Chernobyl: Pride Goeth Before the Fallout

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What happens when national pride collides with nuclear disaster? The Chernobyl catastrophe of April 26, 1986 stands as a haunting reminder of technological hubris and the devastating consequences of prioritizing image over human safety.

When Reactor 4 exploded at 1:23 a.m., it released more radiation than any other accident in history. But what's truly chilling isn't just the technical failure—it's the human response. Plant manager Viktor Brukhanov had rushed construction for Soviet rewards. Chief engineer Nikolai Fomin shifted a critical safety test to the night shift without proper briefing. And when the reactor began behaving erratically, supervisor Anatoly Dyatlov pushed forward, removing safety rods below minimum requirements.

After the explosion, the cover-up began immediately. Officials delayed evacuating 49,000 residents of nearby Pripyat for 36 hours. It wasn't until Sweden detected radiation in their atmosphere that the USSR finally acknowledged what happened—with a statement so brief it barely hinted at the catastrophe unfolding.

The response efforts were both heroic and tragic. Firefighters in standard gear received lethal doses of radiation. Helicopter pilots dropped sand and boron directly over the radioactive core. Most remarkably, three men volunteered to swim through radioactive water to prevent a secondary explosion that could have devastated Europe—they were promised 400 rubles and care for their families, yet astonishingly, two reportedly survived long after.

Today, Chernobyl's legacy extends far beyond the estimated 4,000-93,000 premature deaths. Mikhail Gorbachev himself identified it as the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union. The Exclusion Zone has become an accidental wildlife sanctuary where endangered species now thrive in humanity's absence. And beneath the massive containment structure, the infamous "Elephant's Foot"—a mass of nuclear lava—remains one of the deadliest objects on Earth.

Join us for a fascinating exploration of the disaster that changed our understanding of nuclear power and revealed the catastrophic cost of putting national image before human lives. Have you ever wondered how you might react in a crisis? Share your thoughts and subscribe to hear more stories where history meets human nature.

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Episode Transcript

Doug (00:28):
And and I find that's why six toes are it's definitely
better to have six toes thanfive on each foot no, I would.

Ron (00:36):
I would do that.
If that was covered by my plan,I'd do that.
You would add a toe yeah, 100it's all about stability.

Doug (00:46):
Yeah, and I'll take it, and this toe goes on the heel
Like that's the thing, oh, likea raptor.

Ron (00:51):
No, raptors don't have toes on their heels.

Doug (00:53):
It could be Like a little raptor I know what you're
talking about Like a cat Like alittle dewclaw.

Ron (01:07):
I want a that's evidence of witchcraft.
I think that will burn you atthe stake.
They don't do that anymore.

Doug (01:11):
I think For now, but you don't know, your confidence is
through the roof on that one.
Gentlemen, thank you forjoining me today, thank, you for
pulling us together, Doug.
It's good to be here and it'sgood to think about the past and
think about choices that we'vemade.
Would you say that you,gentlemen, have?

Ron (01:27):
made some choices.
Oh, I don't think it's good.

Don (01:31):
Don't make Ron go back, okay.

Doug (01:36):
That's behind me.
Well, I have a question to leadus in today, as we often do.
When was a time that youexperienced a situation that
needed to be covered up?
Debatable if it even needs tobe covered up at the end of the
day.
Right, I think honesty isalways the best policy, but I
think that the human experienceoften leads down that rabbit

(01:59):
hole of cover-up situations.
Or maybe, if you haven't been apart of it, has there ever been
a time that you've seen acover-up that?
Or maybe, if you haven't been apart of it, has there ever been
a time that, uh, you've seen acover-up that just continues to
get worse and worse, and worse.

Ron (02:12):
I'm sorry to disappoint you both, but I have been involved
with the cover-up.
I have initiated a cover-up, aconspiracy to withhold
information.
Uh, I think this is.
I think this is my firstcover-up.
Um, my first cover-up was I wasa young child, a toddler, I
don't know, maybe four or fiveunbelievable something around

(02:33):
there already started.
Yeah, advanced placement and uh, I think we had this like metal
, like die cast, uh replica ofthe uss enterprise from the
popular american science fictionprogram aircraft carrier.

Don (02:54):
I think we're talking star star this is the star trek one.

Ron (02:58):
Yeah, I did not yet uh like engage with war machines at
that time, um, but this is likea.
It was the enterprise from nextgeneration and the like saucer
part of the ship would come offand it was like all just solid
metal so you can kind of stickthem together.
And I was playing with it andmy brother zach wanted it, who

(03:18):
was younger than me, I'm prettysure I don't remember all the
details because you know I wasthe one that got away with it,
but anyways, somehow this metalsaucer fell from our hands and
landed on his toe, likeinstantly breaking his toe, and
it was like the toenail fell off.

