
Chernobyl's legacy 30 years on - ghosh
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36115240?ocid=socialflow_twitter
======
mikeokner
I visited about five years ago. Quite frankly it's pretty safe at this point.
There were a few spots here and there that made the Geiger counter tick faster
than usual, but for the most part the radiation level wasn't out of the
ordinary. I definitely wouldn't think twice about going back. Actually, I'm
pretty sure some wanderers live there these days.

Photos from my trip:
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/127718378@N07/albums/721576485...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/127718378@N07/albums/72157648501650282)

~~~
phreeza
There are other risks which won't show up on a geiger counter. For example the
ingestion of radioactive material, which will cause a much higher effective
dose than estimated by a geiger counter or dosimeter. This is called a
committed dose:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committed_dose](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committed_dose)

~~~
saganus
How easy is it to ingest something by accident while in the area?

I mean, I don't imagine people going there to be eating random stuff they
find. So maybe from dust and other small particles you don't notice?

~~~
ommunist
From experience. Contamination is patchy. Especially there. You can briefly
step into some plutonium contaminated patch for a second, and if you had no
proper decontamination on exit - bring this shit home. Once its inside the
body - there is no cure.

------
sbdmmg
It was a horrible disaster. But, 30 years after the accident, this article is
trying to get readers using punchy headlines, like "Children are still being
born with severe birth defects". I would have expected a BBC article to be a
bit more objective on such controversial conclusions [1]. [1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_Chernobyl_disas...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_Chernobyl_disaster#Controversy_over_human_health_effects)

~~~
scott_s
I was also surprised they were citing those numbers as fact, as my
understanding was that disagreed with the UN investigations. A recent story on
HN from the Guardian contradicts the claims in the BBC article, and cites the
UN investigations:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11479097](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11479097)

In particular:

 _The word Chernobyl became synonymous with death on a massive scale. But
perception and reality do not always neatly align; in the wake of the
disaster, the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation
(UNSCEAR) and others undertook a co-ordinated effort to follow up on health
effects. In 2006, after two decades of monitoring they outlined the health
effects; of the firefighters exposed to the huge core doses and incredibly
toxic smoke, 28 died from acute radiation sickness. A further 15 perished from
thyroid cancer. Despite aggressive monitoring for three decades, there has
been no significant increase in solid tumours or delayed health effects, even
in the hundreds of thousands of minimally protected cleanup workers who helped
purge the site after the accident. In the words of the 2008 UNSCEAR report:
“There is no scientific evidence of increases in overall cancer incidence or
mortality rates or in rates of non-malignant disorders that could be related
to radiation exposure.

It added: “The incidence of leukaemia in the general population, one of the
main concerns owing to the shorter time expected between exposure and its
occurrence compared with solid cancers, does not appear to be elevated.
Although most highly exposed individuals are at an increased risk of
radiation-associated effects, the great majority of the population is not
likely to experience serious health consequences as a result of radiation from
the Chernobyl accident. Many other health problems have been noted in the
populations that are not related to radiation exposure.”_

~~~
trhway
there is a lot of whitewashing of history is happening (after all there is a
huge money race between big solar and wind installs and new "safe" reactors -
notice that even 5-10 year ago we didn't have this tsunami of "Chernobyl was
really not that big a deal of an accident" articles).

Decades after the Chernobyl there is much higher rate of cancer of internal
organs, adeno- and thyroid (ie. cancers related to ingestion of radiation
sources) among people who lived or spent time in the North Ukraine, South
Belarus in the months right after the catastrophe. Only official statistics
points to 5000 additional thyroid cancers in Belarus in people who were
children at the time.

~~~
scott_s
What are you basing your claim of increased cancer on? As an outsider, the
only way I can get a grip on the situation is to look at claims, and the
support for those claims.

~~~
trhway
for an outsider google is your friend (i intentionally didn't mention any
specific cases i'm personally aware of because they can be easily shot down by
"sample of 1" type of argument even though everybody around understands what
it really is). For example:

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18923372](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18923372)

"After the Chernobyl accident, children from Belarus living in highly exposed
regions received mean thyroid doses by radioactive fallout higher by a factor
of approximately 2 as compared to the survivors of the atomic bomb explosions.
This lead to a radiation related increase of thyroid cancer incidence in
children and adolescents with the highest incidence in age group 0-4 years up
to now totally amounting to approximately 5 000 cases. "

