Chernobyl - HBO/Sky *Spoilers*

Shelga

Wow, episode 4 was amazing too. At first I thought I wasn't sure if I liked the tonal change, now that time is moving on and it's not so immediate, but it really conveys the horrible aftermath so well.

What happened to the guys after the roof scene though? Did I hear him right that they used 3000+ men to clear it?? And would they live long enough to see that 800 ruble bonus?

I also hadn't realised the extent to which Soviet secrecy made everything so much worse.

Also, the puppies

Jurgen The German

Fourier wrote: »

Nothing to contradict just expanding a bit.

The type of reactor in Chernobyl is an old Soviet design that uses graphite to moderate it and water to cool it. "Moderate" in the context of Nuclear reactors means slow neutrons down enough to let them split the nucleus of the uranium atoms. Fast moving neutrons essentially fly through Uranium without splitting it. So "moderating" is needed to keep the reaction going. Just mentioning this as the word "moderate" sounds like it slows the reaction, where as really the Graphite moderator is part of keeping it going.

The water as mentioned cools the reactor core, it also poisons the reaction. Poison means it absorbs neutrons so they can't be used to split Uranium, thus slowing down the reaction. So just bear in mind that the water is both cooling the reactor core and controlling the pace of the reactions.
If you need to really slow down the reaction there are control rods made of a material very good at absorbing neutrons. They are suspended above the core and are inserted by automatic systems if temperatures get too high.


So the reactor was slowly de-powered as the time of the test approached. Unfortunately midway through the depowering they got a call to not reduce any further due to a smaller power station in the Kiev region failing. The grid needed Chernobyl to pick up the load to compensate and this meant the test could not proceed until nightfall.

The night-shift team were then ordered to rapidly decrease power production in order to complete the test. The test would not be possible for another year at least if not completed by the morning. The rapid decrease and human errors while carrying it out caused a build up of Xenon in the reactor. Xenon is an extreme reactor poison and rapidly slowed down the reaction so that power dropped to minimal levels.

In response to this the control rods were completely removed to allow the reaction to speed up. However the xenon build up meant even with this done the power levels were minimal.

This is when things really went wrong. You have a hot reactor being cooled by lots of water that boils into steam and rushes out of the core. At high power this boiling is very fast and the cycle of steam and water runs through the reactor quickly. At low power the less violent boiling means the flow of water is much slower. This means that any steam bubbles hang around inside the core for longer.

This is where we get the "Positive Void Coefficient" you mentioned. "Void" is just an absence of the cooling material. If your coolant is water the voids are steam bubbles. However remember this reactor is not only using water to cool it, but also using it to slow the reaction. Steam doesn't absorb neutrons as well as water, so any steam bubbles/voids means more neutrons survive to continue the reaction. Steam bubbles cause an increase in power, this is what is meant by "Positive Void Coefficient".

So now that they were at low power these steam bubbles started hanging around in the core. Suddenly thanks to the bubbles the reaction started getting faster and power increased. Of course this meant that the steam bubbles should start to move out of the core quicker but the power increase happened very fast before the water could really get moving.

Suddenly the reactor begins to climb enormously in power. Normally the control rods would stop this, but they had been removed earlier to get the power up again in response to the Xenon poisoning. In the time it took the rods to descend from the ceiling the core had begun to melt and actually distorted into a shape that blocked the rods.

At that point the reaction went so out of control the temperature was enough to evaporate all the water in the core causing a steam explosion. Now there was no water, just steam. So the reaction got more powerful until it caused the core to explode. This second explosion is the one that released all the radioactive material by blasting some of it into the air and the rest caught fire giving off radioactive smoke.

Just kidding, brilliant explanation, thanks for sharing.


Just finished episode 4. Gripping television. Very matter of fact but despite the reality of what we are watching it never descends into melodrama. Best docudrama of the modern TV era by some distance.

2smiggy

Feck me, some episode. That opening scene!!!

yermandan

I know there's only 5 episodes but I'm holding onto hope for more as Sky keep referring to this as 'season one'

AMKC

Shelga wrote: »

Wow, episode 4 was amazing too. At first I thought I wasn't sure if I liked the tonal change, now that time is moving on and it's not so immediate, but it really conveys the horrible aftermath so well.

What happened to the guys after the roof scene though? Did I hear him right that they used 3000+ men to clear it?? And would they live long enough to see that 800 ruble bonus?