Don (03:35):
That's why he doesn't have six toes anymore.

Ron (03:37):
Yeah exactly this is why I say always take another toe, you
never know what could happen.

Doug (03:42):
Do you mean to rhyme?

Ron (03:43):
that that was nice.
Some things just work, um.
So, anyways, he, he had abroken toe and he was super sore
and I think I like threatenedhim to like do not tell mom
about what happened here.
So he walks with a limp to thisday yeah yeah, so like she saw
his toe and she's like whathappened?
And I think he covered for meand I think I lied.

(04:03):
I was like zach clumsy zach,you know, he's so stupid.
He dropped the toy on his footand you insulted him.
Yeah, and I think zach was likethat's right, I dropped the toy
on my foot and I think it was.
I don't I don't know how longthat lasted, because I think
everyone in my family knows thisstory and it's like the.
It's, like you know, myoriginal mark of duplicity that

(04:25):
has lived with me ever since anduh, so I don't think I don't
know how long it lasted.
I don't think it lasted superlong.

Doug (04:31):
I think my mom was like zach's, not that dumb wow, yeah,
shout out to zach for not beinga snitch even on himself zach
has always been there for me.

Ron (04:39):
Honestly, he should have snitched many a time yeah but
he's uh, and in that way the sinis his too, because he is
complicit in these crimes.

Doug (04:49):
Yeah.

Ron (04:50):
That's rough.

Doug (04:52):
Agree, yeah, I mean, I feel bad for the guy, but I'll
be looking after his feet fromhere on out.

Ron (05:00):
Someone needs to.
He only wears steel-toed boots.
Now, absolutely From three tonow.

Doug (05:07):
I accidentally step on his foot.
I'm so sorry, zach.
I know what this is like foryou.
Yeah, that's it.
Don you got anything?

Don (05:15):
I've lived a spotless life, so I really am having trouble,
it's good.
But I can think of one timewhen someone else was
duplicitous on my behalf.
Oh, and I think it's safe now.
I mean, so this happened in theseventh grade.
Um, I hope it is my Englishteacher, uh, mrs Collier.

(05:38):
So if you're, if you're, anuncannibal, mrs Collier, I'm
sorry for what I'm about to say,but I suspect that you're not.
We had notebook checks, oh, andone of the notebook check pages
it was dittoed, so like thatpurple you know, smelly stuff.
We were supposed to get ourparents to sign Once a week.

(06:01):
I think that they had checkedour homework and seen that we
were up to date, et cetera.
And Mrs Collier made onemistake.
And what she did was she saidsometimes kids try to fool me
with this and they have theirparents sign it and it's all the
same pen.
And I can tell the parentssigned it all at the same time.

(06:25):
Well, I hadn't had my mom signedmy signature page, so I asked
her sign it all at once rightbefore it was due, and I had six
different pens and I justrotated them in and out and she
used a different pen every timeand and I got away with it.
So true conspiracy, and youguys have never met my mom, of
course, but she is a saint, soI'm actually a little bit
prouder of the fact that I gotaway with it.
True conspiracy, and you guyshave never met my mom, of course
, but she is a saint, so I'mactually a little bit prouder of

(06:47):
the fact that I got her to goalong with it than the fact that
I did it.

Ron (06:51):
She wasn't like Donnie.
Why all the pens?

Don (06:54):
No, I told her why.
Oh, this one's being strong.
Let me give this one a shake.

Doug (06:58):
Try this one Don's criminal enterprise started that
day.

Don (07:03):
Dawn's criminal enterprise started that day, so it was
perfect.
Like there was no way you couldtell.
It was as if every week she hada different pen in her hand.

Doug (07:09):
Really solid record considering that that only
started in junior high.
We've got Ron, who's a truecriminal at four years old.

Ron (07:16):
Yeah, come back when you lived a little.

Doug (07:18):
That's true, or go back, I don't know.
It's hard to say.
Next time around, okay, startover there.
Mine was being tremendouslyhungry as a young three-year-old
I believe.
Running around in my kitchen,my mom is making scrambled eggs,
leaves them on the side of theplate.
I sneak one.
She says please stop taking theeggs.

