
Famous Photo of Chernobyl's Most Radioactive Material Was a Selfie - hberg
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-famous-photo-of-chernobyls-most-dangerous-radioactive-material-was-a-selfie
======
owyn
There's an amazing documentary about this that contains a lot of footage of
the actual incident and cleanup called the "Battle of Chernobyl".

[http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-battle-of-
chernobyl/](http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-battle-of-chernobyl/)

Things that still haunt me: the helicopter pilots who put the initial fires
out flew in 120-180C temperatures and pretty much all died of radiation. And
the sequence that starts about here:

[https://youtu.be/ezohqY-vg4s?t=3430](https://youtu.be/ezohqY-vg4s?t=3430)

Where they are picking up radioactive materials by hand and throwing it off
the roof next to the reactor because the robots they were trying to use all
break down. Even 1 hour of exposure was deadly so they rotated through shifts,
and the guys who did it were called "Bio Robots"

~~~
pdkl95
One of the most impressive documentaries I've ever seen is "Chernobyl
3828"[1]. It is about the 3828 "liquidators" (cleanup crew) - euphemistically
called the "bio robots" \- that had to clean up the worst section of roof
above the reactor. Maximum allowed dose was two minutes exposure to that
section the roof.

It has some of the same footage as the sequence in your link to t=3430, but
there is a key difference: Chernobyl 3828 is about _the people_. The
psychology of the cleanup was complicated. Some people ran while others faced
the danger and accepted a "red badge of courage" because if they didn't,
_someone else would have to go in their place_.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfDa8tR25dk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfDa8tR25dk)

~~~
kbart
My uncle was a driver in Chernobyl cleanup works. There was no question asked
if he agreed or not, the soldiers simply came in the middle of a night, told
him to pack things, took him having no clue what's going on or where he's
going and left a wife with two young children in panic. Only the next day his
wife received a message that he's ok and "somewhere in Ukraine". Thanks to his
driver's profession, he avoided going inside the reactor building, what
probably saved his health/life. Also, there was no official announcement of
disaster until after few days later.

~~~
toyg
I'm curious, what was your father's doing before then? Surely if "they" needed
drivers, they wouldn't need to go all the way to another region to get them.
You say being a driver saved his life, but it could be that it actually was
what put him in harm's way...?

Or did they have lists of "expendables" for such emergencies, which would have
been sorted by profession directly on-situ? Surely it wasn't completely
random...

EDIT: hey downvoters, these are simple questions that help paint a better
picture.

~~~
pilsetnieks
They did go to other regions, probably because there weren't enough expendable
human bodies in Ukraine alone. Altogether at least 600 000 people were
involved in the cleanup (I've also seen numbers as high as 1 million.)[1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_liquidators#Exposure...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_liquidators#Exposures_and_health_effects_experienced_by_liquidators)

~~~
lostlogin
Not sure if it's a factor, but it's an age old technique to get people from
far away regions to do the dirty work. The locals might understand or have
opinions - those from far away have little prior knowledge.

~~~
pilsetnieks
> have opinions

Not much of an issue in the Soviet Union, though.

------
jordache
"The shutter speed was probably a little slower than for the other photos in
order for him to get into position, which explains why he seems to be moving
and why the glow from his flashlight looks like a lightning flash."

WHAT? the timer of the shutter has nothing to do with the the actual shutter
speed. Using a timer for an old skool selfie has no relationship to blurriness
in the exposure caused by too slow of a shutter speed.

~~~
roywiggins
If you don't have a timer, the easiest way to take a self portrait is pop the
camera on a tripod and open the shutter for the longest exposure your camera
can handle. Then, you move really fast as you get into position and then stand
still for the remainder of the exposure.

You'll look a little bit transparent and be surrounded by fainter motion blur
from when you were getting into position. I've done exactly this on moonlit
nights, and the result looks completely consistent with the photo in the
article. You also get ghostly duplicates if you hesitate as you get into
position.

Could the shutter speed was an accident and the subject happened to pause
enough to show up visibly on the image- much like the first photographed
human, who was getting his shoe shined: [http://mashable.com/2014/11/05/first-
photograph-of-a-human/](http://mashable.com/2014/11/05/first-photograph-of-a-
human/)

If it's not a selfie, it's an extraordinarily lucky accident that there's a
recognizable human in the photo.

ed: it's possible it was just really dark, and all the photos were exposed for
that long. Someone wanted a picture of Korneyev, and he moved during the
exposure. But the combination of "blurry person" and "crisp person" makes me
lean towards the selfie hypothesis. Someone trying and failing to stand still
won't wave a flashlight around. Someone rushing to get into a selfie shot
might.