I also hadn't realised the extent to which Soviet secrecy made everything so much worse.

Also, the puppies

It was 3828 men actually. As for how long they lived I would say not very long after that and certainly not for your man who ripped his boot.:(

Can't have been a nice job there job or the job the other lads others had.

The poor mother losing her baby.(

I thought that was a very sad episode.

Cina

The roof scene was so intense.

Not sure what it says about me as a person that the dog massacre upset me a lot more than any people being killed on screen can.

Zero-Cool

Squirming watching that roof scene. Absolute quality telly no matter how hard some of it is to watch. I'm not into TV awards but this needs to win ALL the awards.

Did the guy in charge of the roof shifts have nuclear tan?

Gimme A Pound

The insistence on the propaganda even at a time like that, even under a less repressive leader in Gorbachev... really depressed me.

Cina wrote: »

The roof scene was so intense.

Not sure what it says about me as a person that the dog massacre upset me a lot more than any people being killed on screen can.

I think that's pretty universal. You'd be worse again if it were children though. They don't understand why - at least we adults do. I think that's what it stems from.

I fast forwarded all the animals bit - even though I kept reminding myself that it was the kindest thing to do, and their suffering would have been minimal with a clean shot. Even the hard as nails Afghanistan veteran insisted, with extra force, that they not be let suffer. But still, couldn't watch it.

errlloyd

Some experts can probably clear this up for, but as far as I know the roof guys for the most part have an above normal rate of cancer, but none of them would have died immediately or even soon after. They didn't get ARS, they would have had a higher rate of cancer, but none of them had skin melting or the works. They didn't get anywhere near as bad a dose as the miners. Indeed, if they stuck with the 90 seconds they were genuinely getting a pretty livable dose of radiation.

To put it into perspective, Telyatnikov head of the fire department was on the roof for 15 minutes on the day of the explosion and lived another 20 years (though did die of a cancer probably related to Chernobyl). The UN estimates in 2005 that about 1.1% of 200,000 liquidators would die earlier due to radiation. That's 440 people. So even if all of those who die earlier come from the 4,000 who go out on the roof, most of them still survived. Honestly, it's probably not incomrable to when you see people smoking in films!

Credit Checker Moose

Yes, most of the roof cleaners survived but suffered cancer and other disabilities. Many are still fighting with the governments of Russia and Ukraine for disability benefits to this day.

Gimme A Pound

Yeah a big thing I've learned is the immediate fatalities were not high in numbers. Due in no small part to the bravery of many.

sc86

episode 4 was bit of a let down after the first 3 , but bar was set very high

harr

sc86 wrote: »

episode 4 was bit of a let down after the first 3 , but bar was set very high

Different tone but I think it was on par with the rest ,not quite as shocking as previous episodes.

harr

The yellow robotic digger stood out so much against all the grey and doom, great TV

sc86

harr wrote: »

Different tone but I think it was on par with the rest ,not quite as shocking as previous episodes.

to much shooting dogs for me

in general though not as much happened

roof action was scary , imagine the fear waiting to run out!


not as much smoking as previous episodes but more vodka:D

Gimme A Pound

The old lady at the start was fecking bad-ass.

ERG89

Cina wrote:

Not sure what it says about me as a person that the dog massacre upset me a lot more than any people being killed on screen can.

Yeah they didn't show much but anyone who's a dog owner & others would say the same even if the circumstances were understandable.
Pretty good show this. I'm not sure how much of the story may have been dramatised for TV but it's gripping television. Shame it ends next week but I think the shorter format helped the show.

Padraig Mor

The roof scene is actually a virtual carbon copy of original footage from the time - very accurate. Check out the documentary The Battle of Chernobyl on YouTube (there's a couple of versions, the full one is 93 minutes) which has the real deal - no actors here! Some of those in the doc only had 45 seconds on the roof the radiation was so high. Roof footage from about 62 mins. The doc also features the miners, although they keep their clothes on.....

gauralordon

The roof scene was the most intense thing I’ve watched in a long time, it gave me chills. Loved the slight bit of comic relief with Shcherbina too, and loved being quickly pulled back down to earth when you learn the reason behind his rage.

I only read the imgur link that was posted here yesterday before watching the episode tonight and it enhanced my experience so well. My family are sick of me talking about how good this show is.

About to listen to the podcast for this episode. No doubt it’s as insightful as the previous ones and enhances the viewing even more.