(07:40):
We're going to all eat together.
And what she had done is she wasputting pads of butter on the
side of the plate and, uh, itlooked like scrambled eggs, and
so I ran for a second one whenshe wasn't looking, and then
just put a gigantic pad ofbutter in my mouth instead of
scrambled eggs.
And then, um, before I even hadlike, recognized that I was

(08:05):
eating butter instead of eggs.
I'm running to my room and I'mhearing her call after me Did
you grab another one?
Did you grab another one?
And I hid behind this veryminiature basketball hoop that
was there and in my room.
It was like a Fisher-Pricebasketball hoop, and as I bit
into the pad of butter, Iactually was so disgusted the

(08:30):
fact that I was just eating thislike mesh of yeah, I guess like
gelatinous yeah fat and salt.
I almost vomited and I learnedmy lesson by accident.
I don't think my mom was quitelaughing, but I remember that
there wasn't a punishmentimmediately afterwards, because
she ran into my room, saw myface as I was eating butter and

(08:50):
she's like that's right, that'sbutter, not eggs.
You should have listened.
And yeah, I guess I tried tocover it up by just sneaking in
like a little solid snake that Iwas, and take the uh, uh, take
the butter off of the plate.

Ron (09:07):
I love that.
I got mine.
You were the child who had tobe told to stop taking eggs.

Doug (09:11):
Yeah, that's good, yeah I still am, I still am.
Don't catch me on easter I'lltell you that it's bad news.
You don't like butter.
I love it things.
And I think my palate isadvanced enough now I could just
go directly after the stick.

Ron (09:28):
No, I can't.
You guys would go straight tothe stick.

Doug (09:33):
I'm always.
Every time that I go to thefair and see that they have
fried butter as an option, I getreally grossed out.

Ron (09:40):
Have you tried it?
No, I can't.

Doug (09:42):
I just can't imagine, and probably because of my childhood
experience, I can't imagine itarctic explorers do it.

Don (09:48):
It's a.
It's high density calories, soit's you chew.

Ron (09:51):
That's great for them, yeah high fat diet I don't blame
them.
Um, so why are you making uslike uncover our past?

Doug (10:02):
uh well, sins, because sometimes a whole country needs
to unveil their past um andactually going there.
This country needed to revealtheir present.
That was really.
That was really the issue.
Uh, today we're talking aboutthe chernobyl disaster, um of
1986.
Um, how familiar are we withthe topic?

Don (10:26):
um, I'd say, relatively familiar of the three of us, I
was the only one here, rightyeah it was 86, most familiar.

Doug (10:36):
Yeah, all right, you win, don's gonna be taking over at
this point, but thank you folksum.

Ron (10:43):
You can tell us what it was like what was it?
Like to get the transatlanticemissions landing on your
doorstep like we didn't know itwas new.

Don (10:52):
It was actually a little bit scary because like, uh, yeah
, it was one of the things thatthe 1980s were a scary time to
be a kid and and with the coldwar kind, you know, having
existed for so long.
But then you've got like theDay After Tomorrow movie came
out right and like high stress.
Like I think I've told you guysbefore, I have memories of

(11:14):
waking up in the middle of thenight and having to go
downstairs to talk to my parentsabout the fact that the
Russians are going to kill usall Right, and like as a seven
or eight year old, yeah.
So yeah, the fact that there wasactually a nuclear disaster and
yeah there was, maybe there'sgoing to be nuclear winter and
the particles are going to comeacross the ocean and like what's

(11:36):
going to happen and everyone'sgoing to mutate, and yeah, there
was like real fear about how itwas going to actually play out.
So, different, I think, than thefukushima yes, uh disaster,
because it is like it was notthe first one, right.
So like, yes, that was bad andterrible, but nobody was afraid
that we were going to havemutant wolves eating us or

(11:58):
whatever right.

Doug (11:59):
So, and that is the direction that we're going,
because these mutant wolves havemade it to the united states
and I want us to be,

Ron (12:07):
safe, and so I saw this insane tiktok about chernobyl
that's exactly right.

Don (12:15):
Counterintelligence just coming right at you, but in case
someone doesn't know what thechernobyl disaster is, we
probably should go back to towhat Chernobyl like.
What is Chernobyl?
Where is?

Doug (12:25):
Chernobyl.
Yeah, so we are looking um at atown, um that is uh, currently
located Ukraine, um, and onApril 26th 1986, at one 23 at
the morning, um, there was anuclear power plant that was
running a test that had atremendous failure which led to

(12:50):
the destruction and release ofone of the cores of this power
plant, which released the mostnuclear energy into the
atmosphere of the world in thehistory of man, the atmosphere
of the world in the history ofman.