~~~
pcl
_the first photographed human, who was getting his shoe shined_

Of course, it actually contains two humans -- the man getting his shoes
shined, and the one doing the shining. Somehow it's always bothered me that
the shoe-shiner hasn't gotten equal credit. Arguably, _he_ was actually first,
since it looks like he's a bit closer to the camera.

------
ChuckMcM
The most interesting thing about the elephant's foot was that it disproved the
"China Syndrome" hypothesis. That hypothesis of course was that an
uncontrolled meltdown would simply melt down through to China (not that it
could really go past the core :-) However, what the elephant's foot showed was
that the melted core would diffuse into the material as it was melting,
eventually it loses enough mass that it goes subcritical, re-freezes and
that's that.

That is why pretty much every western reactor has a reservoir of sand under
the containment vehicle, if the worst of the worst happens, it melts into the
sand which becomes glass.

~~~
pdkl95
> the "China Syndrome" hypothesis

Having seen the movie, suspect that a lot of people saw what they wanted to
see, and not what the movie actually said. I'm fairly certain the comment
about the core melting "all the way to China" was a joke/hyperbole.

~~~
superuser2
IIRC from the movie, it wasn't that it would burrow through to China, but that
it would burrow to groundwater and then become a rocket propelled by steam.

~~~
tajen
Nuclear fusion (the next gen of energy - as opposed to the current,
radioactive _fission_ ) requires temperatures of 1m degrees. In case of
meltdown, would the sand be enough, or would we have something closer to a
China Syndrome?

~~~
ChuckMcM
No. If a fusion reactor fails, the fusion plasma would dissipate in less than
a microsecond. There are no secondary outputs so the plant would simple "turn
off". Unlike a fission reaction which can occur spontaneously on its own[1]
the amount of energy to keep a fusion reaction going is tremendous, without
that energy it stops.

[1] [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ancient-nuclear-
re...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ancient-nuclear-reactor/)

------
caf
_Of the five corium creations, only Cherobyl 's has escaped its containment._

This is statement is a bit too definitive, because it simply isn't known yet
how bad the breach is at Fukushima Daiichi No. 2 - from muon radiography it
certainly seems to have breached the primary (steel) containment.

------
LaFolle
A great use case for drones to fly in and take photographs.

A quick Google search shows it already has been done =>
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ra7YbBvbRYQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ra7YbBvbRYQ)

Had drones existed in 1986 and deployed to take close photographs of disaster,
would it have been safe to access that drone after it returned?

~~~
exar0815
Well, maybe, except the fact that the SU tried to use Robots built in Western
Germany, and the radioactivity just fried them. They were absolutely inusable
under those conditions. Read about radiation shielding in space missions and
the problems that microelectronics have there.

~~~
taternuts
Apparently they designed the robot against specs that were deliberately
underestimated to prove that a meltdown couldn't cause the amount of radiation
damage it did, and the Germans built the robot to spec and it instantly fried

~~~
exar0815
Oh, didnt know that. Probably should read up on this, then. But yeah, it fits.

------
Jabbles
> Research on the substance has found, for example, that dumping water on it
> after it forms actually does stop some fission products from decaying and
> producing more dangerous isotopes.

What? I bet it doesn't. There's no way cooling will interfere with the half-
life of the elements. They probably mean that solidifying the extremities
reduces toxic/radiation exposure.