Polar101

errlloyd wrote: »

The UN estimates in 2005 that about 1.1% of 200,000 liquidators would die earlier due to radiation. That's 440 people.

1.1% of 200000 would be 2200 people. Or did I misunderstand what you meant? In any case, I guess you could say the death toll seems to be a lot lower than what was feared at first.

Really enjoying the series, except for the really unnecessary geiger counter sounds "hear how dangerous this is!".

---

I'm from Finland originally and as we know the radioactive cloud headed north as well. I was 10 at the time and I probably got my share of the stuff - it would have been fairly rainy in late April. In school we were told to take a shower after being outside in the rain. I don't think that did much good, but at least we were (reasonably) far away. No eating mushrooms and reindeer meat for a while, though!

Slydice

Just watching the Lyudmilla story as the episodes went by and you could see where they were going with it. I get it like, they are giving illustrative examples of what happened.
Doesn't make it any easier seeing that empty cot
Episode by episode you could just see them build to that


That roof scene. Reminding me of the 10 minute shifts in the film K-19 The Widowmaker. That guy who got stuck

The puppies scene


I remember looking at the wiki page early on a seeing that the director, Johan Renck, does a lot of music work:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_Renck

Well I tell ya between him and the composer Hildur Guðnadóttir, they deserve some awards for this series!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildur_Guðnadóttir

The content is unsettling amd that audio really gets it under my skin.

Atlantic Dawn

Padraig Mor wrote: »

The roof scene is actually a virtual carbon copy of original footage from the time - very accurate. Check out the documentary The Battle of Chernobyl on YouTube (there's a couple of versions, the full one is 93 minutes) which has the real deal - no actors here! Some of those in the doc only had 45 seconds on the roof the radiation was so high. Roof footage from about 62 mins. The doc also features the miners, although they keep their clothes on.....

Yes some great clips uploaded on Youtube of them in action...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-rGSkhJ_54

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSGcn-UaKWY

Heckler

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

Yes some great clips uploaded on Youtube of them in action...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-rGSkhJ_54

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSGcn-UaKWY

Again another brilliant episode. If this doesn't win a bunch of awards...

Why didn't they clear the roof from the front to the back instead of stumbling over rubble from the back with shovel loads ? ie. peg it to the front, toss and leg it back. As the front would be cleared the time to the back would be lessened. The time from the back then to the front would be lessened too with no rubble in the way.

Tokyo

Heckler wrote: »

Again another brilliant episode. If this doesn't win a bunch of awards...

Why didn't they clear the roof from the front to the back instead of stumbling over rubble from the back with shovel loads ? ie. peg it to the front, toss and leg it back. As the front would be cleared the time to the back would be lessened. The time from the back then to the front would be lessened too with no rubble in the way.

unbelievably radioactive roof of death.
Mangled debris and weak points in the roof everywhere.

I'm guessing if I were up there, I'd be frantically grabbing my two shovels of radioactive graphite from anywhere, chucking it over the edge and legging it back to the relative safety of the building as fast as my legs could carry me, rather than planning the most efficient way to pick my way across a maze of mangled metal.

Yurt2

mike_ie wrote: »

unbelievably radioactive roof of death

Sweet, I was looking for a name for my new thrash metal band and now I've found it.

I'll give you a cut of the t-shirt sales. Thnx.

Cina

Despite the episode being incredibly depressing throughout, I did lose it a little at

"it's not the same one"
"I know it's not the same one!"

sc86

Heckler wrote: »

Again another brilliant episode. If this doesn't win a bunch of awards...

Why didn't they clear the roof from the front to the back instead of stumbling over rubble from the back with shovel loads ? ie. peg it to the front, toss and leg it back. As the front would be cleared the time to the back would be lessened. The time from the back then to the front would be lessened too with no rubble in the way.

videos are jaw dropping

stood having a chat of the roof:eek:

Sardonicat

Those videos can't be real, surely? Lightweight cameras in the 80s could not have produced that kind of picture and sound quality.

PhilOssophy

Why couldn't they just collapse the roof? What was below it that meant it couldn't just be collapsed and the sarcophagus built around it as well?
Collapse the roof, bury it in concrete, jobz a goodun?

CoBo55

mcdaids69 wrote: »

level maintained :pac: got to see it at 3am this morning...joys of night work and finishing at 11pm

Evening work, finishing at 6am, home at 7:15 is night work...