(13:11):
My fascination on this startedbecause I was watching the Last
of Us.
I learned about Craig Mazin,who created that show, and I
looked up that he is lauded forhis production of the show
Chernobyl, which is afive-episode miniseries about
the disaster and theconsequences of what had
happened.
I'm not really going to betouching on the show as much,

(13:33):
although I highly recommend itbecause it's a masterpiece, I
think, in its direction.
But the thing that I find mostfascinating is this event.
It's interesting.
Gorbachev at the time said thathe looks at the end of the
Soviet Union as this event.
He very much signals that thiswas the event that kind of ended

(13:56):
the Soviet Union, and so that'sa potential way that we can
take this topic today, but it isknown as the worst nuclear
disaster in history, not just interms of costs and casualties,
but also, um it's far reachingeffects on science, the
environment and, uh, the waythat we do life and global
consciousness.
Um, good summary anything I'mleaving out before we dig in.

(14:20):
It was reactor number four.
It was reactor number four fourum, and we almost blew all of
them too.

Don (14:28):
That's a little spoiler there, but we didn't, so credit
where it's due and the otherones continued to run yes, today
I think till like the early2000s yeah I believe so.

Doug (14:40):
It's currently in the sarcophagus, which we'll get to
in a moment, where there is agiant structure that has been
built over it since then.
That actually is breaking downto the point that they've built
another one over it becausethere's been so much damage.
And that keeps the ghosts inright, yes, yeah, ghosts are
there at all times.

(15:01):
Green ghosts yeah, ghosts arethere at all times.

Ron (15:04):
Green ghosts?
Yeah, absolutely.

Doug (15:05):
And you know there have been many a video game that has
been made about this area and,yes, the potential for ghosts
and mutants and all of thesethings.
But today I'm going to try tobase it as much as we can in
reality.
Oh, sorry about that.

Ron (15:23):
Yeah, it's uncanny enough.
I was gonna say that like thesort of like video game and
science fiction media that hasspun off from uh yeah, the
chernobyl disaster is sort oflike where I'm probably actually
like most familiar with it,like I feel like it definitely
uh, like, uh, like sort ofpost-nuclear fiction is like a

(15:43):
part of like almost all modern,you know, 20th century societies
, but I feel like it colorsrussian and soviet union media
in a very different way thanlike americans do, and I feel
like that somehow it links backto the.

Don (15:56):
You have to have the image, you have to have the empty
ferris wheel that that's whatsignals to you that there's been
a radiation problem, exactlylike it's.

Ron (16:03):
It's part of that, the zeitgeist and it's more like
real in in their sci-fi rightlike uh, you know we're talking
about video games like uh,what's the?
I can't even think of theirnames stalker, yeah, stalker
series right, which is uh, alsobased on the short story right
roadside picnic and that kind ofstuff.

Don (16:21):
Um, it's more like horror based than like american
post-nuclear fiction, which ismore like fun based or something
I think some americans are likeit would be, it would be sick
if the world ended, whereas Ican think other nations that
have like more actual localdisasters, like no, it would not
, it would be the worst thingever yeah.

Doug (16:43):
Yeah, there's um, quite the cast of characters, um, and
people that we have to mentionum going into this, and so I
definitely would appreciate anyclarifying questions If, if we
start to lose track of who'sVictor who was Anatoly like as
we go through, please let meknow if I begin to spin that the
wrong direction.
But I do need to introduce afew people, because this event,

(17:09):
the thing that is interesting to, at least to me, to think about
, is where some of the faultlies, Because there's kind of a
chain of events that lead toReactor 4 going down, that kind
of take different directions andpeople have very strong
opinions about.
I don't plan to make anygigantic ones today, but there

(17:31):
are some facts that we can kindof bring forward and then start
to talk about it from there.
So Viktor Brukhanov was theplant manager who oversaw the
construction of the plant and um, as early as 1979, when these
were being put together, um, uh,and they were testing these

(17:54):
reactors, which we'll get to ina minute.
There's actually KGB documentsthat show that there were
instability issues within thereactors and the way that they
work is you're essentiallyputting uranium deposits inside

(18:18):
of them that have neutrons thatare bouncing off of the outside.
These neutrons collide with theother neutrons that are next to
it in the uranium chemicals andthere is a combination of
safety rods that are insertedinto the core, that are tipped
in boron that slow down thisreaction, which interacts with

(18:40):
water.
The steam creates the power,the heat from the steam creates
the power, and this is how youpower a city in this case.
And nuclear power was a pride ofthe Soviet Union because they
yeah, they'd claimed that theyhad the greatest power sources.
They're showing an advance intechnology and we're also

