as a purse on them....it was almost silent. The trolley had to stop and
> I walked all the way to the institute mingling with these unusual and
> unwilling passengers. They were evacuees from Pripyat. Their destination was
> that same facility I was heading to. Reason: decontamination. It was only
> one place that can handle it en-masse. I remember marching with them in a
> very solemn procession. Not like a funeral one, rather a trip to a “then
> what?” destination. People talked in hush tones, kids didn’t jump and yell,
> even infants were uncharacteristically quiet.”

i'm from southeastern Belarus (Gomel region) but at the time attending Lyceum
("science high school") in Moscow. Like many students, i listened to Voice of
America on the radio late in the evenings; at 0800 the next morning, i went to
the Lyceum authorities and requested immediate leave to visit my family. The
response was not a disposition notice ("approve"/"denied") but an urgent
request to meet in an administrator's office. When i was led into her office,
she spoke to me in an uncharacteristically gentle voice and told me i should
not go in sum because there is absolutely nothing i could do to help my family
and because to do so would likely irreparable damage my health. i asked her
what she would do if she were in my place. She signed my request, then after a
14-hour wait in the queue at the train station, and a 17-hour journey by
train, i was home.

~~~
vkb
Editor here. Thank you for sharing your memories. And, for the note.

Some details about the origin: the vignettes were originally English-language
comments in a private Facebook group.

It was a huge team effort to get them all collated, organized, and to check
and re-check attribution and consent to share. We are so happy that we are
able to share these collective memories and eyewitness testimonies,
particularly outside of Facebook's walled garden.

------
jnsaff2
I was five in Estonia when it happened. I remember:

\- being told not to keep water in my cup anymore in kindergarten.

\- dad going to grandparents farm for a few weeks (to hide from mobilisation
into cleanup crew).

\- a few frames of TV news about the helicopters flying over the reactor (tho
this memory could be from years later).

------
choult
I visited Chernobyl and Pripyat about four years ago; it was a rather sobering
experience.

If anyone is interested, my unedited photos can be found here:

[https://plus.google.com/photos/115800995007308025308/album/5...](https://plus.google.com/photos/115800995007308025308/album/5878479734452453425)

[https://plus.google.com/photos/115800995007308025308/album/5...](https://plus.google.com/photos/115800995007308025308/album/5883312026173839569)

~~~
cr0sh
I find these pictures fascinating!

Would you be willing to share the albums as zip files or such for downloading?
Strangely, google photo albums don't seem to have a method to download the
complete album for public albums (there is supposed to be a way to do it for
your own albums, though - but that doesn't apply here - though if you were
willing to create a download file of the albums, you could download them that
way to your google drive, then share the drive files publicly).

Regardless - thank you for sharing these!

------
mirimir
In states near the Nevada test site, senior government officials evacuated
before test series, with their families. And Kodak was notified in advance, so
they could avoid using fallout-contaminated paper to interleave with their
X-ray film.

~~~
windlep
What's even creepier is that the main reason Kodak was notified is because
they were able to determine when the testing was occurring based on their
manufacturing defects (and it meant they lost a lot of product to sell). They
sued to stop the US Govt but got an agreement to know the testing schedule so
they wouldn't produce film on those days.

The article mentioning this was on HN awhile back,

[http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a21382/how-
ko...](http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a21382/how-kodak-
accidentally-discovered-radioactive-fallout/)

~~~
mirimir
Right. And there was no publicity about potential health impacts. Also,
results of fallout deposition tests were kept secret for decades. And even
after they became public, health impacts, mostly hypothyroidism and thyroid
cancer, were bullshitted away. Because they're readily treatable. So there was
no need to alarm people.

------
cel1ne
Chernobyl is the earliest memory I recall. I was less than 1y old, but I can
remember staring through the window into the garden not comprehending why I
was not allowed to be outside like usual and everyone being in a strange mood.

------
tomohawk
“Everyone who thinks the EPA is not necessary and the regulations on power
plants are there to stifle growth and profit should read every comment here…
”— Ilya K.

Didn't this catastrophe happen in a communist country with the government in
complete control of all aspects? The presence of a government agency
regulating the activity is not like some magic amulet that will prevent bad
things from occurring.

The EPA has caused its own share of disasters, such as the MBTE fiasco.

