Chernobyl: A Natural History

[Tig***]

This is a very interesting and sometimes surprising 1 1/2 hour documentary. It focuses on the short and long term effects of radiation and radio toxins upon the vegetation and wildlife in the exclusion zone. Most of the wildlife in the now named "Red Forest" died in the first few months, but other animals have since moved in and actually thrive. It is a giant lab for scientists to study in. Field mice have lived there for about 40 generations, and are excellent subjects.

[deeaa*]

Oh yeah.

We're going there in the end of the summer; we have friends living in Ukraine who invited us...will stay in Kiev a few days and I'd like to visit Pripyat/Chernobyl area as well.

Those friends are local doctors...and they told me in reality the closer the people live to the disaster area, the more healthy they are. Kids closer to the area have statistically much less illness, grow bigger and stronger etc. and the same goes for animals. But it's no surprise; the radiation is merely a little more than background by now and that's just healthy. Radiation levels higher than normal but less than lethal are only food for you within certain limits of course. People fear radiation way too much; it's more like...well anything from water to oxygen etc. Too much will kill you but it's better to have some than nothing.

The funniest thing is that cancer incidents dropped drastically in the years after the accident, but then the government decided to grant pensions fueled by international trust funds, aimed at people who were diagnosed having tumors etc. that could be thought to have been caused by radiation, and then suddenly the cancer numbers boomed greatly. My friends told me it's kind of a local national hobby to try your best to forge documents or bribe doctors to somehow get diagnosed with anything that could be related to the radiation, because it'll mean a nice pension for the rest of your days.

It's the same in Fukushima...mere metres away from the very plant area the radiation is quite nominal level and not dangerous at all. More radiation occurs naturally in sea water in most areas than in Fukushima waters.

[Tig***]

The documentary reveals that there are "leopard" spots of fallout contamination in the area, some with levels 20,000+ times the normal amount. The local area (not the immediate area) will have lost the dangerous levels of radiation by about 2236. The two main radio nuclides that remain and cause the greatest danger are cesium 137 and strontium 90. The 10 day fire created the Chernobyl Cloud that is still detectable in the entire Northern Hemisphere. 3% of the radiation we are exposed to now has the Chernobyl signature.

I like the documentary because is looks at everything with an unbiased viewpoint. Just the facts and data that has been learned.

[deeaa*]

I dunno where you get the information but I know for a fact that 10 miles from the actual reactor the radiation levels are just the same as downtown Kiev, or London for that matter, and much lower than for instance in my home town due to natural earth radiation being rather high here...actually about 5 times that in Chernobyl, within the closed zone.

http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=270261

Shows the radiation is 30x the average world background levels at the very sargophagus...which is still less than in my home, and wayyy less you than what you get in a normal X-ray operation.

[deeaa*]

I seriously suspect oil companies etc. are strongly lobbying against nuclear energy based on very skewed data and reality.

[Tig***]

I'm not anti-nuke. Just relaying hard facts.
I sure wouldn't let my kids hang out in the exclusion zone for long, however.

Like I said earlier, the documentary is very neutral while extremely informative. You see the geiger counter values vary from soil to the stalks of plants, etc. No scare tactics involved. Pure scientific process in action. The scientists are surprised to see certain species unaffected by the clearly detectable radiation, while others are obviously affected. They go deeper to discover why. It is quite enlightening.

From your statements, you appear extremely biased and somewhat mis-informed. There's nothing wrong with an open mind or a cautious one. However, a closed mind that is possibly oblivious leads to potential problems.

[deeaa*]

I like to think I'm just leery of exaggerating the problems. Sure, I wouldn't go doing whatever inside the restricted zone etc. and sure there are quite unhealthy hotspots there...but knowing people who live right there, and not just average joes but scientists and doctors specializing in genetics etc. areas has lead me to think the effects of radiation are hugely exaggerated as a rule.

There's no question that there is radiation still detected from Chernobyl etc. but if one takes into account the natural radiation levels the values are nothing spectacular.

Here we typically get 0,30 microsieverts per hour quite natural. If I take a flight to Europe on my holiday,on one way trip I'll get about 30 microsieverts altogether. During the Chernobyl disaster the radiation levels in Europe were similar to that level during the days it took place, so it'd be comparable to forcing everyone take a few long flights.

But if you for instance go to have computer tomography imaging done on you in a hospital, you'll get roughly 600 times that radiation level in a matter of minutes.
One could spend his entire life very close to the Chernobyl reactor site, with luck even right by it, and never get the amount of radiation you could get from a handful of X-rays and such.

Sure, it killed some 30+ people outright, but after that, it's a fact that in Chernobyl, compared to the general population of Russia, the emergency workers whom cleared Chernobyl suffer 15% to 30% LESS cancer, and have 5% less solid cancer incidence. Just look at the recent WHO and UNSCEAR etc. raports. Not to mention the people who were still working right there at the adjacent reactor till recent days are doing just fine too. Hundreds or thousands of nurses and such have amassed way more radiation and also died of it working with Xrays.

I'm not saying radiation is a blessing, but it ain't the monster it's so often made out to be. A little radiation is only beneficial and quite natural really :-)

[stingx]

Check out Elena Filatova's Motorcyle Blog of her trip to Chernobyl and suroundings. Very sobering...

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chernobyl-revisited/

[Ch0jin]

I've been there too actually. It's an awesome place to visit as photographer.

If your interested.....Click

[deeaa*]

It sure is a great test area for seeing how quickly buildings deteriorate without maintenance...very cool views!

[deeaa*]

BTW I just watched a new documentary on it that concentrated on the stories of the firemen etc. who were there for months stopping the accident from getting worse. And also the people who are still living and farming etc. within the 30km exclusion radius. Very interesting. It was striking that among the 3500 or so rescue workers there is actually less radiation-related sickness etc. than general population, but a huge increase in post-traumatic stress symptoms, alcoholism, insomnia, obesity and suicides. They speculated that the huge stress and fear of immediate death permanently made the people working there somewhat incapacitated, in a strikingly similar manner than is seen among the soldiers having served in Afghanistan etc. in front lines.