~~~
mysterypie
> There's no way cooling will interfere with the half-life of the elements.

Wow, so even at absolute zero, decay happens at the same rate? It kind of
makes sense, but it's surprising if you've never thought about it.

Wikipedia seems to confirm it: "A number of experiments have found that decay
rates of other modes of artificial and naturally occurring radioisotopes are,
to a high degree of precision, unaffected by external conditions such as
temperature, pressure, the chemical environment, and electric, magnetic, or
gravitational fields." (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_decay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_decay)
)

~~~
Alupis
> so even at absolute zero, decay happens at the same rate

You'll never get to absolute zero (reality and practicalness aside), because
the element radiates it's own heat.

~~~
danbruc
I don't see any reasons why you could not cool radioactive isotopes to
essentially zero Kelvin and observe the decay rate. It would probably be
hard(er) to do with larger chunks because the decaying nuclei would dump parts
of their energy into the sample but if you only use a single atom or maybe
tens or hundreds of them and measure the time until the first decay event or
between the fist two events you could certainly determine the decay rate close
to absolute zero.

~~~
Alupis
> I don't see any reasons why you could not cool radioactive isotopes to
> essentially zero Kelvin and observe the decay rate

See the GP, this has been tested and proved to have no effect.

------
dickwads
"Was a Selfie" \- not a selfie "Remarkably, he’s probably still alive." "the
radiation probably caused the film to develop strangely"

Is there any solid info or is this just clickbait at its best?

------
xigency
> and in doing so has been exposed to more radiation than almost anyone in
> history

This is patently absurd. Those exposed to the most radiation are all dead and
died from radiation exposure, effects, and side effects.

~~~
ars
See here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis)

The idea is that a small amount of radiation spread over time is survivable.
So in sum total he may have had more than anyone else. (I won't include anyone
who instantly died in hiroshima.)

~~~
xigency
Yes, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are obvious comparisons with the amount of
instantaneous radiation affecting thousands of individuals.

My initial thoughts went to Marie Curie (small amounts over time), and Harry
Daghlian and Louis Slotin, or other Los Alamos engineers involved in
criticality accidents.

Plus, other clean-up workers working in disasters like Chernobyl whose deaths
from radiation caused illnesses most likely went unpublished.

So at best, that puts him in 10th place with a very loose interpretation, or
otherwise significantly behind, and maybe in the top 10 of living individuals.
The phrase "in history" is poor writing, however.

------
fvrghl
Am I the only one who thinks it looks like he is headbanging while holding an
electric guitar?

~~~
pnut
"Laying down a tasty lick on my strat at the elephant foot"

------
acqq
Much more information about the problems to keep the plant from causing more
damage is in the NYT article from 2014, the one where the state of health of
Artur Korneyev is given:

[http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/04/27/science/cherno...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/04/27/science/chernobyl-
capping-a-catastrophe.html)

"These days Mr. Korneyev works in the project management unit, but because of
his health — he has cataracts and other problems related to his heavy
radiation exposure during his first three years — he is no longer allowed
inside the plant. “Soviet radiation,” he joked, “is the best radiation in the
world.”"

------
lostlogin
In case some didn't follow the first link, it contains this gem: Korneyev's
sense of humor remained intact, though. He seemed to have no regrets about his
life's work. “Soviet radiation,” he joked, “is the best radiation in the
world.

------
mclovinit
Somewhat related to this, I am amazed by the analysis done by bionerd23. Her
study of cesium 137 levels in vegetation is interesting. She measured the
levels in mushrooms found in Bavaria and apples found just 4km away from
Chernobyl and saw that only 0.10 of cesium was found in apples. Interesting
study.

You can find her videos on youtube.

------
unicornporn
> The shutter speed was probably a little slower than for the other photos in
> order for him to get into position, which explains why he seems to be moving
> and why the glow from his flashlight looks like a lightning flash. The
> graininess of the photo, though, is likely due to the radiation.