------
acidburnNSA
I got a similar set of stories from a friend who's parents were nearby. She
translated them here:
[https://whatisnuclear.com/chernobyl/memories.html](https://whatisnuclear.com/chernobyl/memories.html)

------
steevenwee
There's a good lesson to be learned. [http://chernobylgallery.com/chernobyl-
disaster/timeline/](http://chernobylgallery.com/chernobyl-disaster/timeline/)

------
lkramer
If anyone enjoyed this, I can recommend Voices From Chernobyl by Svetlana
Alexievich (who won the Nobel a few years ago). It's basically the same thing,
but more and more in depth.

[https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0312425848/ref=as_li_tl?...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0312425848/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0312425848&linkCode=as2&tag=fub07-21&linkId=7eabcc13573fabd9282bcfd5ad48917a)

------
bolololo12
Some people who post comments didn't read the article - thousands of people
dying of cancer, children loosing hair, etc. It wasn't just 36 people, it's
couple million tragedies, as their families were affected, themselves,
children because of the lies of the communists

------
ageofwant
> The biggest man-made environmental disaster in written history.

I stopped reading right there. Now I expected to reach exasperation somewhere
in the article, but not at the second sentence. Chernobyl is a wildlife haven,
it shelters a sea of fauna and flora that would otherwise have been the
typical suburban death zone of humans, cat and dogs and nothing else. The
biggest man made disaster has been committed and is being committed as we
speak. Billions of tons of CO2 is pumped into the ocean and into the air right
this minute. The Chernobyl accident affected a few hundred square kilometers
maybe killed 5000 people. Air pollution kills 700 000 people a year.

Please stop propagating this bloody bullshit.

~~~
GhostVII
Disasters usually refer to isolated, unexpected, incidents. Air pollution is
not a disaster.

------
matwood
Great documentary about Chernobyl can be watched here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezohqY-
vg4s&feature=player_e...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezohqY-
vg4s&feature=player_embedded)

It touches on all aspects of the accident and cleanup. There are a lot of good
interviews and actual footage from the event. The most amazing/sad part to me
were the men who did the clean up in 30 second - 1 minute shifts.

------
xattt
A family member almost became a liquidator when he was told about a possible
way of emigrating from the Soviet Union to Europe as a graduate student. He
was told that he'd just have to do some work in Ukraine in between for a month
or two.

You wonder how many other liquidators were tricked into doing the job.

------
archagon
Any chance there's a Russian version of this somewhere?

~~~
vkb
Editor here. These were originally written in English, so we have plans to
translate to Russian, which might take a while since we only have one fully-
qualified translator. Help is welcome! Shoot me an email (included in my
profile).

~~~
archagon
Oh, interesting. Were the original interviews not done in Russian?

~~~
vkb
No, they were comments on a Facebook post.

------
cr0sh
I found the comment about "intelligentsia"-phobia interesting; it echos the
conservatives slurring of education and "elitists"...

------
valuearb
[https://xkcd.com/radiation/](https://xkcd.com/radiation/)

------
bitL
This really strikes chord with how Fukushima was treated - nothing to be
concerned about, citizen, move along and enjoy swimming on a Fukushima beach a
year later... One would think this would happen only in communist societies
but seeing it happening in Japan and everybody being fine with that was
shocking. And then there were people pointing out xkcd and bananas,
downplaying the effects and conflating radiation dust effects you can wash
away with inhaled/ingested particles that get incorporated to bones and
tissues with grim long-term effects.

Comparing to Japan, even USSR behaved in some way more responsibly as they
threw a couple of million people at the problem at the cost of waging a war
just to clean up what they could. All we got from Japan was there is no issue,
TEPCO saying all is fine and then suddenly a big hole in the reactor where all
robots stop functioning and who knows how much water continuously being
contaminated for a few years already. All because panic is the bigger evil (is
it? or just the "fat cats" decided it is?)

~~~
TeMPOraL
Well, now that the dust settled, it turned out they were perfectly right, and
pretty much all the damage to lives and the region was caused by panic and
evacuation.

~~~
bitL
And that's why there is a permanent exclusion zone no one is allowed to enter
and the videos posted on YouTube by Japanese themselves showing significantly
raised background radiations on certain spots in Tokyo were produced by
irresponsible people using uncalibrated unapproved instruments, right? Or
reports of metallic taste after first rains since meltdowns etc. It was just a
show produced by Hollywood spread by fake news, right?