(19:02):
dealing with the Cold War, ofcourse, and so anything that's
technology, the idea of it beingsupreme in some way, is a very
big part of the identity of acountry and also part of the
competition and war that, likeresources and technology, became
just as important as thepotential for bodies on a field.
So the plant manager did notinitially test the safety of

(19:26):
these cores, they just startedoperating immediately, and he
was recorded saying that in theUSSR you were often rewarded for
finishing your work early.
Saying that in the USSR youwere often rewarded for
finishing your work early, like,literally, the government would
give you bonuses if you wereable to, because, again, speed
is of the essence, making surethat you get to things first,

(19:46):
and he said that this is fairlystandard practice.
He was recorded saying this isfairly standard practice within
the USSR, that the things thatyou're building and the projects
that you're finishing, youwould try to finish as quickly
as possible for the financialbenefit and it being good for
the state.
He speaks really good English.
He he speaks some greattranslated Russian.

Don (20:05):
That's.

Doug (20:06):
I'm hoping is is is as close as we can get um from what
I was able to get fromsubtitles of watching the trial
that he was in, from subtitlesof watching the trial that he
was in Um, so hopefully I'm notdoing him um to poor of justice
here, but um, he um ultimately,uh, bears some of the

(20:26):
responsibility for this accentor this accident.
He was sentenced to 10 years inprison, um, which is crazy
considering what we're going toum unveil about him.
But Victor actually wasreleased for good behavior and
continued to live in the SovietUnion.
Following there's anothercharacter, nikolai Formin, who

(20:49):
was the chief engineer for thisfacility and others.
He was also held accountablefor postponing this test, so
there was a very critical momentin which they haven't tested it
.
And then 86 rolls around.
They're going to test thisreactor during the day, but you
notice, it just said that theaccident happens at one 23 in

(21:09):
the morning.
Well, nikolai felt that, um,there were officials that were
in Kiev that day and he feltthat it would not be good if
they ran the test, somethingwere to go wrong or not go well,
because they have to power downthe reactor.
They're basically trying to seeif the reactor is powered down,
can they use an alternativesource of power?
He felt that it would not be agood idea to run it during the

(21:32):
day because they didn't want anyof the power to go down during
the cities or in the city whenofficials were going to be in
the surrounding area.
The problem with this is thepeople who were briefed on the
safety of doing this reactorpower down were the day shift.
The day shift were the onlyones who got the briefing.

(21:53):
So when the night crew came in,they literally were looking at
an annotated document that washundreds of pages long, that
kind of like.
From what I was able to gather,they were looking at it as
notes that people were makingduring the day presentation,
saying so do this actually, thispage like, move this over?

(22:14):
Don't do this actually movethis this way?
Um, so you can imagine that acrew who's going in with um less
experience because the nightcrew was the one who was
basically just runningmaintenance Um, they were not
really ready to run this test.

Don (22:29):
Um so the, uh, the, the.
The plan for the, the nuclearreactor, was to make sure that
we only had disasters during thedaytime.
That's smart.

Ron (22:40):
Smart.
A lot more people are there tofix it.

Don (22:43):
That's true.

Ron (22:44):
What's going on in?

Don (22:44):
there, you want that scheduled, absolutely.
Was it not an operating powerplant before.

Doug (22:50):
Yes, it was operating.
It had been operating for years, but they had never given it a
stress test if the cores wentdown in power, if the
alternative sources would go in.
And so we'll get into that.
So Nikolai Formin was the onewho made the decision.
So obviously Victor owns theplant.
He was aware of the fact thatthe core should have been tested
earlier, never tested.
That's why he got in trouble.

(23:11):
Nikolai gets in trouble becausehe basically threw this on the
night shift and said I'm sureit'll be fine, just on the pride
of the fact that this is Soviettechnology, so it will
withstand.
There's no way that it's goingto go.
This is the most advancedtechnology in the history of man
when it comes to power.

Don (23:29):
Everybody's saying so.
People say that all the time.

Ron (23:31):
It's the greatest technology it's only the
greatest there was a big boatonce.

Don (23:37):
It was supposed to be real good.
Exactly, look at Jurassic.

Ron (23:41):
Park, that's right.

Doug (23:45):
He also received a sentence for 10 years and also
attempted to take his own lifeseveral times before the trial
went on.
Due to the shame of theexperience Following his
sentence, he was actually placedin a psychiatric hospital
before the trial went on.
Due to the shame of theexperience Following his
sentence, he was actually placedin a psychiatric hospital.
He was released early and,shockingly, went to work at
another power plant up until theearly 2000s.

(24:07):
So he ended up kind ofcontinuing his work.

