We were the liquidators; we were the cannon fodder. ibid. soldier
We understood this as a one-way trip … so no-one thought of the danger. ibid.
Chernobyl, Ukraine: this abandoned wasteland is one of the most dangerous places on Earth with nuclear radiation at every turn. It’s the site of a nuclear accident that became one of the worst engineering disasters in modern history. But what caused this deadly nuclear explosion? Chernobyl’s Deadly Secrets: Mysteries of the Abandoned, Discovery 2019
There’s no entry without a permit and it’s sometimes a challenge even if you have one. ibid.
There’s still a heaviness is the air that you can actually feel. ibid.
‘Because of that defect in the design [graphite tips to the rods] steam pressure built up and there was a huge blast.’ ibid. engineer
A serious design flaw. ibid.
A haunting walk through a dead world. (Chernobyl & Radiation & Accident) ibid.
The first responders who ran in to fight the Chernobyl fire likely had no idea the dangers they were facing and many died of radiation poisoning in the first few weeks. ibid.
When the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded in 1986 it changed everything. Now, 35 year after the disaster I am travelling to the most radioactive place on Earth. I’ve been granted special permission to explore some of Chernobyl’s secrets, going inside the very control room where thee fatal mistake was made. And seeing up close the tomb of the doomed reactor. Inside Chernobyl with Ben Fogle, Channel 5 2021
The Zone was established in the aftermath of the worst nuclear disaster in history. On April 26th 1986 Chernobyl’s reactor #4 exploded. The resulting fire lasted ten days, releasing 400 times as much radioactive contamination as the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima. ibid.
Pripyat: This is an entire city with five secondary schools, two sports stadiums and its own palace of culture. ibid.
Illegal thrill-seekers driven largely by social media continue to be a problem here. ibid.
The Zone is becoming an unlikely wildlife sanctuary. ibid.
But on one terrible occasion the Queen failed to speak and it proved to be the biggest regret of her reign: In 1966 an horrific mining accident in the Welsh mining village of Aberfan killed over 100 children. The Queen in Her Own Words, Channel 5 2020
More things in politics happen by accident or exhaustion than happen by conspiracy. Jeff Greenfield
In 1958 alone sixty-two miners loss their lives in pit accidents. Timeshift: When Coal Was King, BBC 2013
Then in October 1957 there was a major accident in Britain. The core of the [Calder Hall] reactor caught fire and spewed high levels of radioactivity across north-west England. The radioactivity released was far worse than the public was told. Adam Curtis, Pandora’s Box VI: A is for Atom, BBC 1992
On March 23rd 2021 one of the largest container ships ever built ploughed into the sandy banks of the Suez Canal. The Ever Given blocks one of the most important shipping lanes in the world for nearly a week, triggering a global emergency. Why Ships Crash, BBC 2022
12% of the world’s trade passes through the Suez Canal. ibid.
Each year there are over 2,500 shipping crashes and incidents. ibid.
On April 25th 1986 Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev has been in power for only one year … Chernobyl is a symbol of the Soviet Union’s industrial and technological muscle. Soviet nuclear scientists consider it to be the cream of the nation’s nuclear plants. Seconds from Disaster: Meltdown in Chernobyl, National Geographic 2021
Chernobyl has four reactors all running at the same time. ibid.
A safety drill – but from the start, problems develop, and now something seems to be going very wrong. The young men who work the night shift struggle to prevent a major nuclear accident. ibid.
Chernobyl’s number four reactor explodes. The force of the explosion blows the reactor’s 2,000-ton steel roof sideways. 8 tons of highly reactive fuel blast into the night sky. ibid.
London: rush hour, a train leaves Paddington station. Another train approaches. When two commuter trains collide investigators must discover what went wrong in the UK’s worst rail disaster in a decade. Seconds from Disaster: Paddington Train Disaster
They collide at a combined speed of over 200 kph. ibid.
31 people are dead; and more than 400 injured. ibid.
The automatic warning system has an inherent design flaw. ibid.
A difficult signal for a driver to see clearly. ibid.
