[0xbear]

I still remember the reports on TV from there at the time. Initially there was a flat out denial that anything happened at all, but once the scale of the catastrophe became clear (within about a day), and it became clear that it can’t be swept under the rug, we started seeing the coverage of unbelievable heroics that people would demonstrate. I mean literally firefighters pouring water into the molten reactor core by standing at the edge of it, and then dying the same day from radiation poisoning. The radiation was so strong that the TV helicopter filming the reactor from above (which in itself was heroic given the kinds of shit suspended in the air) would show the most radioactive part with sort of a haze. Endless streams of trucks pouring concrete, etc, etc. It was 30 years ago so I don’t remember much, but man to get the Secretary General to admit such a bad fuckup — that was something truly extraordinary.

[smsm42]

Note also this was very close to May holidays (May 1st etc.) when people customary go out, with kids, some go camping, etc. Kiev - a city with population over 2 millions - is 90 km from Chernobyl, and nobody there knew what's going on for a while. I'm not even sure there's any statistics of what health effects this produced. And of course when it was known there was no proper information on dealing with radioactive contaminations, mostly everybody would go by wildest rumors and home remedies. No tools for measuring radioactivity either anywhere to be bought, people made their own eventually. Etc., etc.

[trhway]

> I'm not even sure there's any statistics of what health effects this produced.

My post with some effect summary for Belarus https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=15737928&goto=threads%...

[smsm42]

AFAIR due to the weather patterns Belarus got a lot of the fallout and Kiev area was affected much less.

[petre]

Yes, we were camping as well. It all happened during a sunny weekend.

[dboreham]

It was raining very heavily in Scotland unfortunately. Probably also Norway.

[tantalor]

And we are lucky for it. If the runaway core had reached the water table beneath, it would have exploded and irradiated most of Eastern Europe, if not the whole continent.

[git_rancher]

What? Holy smokes! This is the first I've heard of this. Can you share any more info? Sources?

[MertsA]

That's the case for any nuclear meltdown, Chernobyl isn't special in that regard. If you have a very dense blob of liquid fuel (called corium after a meltdown) generating megawatts of power it's going to melt through concrete and steel, it's just a matter of time. Once that blob hits a ton of water underneath it forcing all of that water to heat up will create enormous pressure and the only way out is up.

[ben_w]

Speaking only for myself, the surprising claim was not “explode”, but “irradiated most of Eastern Europe, if not the whole continent.”

[mseebach]

It appears to be based on a quote from the 1979 film "The China Syndrome".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_meltdown#China_syndrom...

[myth_drannon]

Why it didn't happen in Fukushima?

[proaralyst]

They managed to cool the corium by flooding it with water.

[pvg]

The accident was acknowledged by Soviet news on April 28th, two days after it took place. While they were slow to provide details there was no public denial - they initially denied anything was wrong in response to private inquiries by Swedish diplomats since elevated radiation levels were measured in Sweden. This is an ABC news report from the time which also shows the Soviet announcement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmeeEpWxfRY

[0xbear]

That may have been what they said to the Western media. It does not necessarily match what they said to their own government run TV channels and newspapers.

[pvg]

What do you mean? The Soviet announcement is right there in the video. It's an announcement on Vremya, the official evening news TV program broadcast across the Soviet Union.

[0xbear]

The accident happened on April 26th, and was acknowledged 36 hours after when they began to evacuate Pripyat, a town in the immediate vicinity of Chernobyl. As I said, it took about a day for them to acknowledge it, and it was only acknowledged when it became clear that it could not be swept under the rug. Your video does not contradict that.

[pvg]

You wrote "Initially there was a flat out denial that anything happened at all, but once the scale of the catastrophe became clear (within about a day)". That's not what happened, you can look it up in any of the numerous timelines and accounts of the accident and the reporting and Soviet disclosures. The evacuation of Pripyat started before the first public Soviet announcement as described here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Evacuation

And the section immediately following regarding the announcement.

[0xbear]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/...

[linkregister]

Maybe it's been edited since you supplied the wikipedia link, but it doesn't support your narrative.

One page down, it describes Ukrainian Soviet officials claiming there was no danger from the accident to regional Ukrainian SSR officials. It says that Pripyat was only evacuated 24 hours after the disaster, after more than 50 residents were hospitalized for radiation poisoning.

Even then, the letter to the residents was that the evacuation was temporary, and primarily as a precautionary measure.

The only thing you effectively refute is the timeline, Pripyat was evacuated 24, not 36 hours later, as the parent poster erroneously stated.

The wikipedia article doesn't mention internal Soviet press releases, so you haven't refuted that Ukrainian or Russian officials denied a disaster. However, the parent poster nor the OP haven't demonstrated that officials lied to the public either.

[a_bonobo]

Svetlana Alexievich's Voices from Chernobyl has many stories like this, highly recommended reading if you want to know more about the incident

[hutzlibu]

" seeing the coverage of unbelievable heroics that people would demonstrate. I mean literally firefighters pouring water into the molten reactor core by standing at the edge of it, and then dying the same day from radiation poisoning"

I heard those hero's had mostly no clue, that they were on a heroic suicide mission, nor did they had any choice in the matter. Knowing a bit about UDSSR I can very well imagine this to be true, but does anyone knows more?

edit: this article confirms it, but I am not sure if the site is reliable (it quotes the "socialist worker")

http://www.upworthy.com/you-probably-dont-know-their-names-b...

[Yizahi]

Check this story - https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-famous-photo-of-ch...