Don (24:10):
You've got to stick with your expertise Absolutely.
I'm good at one thing even ifthat one thing went bad once.
Well, yeah, now he knows whatnot to do.
Yeah, you got to learn fromyour mistakes.
We don't want to ruin hisfuture.

Doug (24:23):
everybody has to have the chance to revise.
Yes, yes, um, our lastcharacter to introduce right now
is anatoly diatlov.
Um, he also gets a 10-yearsentence for this and he's he's
one that I think takes a lot ofthe blame for the disaster,
because he was the person incharge of the night shift when

(24:46):
they were testing the course,and the thing that's tough is
going back to the show for justa second.
He's very much painted as thisvillainous, prideful character
who, um, just kept pushing nomatter what.
And um, where a lot ofhistorians would disagree is he.
Probably he was really the onlyperson who knew, point to point

(25:08):
, what you did to actually powerdown the reactors and bring um
things back into the fold, towhere the night staff was
looking to him, saying and thendo we do this, and then do we do
this, and he was kind ofguiding the entire thing.
So he was relied on for hisexpertise at the time where
everybody was kind of asking himwe can't really read the
documents that we were givenfrom the day shift, so what

(25:30):
should we be doing?
And so he was sentenced to 10years in prison as well for this
.
So, to outline what happened,give me a moment here as I
assemble.
What happened that?
I guess, early morning theissue came from the lower power
and safety rods which dip intothis core, which slow down the

(25:53):
neutron reactions between theuranium, which almost completely
stopped the core.
So they were trying to powerthis thing down to where it was
at levels of about 700 um.
Unfortunately I'm lapsing onthe the 700.
What exactly?

Don (26:10):
I would I don't want to say megatons- maybe don can sub it.

Doug (26:14):
I don't want to say megatons, if that's like not
anywhere near you know cause, Ithink that's an explosion
directly.
Um, but they had to be powereddown to about 700.
Um, and they noticed that thecore was actually going to be
approaching zero and they werefearing that it was never going
to power back up again.
So the at law of um instructedthem to bring up, take out the

(26:34):
safety rods, like he just said.
Okay, the cores are about to godown, take out the safety rods.
The minimum amount of rods andI think that there was close to
a hundred that were in the umcore.
He said um, take out as many ofthe rods as we can.
Let's go to about six minimumfor safety standards.
These cores needed to be at 12,like 12 was the absolute bare

(26:58):
minimum and even that waspushing all safety regulations.
And again, because he didn'twant to be the person
responsible for the core goingdown, he said go ahead and put
that down to six.
The core instantly startsreacting, it starts to heat back
up, but what they notice isit's not heating back up at an
additional rate, it's at anexponential rate to where
they're seeing it jump from 700.
Now we're in the five thousands.

(27:19):
Almost instantly it's heatingup and now we're past 15,000.
It just continues to go.
Um, the core is heating at sucha rapid rate, um, that people
start freaking out, obviously inthe terminal, saying like, okay
, this is accelerating at a ratethat we don't know exactly what
we're supposed to do.
Okay, this is accelerating at arate that we don't know exactly
what we're supposed to do.
So, because this happens, um,and they know that meltdown is

(27:39):
imminent, there is a famousbutton.
Never thought I would talkabout a famous button, but the
AZ five core shutdown button, um, which is like the only one
that's like it's indicated.
There's this red button that'sin the corner, is pressed by one
of the officials that is onsite at the time, designed to
shut down this reactor.
It causes a surge instead of a,um, a core slowdown.

(28:04):
I'd like the numbers jump again, leading to a gigantic steam
explosion in the core, whichleads to a full blown meltdown.
It took exactly 18 seconds forthe core to explode.
The reactor design is called anRBMK, which is Reactor Bolshoi,
moshonshi, kanali or Kananliyou did great.

(28:28):
Thank you, definitely good, justas good as my subtitle
translation, which had veryserious flaw.
Designs which this is somethingcalled a positive void
coefficient, meaning it couldbecome more reactive as it lost
coolant.
And the thing that they hadn'taccounted for is the fact that,
even though these rods weretipped in, uh, or are boron in

(28:49):
their construction, the tips ofthem have graphite in them and
that, apparently, is where thereaction happened is because of
the graphite hit Like once thosewent back in at such an impact
at the levels that it was at, itheated up the graphite which
caused, um, the explosion.
The top of the core is a 1000ton, which is insane to think

(29:11):
about, but as an a thousand tonum core top that was there, that
shattered into hundreds ofthousands of pieces instantly,
just destroying everything thatwas in the side.
Now, this is just one of thereactors.
So as this explodes and goes up, the people that are in the
control maintenance room feelthe shake of the building

(29:34):
instantly that you know there'sa reaction of like.
Okay, clearly this thing hasexploded, but right away, the
mood that was in the room, um,from what the accounts seem, um,
from people that had workedwith him, had set your laughing.

