Nothing Noble about Chernobyl

On April 26, 1986 from deep within the USSR, a place no American had ever heard of before, began what would become the “Battle of Chernobyl.” Born from complacency, fed by an attitude of “bad events can’t happen because they’re never mentioned,” and a test on a poisoned reactor that should have waited for another day, 500000 Soviets, citizens of the first socialist state, would soon face deadly radiation.

After the initial explosion, nobody knew the damage or the radiation level because no dosimeter could read it accurately. So, officials assumed 50 Roentgens (R), which was a laugh. Eventually, 500R dosimeters were acquired. Still, they pegged. 250R is good enough to kill any human.

A reactor fire was releasing radioactive smoke coming from white hot magma, what once was 195 tons of nuclear fuel and graphite. 600 helicopter pilots flew multiple sorties to extinguish the fire dropping by hand sand and boric acid. Each sortie gave individuals including the pilots 8R, more if the pilot flew slowly. All these pilots eventually received a lethal dose of radiation and died.

But the sand and boric acid only caused the temperature to rise possibly causing another explosion. Finally, lead was dropped into the reactor remnants, and the temperature dropped immediately. Unfortunately, the initial lead vaporized and created a cloud that contaminated kids who eventually became the “Children of Chernobyl.”

Water was under the magma coming not only from the initial firemen, who all died fighting a strange fire they could never extinguish, but also the plant operators, who continued feeding water through pipes intact no longer. If this magma cracked through the concrete and reached that water, a 4 megaton explosion could have occured completely razing the nearby city of Minsk. So, another battalion of firemen were exploited to drain the water and soon join their comrades in a radioactive death.

Soviet authorities wanted to get under the magma because they were afraid it would melt through to an aquifer that supplied the whole country. Under the reactor was only sandy subsoil. Only government could build a nuclear plant is such a stupid place.

10000 miners, in their 20’s, were employed to build a tunnel, the only path not deadly radioactive. The idea was to build a room under the magma to install refrigeration units to cool it. These miners had to work quickly because of the high radiation in a tunnel with no ventilation. Temperatures reached 120 degrees. The miners didn’t were protection or masks because of the heat. They even drank water from open containers.

But, the refrigeration was never installed. No surprise here, if the Soviets could have accomplished that, they would have been able to at least provide ventilation to their miners. The decision to not install refrigeration was probably reached while these miners were suffering the most.

Just nobody was willing to tell them that their sacrifices were being rendered moot. In the end, they fill the room with concrete that had already failed the test. In a battle between concrete and 5000 degree radioactive magma, magma will eventually win. As evidence that it had already worked through some of the concrete under the initial reactor location. Still, it’s better than subsoil.

A sarcophagus had to be built to contain the disaster, but first debris had to be eliminated from the roof. Robots were initially deployed to remove the ruble, which was at 15000R/hr. Radiation usually invisible was so high color pictures showed it. Negatives were totally black.

Eventually, even reliable robots died a radioactive death. The Soviets could have just bought more robots. One robot that died right at the roof’s edge could have been easily pushed off by its replacement. But, the technologically challenged Soviets chose to use “bio-robots” their cutesy name for humans.

Reservists were called up. Their mission was to wear about 50 pounds of lead, take two shovels full of debris and throw them over the edge in 45 seconds. Curiously, they were given shovels, which were small spades good for planting flowers, but not for shoveling debris off a flat roof. Seeing those poor soldiers, taking precious seconds to fill one small spade was pitiful.

Then, they’d attempt to run over ruble keeping as much of it from falling off. The USSR being very cold climatically should have at least given their soldiers some snow shovels capable of quickly sweeping up huge swaths. Or symbolically, these reservists could have been given pitch forks since their lives were literally being “forked” by the deadly duty.

But, in socialism humans are expendable. Instead of buying more robots, Soviet authorities saved money and just cooked some humans who would never need to eat because afterwards they just vomit anyway. No other disaster better demonstrates that socialism is simply collective stupidity.