It does now seem likely that some time in the last couple of days there has been perhaps the worst accident in the short history of the world’ nuclear power industry. Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes, Sky Documentaries 2022, UK news
Those who survived the disaster were silenced, and the film footage hidden. ibid. commentary
The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station is in all respects the leader among nuclear power stations being built. First, it leads in the speed of launching new power-generating units. ibid. Soviet information film
Everyone believed our reactors simply could not explode. ibid. commentary
People enjoyed life there. We wanted for nothing. ibid.
We had to run over the unit, looking for the injured. The conditions were absolutely horrifying. There was fire, smoke, pieces of construction hanging down, hot vapour, extreme radiation. ibid.
36 hours had passed. For 36 hours people had been inhaling contaminated air. After the announcement of the evacuation 2,200 buses came to Pripyat and Chernobyl. The people were told, ‘Don’t worry.’ ibid.
Right after the [helicopter] flights were started getting a metallic taste and a constant scratching in the throat. It was immediately noticeable. ibid.
The explosion at Chernobyl caused a toxic nuclear mess the likes of which the world had never seen before. An eruption of thick nuclear material had poured out over 1,000 square kilometres. ibid. Oleksiy Breus, Chernobyl engineer
We calculated the explosion was equivalent to 400 nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. ibid.
Sooner or later each of our bodies showed signs. We all went through it – vomiting, coughing, extreme exhaustion. Some guys couldn’t get out of bed from fatigue by the second day. We called the local medical instructor. He gave them some pills, injections, something to drink. The level of radiation accumulation was strictly concealed. People worked till they fell from their feet … about 80% of the liquidators would die. ibid.
The 1986 Chernobyl disaster turned 1,000 square miles of Ukraine into a wasteland. The Chernobyl Disaster: Meltdown, Channel 5 2022
Two miles from Chernobyl, the city of Pripyat, once home to 50,00 people, lies in ruins. A 1,000 mile exclusion zone has restricted access to the site. ibid.
Chernobyl is decades in the making. It began when the emerging Soviet Union’s nuclear power programme threatened the world. A Soviet dream that became a nightmare. ibid.
Engineers will switch off all of the pumps that cool the reactor to test the backup system. ibid.
Xenon gas is poisoning the reactor … Even before the test starts they’re struggling to control the reactor. ibid.
A disaster officials tried to cover up. As a brave few battled to stop radiation spreading across the globe. The Chernobyl Disaster II: Firestorm
They are following orders to get water into the reactor’s system to prevent meltdown. But the electrics have failed so they are doing the job manually. ibid.
The core of the reactor is smouldering, releasing large amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere. Helicopters battle to stop this deadly radiation escaping from the molten core. The Chernobyl Disaster: Fallout
The sarcophagus is falling apart … 45 countries including the United States, Russia and the United Kingdom all donate towards a new safe confinement shelter. ibid.
On a humid August night in 1987 two high school seniors Don Henry and Kevin Ives while hiking in the woods of their nearby Southern community paid a terrible price for being in the wrong place at the wrong time: the facts in the case indicate that the two boys happened upon a transaction of some kind involving a ring of long-time smugglers and billion-dollar drug profiteers. Phenomenon: The Lost Archives s1e4: American Midnight, 1998
Dr Malak failed to notice clear evidence of beating marks and a stab wound. ibid.
Two years of botched investigations, blatant lies, false autopsies and cover ups. ibid.
In the 1980s the most notorious drug smuggler in America was Barry Seal … recruited by the CIA … He amasses a fleet of aeroplanes with a network of pilots and mechanics. ibid.
Two teenagers are hit by a train in Arkansas; the medical examiner says the two boys laid down next to each other and fell asleep on the tracks. It was an accident. Or was it? As the distraught families dig deeper they start to suspect a cover-up. True Crime Recaps: The Boys on the Tracks: Suicide or Corrupt Cover-Up? Youtube 13.58, 2022
It seems as though everyone in the sleepy Arkansas community has something to hide and no-one is talking. ibid.
Why would the crew say they saw a tarp if they didn’t? … They did find a rifle placed precisely parallel to their bodies on the tracks, a flashlight laid next to that. ibid.
Their families were told it was a tragic accident … Strangely, their so-called accident was incredibly similar to another case three years earlier. ibid.