Don (29:50):
The mood that was in the room.
Oh, we work at a nuclearreactor.
That just melted down.
What's the?
How are you feeling, sergey?

Ron (29:59):
I can't wait to be written about it.
They're like boys we made it,we're the most famous
technicians in the world.

Doug (30:07):
Or infamous, that's right.
So once this happens, theaccounts waver from different
people that were written aboutin this book called shadows of
chernobyl.
But it seems that immediatelywhat people started to do and
this is why we talk about thecover-ups is immediately the
concern was there had to havebeen an accident where something

(30:28):
has fallen or something hasmoved in such a way that, like
something's broken in thebuilding, but there's no way
that this core is broken downLike the.
The overall conversation thathad happened is surely there's
some other accident that hadhappened, and instantly the
conversation becomes so go checkit out.
So who is going to be theperson that goes in and takes

(30:52):
the brunt of a potential opencore nuclear reactor?
That's like exploded in thisbuilding.
And the thing that I find themost interesting is, if you
don't go, you are saying thatthe Soviet Union has created
technology that's failed.
If you do go, you face thepotential of taking on what ends

(31:12):
up being 15,000,.
uh, reikens, I think I have thepronunciation on that one
correct you do Good Ritgens ofnuclear radiation that takes it
on.
So the group that goes in anddecides to brave this goes in

(31:33):
with measuring devices that onlymeasure 3.6 rate guns.
So when they go in they takethe temperature of the room
essentially as they'reapproaching it hits 3.6 and
breaks immediately and thereports that follow in this
basically say it's measuring at3.6.

(31:55):
In this basically say it'smeasuring at 3.6.
To give you an idea, 400 rayguns is a lethal dose of
radiation.
That like, if you're exposed tothat, you're looking at a
lethal dose and the building is,yeah, like measuring at the
core at 15,000 at this time, soimmediately upon the reactor

(32:16):
exploding.
The issue is not safety.
The issue is not we need to doeverything that we can stop this
meltdown.
There's a duplicity in we notonly need to figure out if this
thing has melted down, but alsowho's going to be the first
person that even suggests this.
And this is where I start to,you know, kind of spin the
wheels on.
Like what universe are weliving in, that the worst

(32:36):
disaster in history has everhappened and people are frozen
in their fear of saying anythingagainst the Soviet Union.

Ron (32:43):
I feel like that's a fairly common reaction, like, have you
ever like fear of the SovietUnion?
Yeah Well, yeah, you're stillunpacking it Don to this day.
But I mean like, have you evermade an accident?
An accident right?
Or like it could be a smallthing, maybe it could be a
larger thing.
But I feel like for a momentthere's a, there's a.

(33:03):
You give yourself a graceperiod where you pretend the
world is such that that accidentdidn't happen or it's somehow
not your fault right like I'mthinking.
The first one, because of mymind, is like I accidentally
broke the stained glass windowsset into my buddy's front door
to a house he was renting incollege.

(33:24):
I just like slammed the doorshut and they like all shattered
and I was like well clearlythat wasn't me, because I didn't
close the door any harder thanI usually do.
Clearly there was a fracture inthe glass and it was right.
Like for a moment.
I understand the impulse tolike no wait, you know, like to
to fantasize that somehow that'snot actually what's happened.

Don (33:47):
And or I'm thinking of like when, when someone is not used
to doing an activity likecooking, right.

Doug (33:54):
Right, yes.

Don (33:58):
And the pan catches on fire or you cut your finger,
whatever.
Like there's a moment where anew cook would freeze and like
not be sure what you're like.
They probably intellectuallylike you quiz them beforehand
know how to put out a fire, butlike when it happens, there's
that moment of like, like howdid this happen?
Is this happening?
like yeah where know theexperienced cook that can see
that, and like it's just part ofthe motion to to put it out and

(34:21):
to know what to do, which is, Iguess, the point of having
drills and stuff.
Right, so that way, when theemergencies actually happen,
like you know, we file the kidsout aside in the school, right?
So that way, if a fire everactually happened, they know
where to go and how to do it.
So it's not something thatthey're trying to figure out.
Sounds like in this case,though, we were trying to figure
it out all at the same time.

Doug (34:41):
Absolutely, and something that I should very much give the
grace to is these aren't peoplethat are going into their jobs
on a day-to-day basis andthinking I'm an emergency
responder, like their job is torun a power plant.