~~~
scott_s
Apparently the keyword in my originally quoted text was "overall", as the UN
report includes that figure
([http://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html](http://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html)):

 _Among the residents of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, there
had been up to the year 2005 more than 6,000 cases of thyroid cancer reported
in children and adolescents who were exposed at the time of the accident, and
more cases can be expected during the next decades. Notwithstanding the
influence of enhanced screening regimes, many of those cancers were most
likely caused by radiation exposures shortly after the accident. Apart from
this increase, there is no evidence of a major public health impact
attributable to radiation exposure two decades after the accident. There is no
scientific evidence of increases in overall cancer incidence or mortality
rates or in rates of non-malignant disorders that could be related to
radiation exposure. The incidence of leukaemia in the general population, one
of the main concerns owing to the shorter time expected between exposure and
its occurrence compared with solid cancers, does not appear to be elevated.
Although those most highly exposed individuals are at an increased risk of
radiation-associated effects, the great majority of the population is not
likely to experience serious health consequences as a result of radiation from
the Chernobyl accident. Many other health problems have been noted in the
populations that are not related to radiation exposure._

~~~
trhway
>There is no scientific evidence of increases in overall cancer incidence or
mortality rates or in rates of non-malignant disorders that could be related
to radiation exposure.

for each cancer you can google and find things like this:

[http://www.cancer.fi/syoparekisteri/en/research/breast-
cance...](http://www.cancer.fi/syoparekisteri/en/research/breast-cancer-in-
areas-with-high/)

"In addition, a significant two-fold increase in risk was observed, during the
period 1997-2001, in the most contaminated districts (average cumulative dose
of 40.0 mSv or more) compared to the least contaminated districts"

>more cases can be expected during the next decades.

yes. We're about in the middle right now - following known models of radiation
exposure health effects the total numbers are projected to double over the
next 20-30 years.

------
ams6110
_Design flaws led to a power surge, causing massive explosions which blew the
top off reactor four_

Yes, admittedly the design was not great. But deliberate human actions lead to
the power surge and subsequent explosion. They were running experiments on the
reactor and continued dispite a series of events that were clearly not
happening as planned.

~~~
jcranmer
I suspect the specific design flaw they're referring to is the graphite tips
of the control rods, and the fact that, for the first few seconds of a SCRAM,
the reaction rate is _increased_. And the control rods jammed in that
position.

Yes, there was serious human failure in Chernobyl. But when the maximum
emergency "oh shit" safety feature works by making things even more unsafe
before shutting stuff down, that is the sort of design flaw that probably
should be criminal.

~~~
hga
The 2nd design flaw is the positive void coefficient due to it using light
water as a coolant and graphite as a moderator. In its scheme, the light water
is a neutron absorber, and if steam voids form in it, there's less water
absorbing neutrons. More neutrons -> more split atoms -> more heat ->
more/bigger voids, this repeats until the reactor sufficiently disassembles
itself:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Void_coefficient](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Void_coefficient)

Such designs are illegal in the US, one of the reasons all but the latest
version of the CANDU reactor can't be used here.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Yup. Means you can use lower enriched uranium since the reactor is primarily
graphite moderated and merely water cooled (one of the most "efficient"
designs possible), but it's unstable by nature and potentially very dangerous,
as we've seen.

------
Kenji
The most interesting thing about the Chernobyl disaster is that it seems like
human inhabitation is a more destructive force towards wildlife than the
levels of radiation that are present - wildlife seems to flourish in this
area.

~~~
ommunist
Quite the contrary. I lived there in the 90-ies. The nature just recovers, and
in 3 years humans are forgotten by wildlife. Moose and blackcock will stare at
you from a 2 meter distance not recognising the threat anymore. Basically
nature swiftly took back what was colonised by humans during centuries of
industrial and agricultural activity there in just few years. So the event
shows how insignificant humans are.

~~~
exar0815
I would rather say the contrary. You can see "our" significance there, anmials
forgetting their most dangerous hunter after not even 3 decades. Thats the
difference, a society that can remember.

~~~
ommunist
Unfortunately, the society has no memory as a system. Certain people have.

------
pieter1976
Two years ago I was lucky enough to visit Chernobyl with an organized tour out
of Kyev. Strange to think of part of this planet as a forbidden zone, even
stranger that it's a tourist attraction.

~~~
theandrewbailey
It's kind of turned into the world's weirdest nature reserve.