Yeah, wouldn't that have been exotic. Having worked many years with high end
scanning and digitizing photographs from the 1850 to today I can say that
apparent grain in a photo from the 80s is not a strange thing, especially if
it's a high ISO film. Correcting a bad exposure when post processing enhances
that grain. The "graininess" here looks more like interpolation artifacts
after upressing, possibly a highly compressed JPEG, though.

------
cipherous
Amazing that Artur Korneyev, the guy in the picture, is still alive.

------
stplsd
There is a very interesting documentary from 1991 made as

part of BBC Horizon series called "Inside Chernobyl

Sarcophagus" \--> www.imdb.com/title/tt1607059

------
exabrial
When they selfie, was the camera on timer? What is the source of the lightning
looking stuff?

~~~
cauterize
Yep. "so it’s likely this photo was an old-school timed selfie. The shutter
speed was probably a little slower than for the other photos in order for him
to get into position, which explains why he seems to be moving and why the
glow from his flashlight looks like a lightning flash"

------
RichieAHB
Always makes me wonder whether these people know what the radiation is doing
to them and they're doing it out of some heroic duty, or whether they have no
idea whatsoever ... I can't stop looking.

------
bobwaycott
I can't get past seeing two users of the Speed Force--one bent over an
electric guitar, the other thumping along on bass, captured in a flash of
lightning.

------
mirap
“Soviet radiation,” he joked, “is the best radiation in the world." :)

------
Crito
More complete quote of the photographer's joke:

> _" Don't worry, Soviet radiation is the best in the world. It makes hair
> thicker and men more potent."_

[http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/alive-in-the-
dead-z...](http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/alive-in-the-dead-zone)

~~~
mirimir
Love this!

There are some great stories from the Mir station. Brewing mash from random
carbs, and distilling "vodka". The haze of tobacco smoke. From black Russian
tobacco.

And remember, Chernobyl was caused by a team of (probably drunk) operators
just fucking around. Juggling a big knife, basically ;) Showing off, for
kicks. 58 points by hberg 1 hour ago | flag | 21 comments

~~~
exar0815
Absolute, complete bullshit, sorry. The experiment massively went wrong, but
the people, of whom many died trying to stop the disaster caused by the
typical soviet problem of bad planning, slavish obedience to higher-ups and
generally worse education and training, should still be seen as what they
were. Victims of their system, and calling them "drunk" adds insult to injury.

Edit: typos

~~~
mirimir
I agree with your points about crazy management, bad planning, chaos, poor
training, etc. For the rest, I'm just going from what I've read, and from my
experience of the culture. Did you live in the Soviet Union? If so, for very
long?

~~~
exar0815
Luckily, no. I am to young. But I know some people who did and took the first
chance to get away from there. More or less the tenor is: Good that its gone.

~~~
mirimir
I grew up between Leningrad, Copenhagen and New York, as a diplomatic brat.
The Soviet Union was fun. We had access to the Party shops, and foreign
currency.

But just about everyone old enough was at least somewhat drunk, at all times.
Except for the Jews, anyway. And that was a very good thing, because without
them, there would have been total chaos.

For context, I also found that many Americans were at least a little drunk,
most of the time. It was just part of some cultures. People drank at lunch,
and then seriously after work. Many a bit in the morning, to take the edge
off.

We had friends who would show up drunk, after driving for several hours. Beer
and vodka in the trunk. Cops would help you get home, and tell you to sleep it
off. As long as you were white and at least middle class, anyway.

That culture was just stronger in Slavic areas, and it lasted longer. The
Soviet Union didn't have WASPs to keep people sober. They had Jews, but they
lacked the authority. They just got stuff done, and imposed a little sanity.
And the got out, as soon as they could.

~~~
lostlogin
I hope you have written your experiences down somewhere - and if you have, I'd
love to read them. Which country were you a representative of?

~~~
mirimir
I was just a kid. My parents were low-level Soviet diplomatic staff. But my
paternal grandfather had emigrated from New York in the 30s. So when in New
York, I attended the UN International School. But I also had cousins to hang
with.

------
rasz_pl
I bet bionerd23 knows Mr. Korneyev quite well.

