Ever heard of Chernobyl? A nuclear accident in the 80s?

[bbchris]

I came across a website (thanks Jeff Stoll!) which a Ukrainian lady has put up photos - she visited around Chernobyl - which had a nuclear accident in the 80s - on a motorbike - they are good photos and a few sentences of text written in good English, she has a counter to test the radiation and shows various ghost towns. It's quite a few pages but she writes well and this is the perfect example of how wonderful the Internet is for sharing information like this.



www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/



Elena







Photos like this one from a deserted town - they don't show the time on the clocks - only the radiation levels...





When she wrote:

The last photos are of the town kindergarden.

There are hundreds of little gas masks, a teachers diary and a last note saying that their walk on Saturday has been canceled due to some unforeseen contingency.



It just made me feel sad.

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[Seismic Anamoly]

It IS sad.

[DreamTone7]

Saw this on another BB I frequent. The ghost towns aren't the half of it. The radiation traveled downwind to a nearby river and the cancer rate in children that live in a small town further downstream on that river is about 30%. Shows to go ya what happens when safeguards are ignored. Good men gave their lives to ensure this didn't turn out to be a "China Syndrome" event. Getting the plant to shut down with radiation levels so high that the duration for a lethal dose of radiation was about 3 minutes for those doing the work. But this didn't stop the radioactive cloud from moving downwind. Sad indeed. This was such an embarassment to the then Soviet Union that the town of Chernobyl (which is Russian for "wormwood" for all you Bible afficiondos) was removed from all public Russian maps. It is my understanding that this was not the only disaster of this kind that the Russians had.

[bbchris]

Yes she mentions the translation in her website. I decided to send her a postcard as she leaves no email contact only an address. Is she clever or CRAZY to go there?



Thanks Rev for the additional info.

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[DreamTone7]

Rev DT at your service.

[bbchris]

Sorry Dreamtone7 - working too hard and got your name wrong, can we still be friends?

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[MIKE BURN]

I remember very well, when I was sitting in front of a TV-movie with a friend near Frankfurt and the program was interrupted, where a freaked out moderator told the public that a nuclear reactor went out of control and reported ongoing explosions.



Hours later. police- and other official cars drove through the streets here with luoudspeakers and told the people to stay at home, close the windows, pick up relatives and turn the radio on for further announcements, because the wind was coming from the east at this time.



For a long time, we did not had fresh milk and mushrooms (they grow here in the forest and they were all badly "nuked").



Especially in east-Germany the radioactivity was sometimes 1,000 fold above normal for many months.



We were lucky, but Chernobyl and the surrounding areas will not be free of radioactivity for many tenthousands of years to come. Since it was plutonium used in chernobyl, the radioactivity there will fade away very slowly. Half of the radioactivity status from today will be reached in 25,000 years...........



Cancer was only a minor problem in Chernobyl.

Most of the people were directly burned from the radiation in between hours. Thousands of crazy creatures were born... (animals and human 'children'). Today it's a desert there and everybody who goes there can't stay longer than for 60 minutes or will have the skin burnt..... still.

[bbchris]

Thanks for posting your experience and views Mike. Very moving. For me - it was the other side of the world and I have no experience or memory of this event...

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[AQUARIAN AGE]

I remember walking around with my schoolmates checking the radiation of mushrooms etc.



Still scary and sad to see that pics on the website, esp. the last ones from the kindergarten.

[RonOnGuitar]

People in Scandinavia were strongly impacted by the Chernobyl, especially the Sami people in Lapland. Their whole way of life is centered around herding & ranging reindeers.



From a PBS (US Public Broadcasting Service) page:

"The first reports after Chernobyl suggested that the reindeer meat could not be consumed for 40 years (estimates based on the half-life of Cs-137). Fortunately for the Sami, whose entire culture is built around reindeer, Cs-137 has since fallen to more acceptable levels. Soil in Scandinavia and other areas absorbed Cs-137 after the accident and is still contaminated."



BTW, Chris, I think you mixed up DT with Rev9 because you might have subliminally had DTs mention of the biblical "Wormwood" in the back o' your mind. As I take off the sacred baseball cap given to me by my oldest bro, I don my armchair theologian baseball cap to expound and then tap on the pulpit fo' emphasis - can I get an Amen?!? -



Wormwood is mentioned in the biblical book of visions of the future, "Revelation" (to St.John) chapter 8, verses 10 & 11 :



"And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers and upon the fountains of waters. And the name of the star is called Wormwood. And the third part of the waters became wormwood, and many men died of the waters because they were made bitter."



Some people note that Chernobyl is a Russian transliteration of the Ukrainian word ‘chornobyl’ - the word means "wormwood", the name of a bitter herb. Some folks see Chernobyl as the fulfilment of the biblical prophecy quoted above.



Now taking off the armchair theologian baseball cap - ouch! Had it on way too snug for my fat head!! hahahaha.

[DreamTone7]

No problem chris.



Ron - FWIW, there is a little more to the "wormwood" thing than just the name. The Bible says that 1/3 die because the waters were made bitter. The river downwind of Chernobyl now has a radiation level that is so high that if you stay in it for 20 minutes you're dead within two weeks...and...1/3 of the children born in the town along the river develope and die from Leukemia. A nuclear reaction (albeit mostly fusion instead of fission) is what powers stars.

[RonOnGuitar]

Yup, knew that, DT - I was just tossing out the reference as a "Cliffs Notes" garden variety outline so your mention would have a specific apocalyptic context. Thanks for the heads up, anyway!



Hmmm....I'd put on my "know-it-all physics baseball cap", but that really gives me (and everyone else) headaches, heh!

[bbchris]

Thanks Dreamtone7 and Ron for some very good information and explanations.

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[RonOnGuitar]

Chris -



The woman's site is simple, but very memorable. I was quite impressed. I think it would make a great book (with photos) and do well if presented as a documentary on film/video.



Her impressions, along with the pics, make a fascinating story. That she's a biker chick riding though that "no man's land" just adds another interesting angle.



Re: DT7 & my ruminations - the Bon Mot D'Jour is:

"Eschatology" (theological study of "end time" matters).



(Hmmm...it sounds more like a sneeze; "Es-eESS-ESSCha-tologeeeeee!!!.." ----- Gesundheit! )

[bbchris]

I totally agree with you Ron. I think that's what made me post about it here. I was moved by her site and also thought she is supercool

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