Lecture 24: Chernobyl

Media plays a role in every conflict. Media censorship exists in communist countries. One
instance which takes place during the soviet invasion of Afghanistan is the Chernobyl
disaster and not much footage was ever disclosed to the public because even 5 years after the
disaster Russia was closed. It was only in 199 that Russia opened up. Unfortunately for the
Russians, MG the revolutionary revisionist he is succeeded by 2 men – who go back to the
old system. One is Boris – who was a Stalin level dictator. He was followed by Putin. Putin’s
greatest loss was that with the end of USSR his role as the KGB ended. He still wanted a
union.

In 2006 – on its 20th anniversary facts were released. This year we cross 30 years. One of the
precautionary measures had a life of 30 years. It is due to expire this year. This disaster is still
very lethal. MG was thin power when this episode happened, and he completely panicked
when this disaster happened. He did not want it to reach anywhere – because this may make
the world doubt whether Russia had any security protocol at all – how could such a mistake
happen? There were a lot of challenges.

The system of lying and covering up was very very intermingled in Russia by now. Nobody
was really aware of North Korea. Everybody seemed to be covering something up, and there
was a huge mess. MG tells the KGB to find out what has happened. The media and the KGB
are both lying to MG about how everything it totally safe. Even today, close to Chernobyl
there is 200 tonnes of plutonium. It is active, and 30 years later it is still smouldering. 1
milligram can blow up a person. Its half life is 2,41,000 years. It will take that much time to
reduce it just to 100 years, thereby making it technically eternal.

This problem is very critical. The cost it would take to build a new sarcophagus is 1 billion
dollars. This is what most countries today are spending as a half yearly budget in the Syrian
war. However, they are unable to give this amount for building this structure. One of the
cameraman who captured this footage, there was just one of these cameramen who had a very
natural defence against it. His equipment malfunctions, but he keeps going closer to ground 0
and remains totally fine.

April 26, 1986 is disturbing.

VIDEO (Entire Chernobyl Disaster)

The experiment is that water has to be made to rotate around the reactor to make it cool. To
project water you need electricity, for which they had power back up. They wanted to check
whether the security was good enough for low electricity situations. Yes, it can. But the onky
problem is that the power back up needs 3 minutes to come on, after which the water starts
flowing and so on. However, in the meanwhile, the reactor heats up a lot. This wasn’t even an
accident, it was a test. By the time the energy power back reached full, the reactor is already
boiling hot. The top of the reactor is sealed with a 1200 tonne iron weight. The fury of the
explosion though, was crazy and even blew that away.

VIDEO
The footage is original, when people were trying to find out what had happened. People were
not even told what had happened. The evacuation takes place 2 days after the blast, this delay
contaminates almost half the population.

VIDEO

The the readings during cherynbl is 200 times the usual readings. This was astronomical. The
level of roentgens keep going up, to an extent that they feel the equipment has malfunctioned
and something this wasn’t even possible. Nobody has ever seen such figures. Even Hiroshima
Nagasaki did not have this kind of radiation.

VIDEO

Even after time has passed, the media hadn’t update MG about the disaster. Sweden tells him
that Poland is east of us, they don’t have nuclear power, hence this isn’t possible from them.
Please look and figure out what happened in your own country. This is when MG gets the
KGB going for accurate information.

The first thing that was to be done was – plug the area. The radiation still hasn’t stopped
because material is still burning. This cannot just be doused with water. This wold cause an
exothermic reaction giving more heat out melting more uranium and graphite. Hence, they
needed to douse it with sand, because even lead would choose contamination. They finally
had to take to lead because even sand was crystallizing into glass via vitrification.

VIDEO (Victims)

Even when they begin dumping lead, and lead fumes start coming out – the man who was
sent to cover it was again this cameraman, Igor Kostin. Also, it wasn’t just a question of
stopping the fumes, but all the radiation which was being suppressed could cause another
explosion. Even the ground water contamination was in question, and this river directly
connected to the black sea – this would be almost all the rivers in Asia and Europe (East)
would have been rendered inhabitable. They needed to cool this particular magma. Dropping
lead was increasing the pressure and temperature.

They decided to come up with a tunnel and send miner sin it. They were told that they are
going to die, however, they were assured medals. They ensured a system of liquid nitrogen
for cooling processes. The kind of protection they were provided with was sub standard. A
face mask. They wee reversing the face mask when it got sweaty. Might as well not wear it.
They were working with NO protection at all.

Liquid nitrogen however is too expensive, hence it is never installed. All the leaves of the
forest turned red. They keep growing, but the chemical which causes them to use chlorophyll
doesn’t work anymore. This happened in a matter of days.

MG on 14 May, when he finally has information of what is happening, he tells the nation that
they are facing a huge catastrophe. Almost entire parts of the srea would have to evacuate
people, break down houses, kill all animals because their fur carries radiation. This was the
gruesome process of the liquidation of Chernobyl. The entire country was mobilized to help
for the same. If the people participating did their job properly, they were given free vodka.
The same cameraman is sent to cover the liquidation as well.

The final phase is obviously clearing up ground 0 – the site of the blast itself. This is lethal.
Trucks have to go in to remove all this debris. This was to thrown out into cement pits, which
would be cemented over. This take over 3 months of intense work. The biggest challenge is
clearing the roof. Initially they send in small robots to pick up pieces and throw them off.
Robots also start getting affected by the radiation, and one throws itself off the roof. Then
they send people up with protective gear and call them biobots. The only person without gear
is the cameraman.

VIDEO

The protection again, was just sub standard. These people were supposed to throw pieces off,
and could only do so much before getting violently sick.

VIDEO

The sarcophagus had a 30 year life span, and it has ended.

VIDEO