~~~
lb1lf
-Definitely. I had a tour there a couple of years ago, and the takeaway memory (in addition to the slightly eerie feeling of having been dropped into a massive Fallout game) was as we walked across a bridge over a small canal, I saw the biggest sturgeon-y fish I'd ever seen.

The guide shrugged and observed something along the lines of 'This is what
happens when #2 in the food chain suddenly becomes #1.'

Considering the number of people who now go on Chernobyl tours, I am just
waiting for the Lonely Planet crowd to label the place 'spoiled' ;)

------
ommunist
Basically 30 years after it become more and more clear that only the USSR was
capable of containing such events properly. In 1986 Soviet Army soldiers with
impregnated coats and shovels in just 2 weeks ensured containment of the
accident to the controllable level. Something Japanese government in the 21st
century cannot achieve in Fukushima with nanotech and robotics in 5 years.

~~~
pvg
The severity of the events is not comparable and the one in Japan was, to a
great extent, a consequence of a major natural disaster. There would have been
no need for the Soviet Union to display its (rather dubious) expertise in
containing such events if it hadn't created it in the first place.

~~~
Aelinsaar
An expertise in spending human lives, dubious indeed.

------
lanewinfield
Well, looks like we're about 1.00011779755% of the way until it's safe again.

[https://twitter.com/chernobylstatus/status/72495666416050995...](https://twitter.com/chernobylstatus/status/724956664160509952)

~~~
samcheng
Someone who clearly doesn't know about half-lives and exponential decay!

------
frik
Half of Europe got contaminated with the fallout for thousands of years, from
the north down to the Alps many countries were and still are effected. The
same idiotic disaster happened again in Japan (and could have been easily
prevented by attaching generators, but fearing loosing the face, it was a
cultural problem), and contaminated huge parts of the ocean, Hawaii and the
west coast. Only a few countries stopped using or never used this very
problematic technology. Hopefully, we don't have to see a third such disaster.
Neither Soviet Union (USSR) nor Russia, Ukraine or Japan paid other countries
money for the damage their action or non-action they did.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Effects](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Effects)

Apparently the downvoters are either lobbiest of the atom lobby, from those
named countries or should read more about the history. The true history isn't
always nice.

~~~
jcranmer
Coal power is probably responsible for more radiological deaths and injuries
than nuclear power, certainly in normal operation (although given the acute
impact of specific release events, you might have to include the entirety of
the Industrial Revolution to balance out again, which isn't necessarily a fair
comparison).

On the other hand, if you want to go for specific acute events, hydroelectric
dams make nuclear power look safe. The only way to claim otherwise is to
choose your dates to ignore the failure of the Banqiao Dam (171,000 deaths)
and take the unreasonable high end of death toll estimates from Chernobyl and
Fukushima. Presently, Mosul Dam is an excellent example of just how dangerous
and real major dam failures can be.

~~~
frik
All true, but there is one difference, those are visible, their danger is
visible or can be smelled (at least by educated people). The half life of C137
and other are invisible and contaminated larger areas and will be not good for
people health for many hundreds and often thousands of years. So these two
disasters are rather serious, and there isn't even an real solution where to
store the waste of atomic plants. Just dumping the waste somewhere in Nevada,
Ural, Kazakhstan or at the bottom of the ocean isn't a real solution. No other
energy technologies (beside fusion) needs any thinking about storage of waste
(secure storage for thousands of years).

------
user10001
Is news coverage of an old nuclear accident Britain's way of consoling Ukraine
after failing to offer significant support in the fight against Putin's
invasion?

------
Floegipoky
>> Design flaws led to a power surge, causing massive explosions which blew
the top off reactor four

Anybody else catch this wildly inaccurate representation of what caused the
explosions? While there certainly were design flaws, it's well-known that this
disaster was a direct result of the recklessness of the reactor's operators. I
have to wonder if this mischaracterization is an attempt to further scare the
public about nuclear power.

~~~
InclinedPlane
It's unconscionable for such a reactor design to have been made and put into
service in the first place. The particular bungled test that caused the
disaster was somewhat of an exceptional circumstance but the RBMK design was
really just a ticking timebomb waiting to go off. If it wasn't that test it
would have been something else, maybe it wouldn't have been as bad, but it
would almost certainly have been at least Fukushima scale regardless.