Ron (34:56):
And run it.

Doug (34:59):
If this had been some superheroes, this would have
been different, but at least wegot nuclear wolves out of it.

Ron (35:05):
That's right, and also a still nascent technology.

Don (35:09):
Correct.

Ron (35:11):
Sure, it's been around for a couple decades now.
But I mean in this capacity, tothis extent, right, I guess
Three Mile Island was a littlebit around for a couple decades
now.
But I mean in this capacity tothis extent, right, um, um, I
guess, like three mile islandwas a little bit before this,
right, that was like what in the70s.

Don (35:22):
Yeah, yeah, um, but but it's a mystery, a mysterious
killer though, too, right soright um, the explosion happens
and your job is to go in thebasement and see what what it
looks like like.
It's not going to look likeanything, it's just going to
look like anything.
It's just going to be deathCorrect, but you're not going to
see it.
You're not going to Right.

Doug (35:42):
So yeah, and I think that that's where you know, because,
of course, cold war is going totouch this a little bit.
Living in Soviet Russia isgoing to touch this a little bit
, because there's so many layersof continue on and the state
moves on.
Um, that probably is there aswell.
That's also affecting this, um,because your job and your labor
is everything you know, Um, andso I would imagine too there's a

(36:06):
certain amount of like, and Ithink that's why you would walk
in, whereas, like, somebody isnot going to catch a very morbid
comparison but you're not goingto catch a bullet for, like a
register at a target, probably,it's like a minimum wage worker
absolutely terrible comparison,forgive me.
But, um, yeah, these people, Imean, their identity is like
what they do for the state in asense, and so I think that that

(36:27):
leads to a lot of this.
Um, shall I elaborate on howthis gets worse?

Ron (36:33):
oh, yeah, sure, yeah, I can't, I can't turn my eyes away
um, the.

Don (36:39):
The word you're looking for before is a megawatt thermal.

Doug (36:41):
700 megawatt thermal is what it was supposed to come
down to it actually times dippedto 30 yes, at a certain point
right, and then zero's core islike completely right.
So when it?

Don (36:51):
got down to 30, they panic and they're like, oh, throw gas
on it, and that's why it wentout it, it was, uh, the
operation um.
It was designed to operate at3200 megawatt thermal.
So when you're talking about itgetting up to 5 000 and then 15
000 like that's, those are thepressures that caused the, the
actual accident yes, sonaturally, um, the evening looks

(37:15):
fairly insane.

Doug (37:16):
We have a gigantic response of firefighters who are
going to.
They see the flames.
Firefighters are called to takecare of the explosion.
I don't know if this is yourimmediate thought, but one of
the things that I consideredimmediately is like okay, well,
what suits are you wearing ifyou're living in a town like

(37:36):
this and you need to go takecare of Armani?
Yep, absolutely.
So they rolled up in theirArmani suits to put this out,
and luckily they're really greatat protecting radiation, at
least from the poor who can'tafford it.

Ron (37:53):
Lead-lined Armani.
That's right.
Poor who can't afford it?
Lead-lined Armani.

Don (37:55):
That's right.

Doug (37:55):
But no, they're in the standard civilian affair of, you
know, cotton rubber andthermal-based clothing that's
used to protect from fire, butnuclear radiation is a
completely different beast, tosay the least.
So as water is being applied tothe flames, like I said earlier
, steam is inherent in thisreaction and so, even though

(38:18):
some of the auxiliary flamesthat are on the outsides of the
core are going out, any of thewater that is hitting the core
directly from the flame it'sprobably is exacerbating the
effects of what is happening atthe time, and immediately phone
calls start going out to Sovietofficials of like we need to
figure out what we're going todo about this.
Unfortunately, sovietauthorities delayed their

(38:43):
response of talking about this,and one of the things that was
postulated is we should evacuatethe city of Pripyat, which had
49,000 civilians that wereliving and mostly were
associated with the power plantand its workers that were the
area, but it was not evacuateduntil 36 hours later.

(39:04):
What caused the USSR to respondto the information being leaked
was Sweden was actually gettinglevels of radiation in the
following days that wereappearing in their atmosphere,
and they had released theinformation that that was
happening, had heard through thegrapevine that things had gone
south with one of the reactorsin Russia, which forced the USSR

(39:29):
to make a statement.
Boris Shcherbina, who was oneof the officials that was on
this, was asked to consider thisevacuation and before it
happened he was quoted as sayingwhy are you being so alarmist?
And again, there's a person whoknows about the flames and knew
what was going on and when toldthat the court exploded, he was
quoted as saying how will werecover from the embarrassment

(39:52):
of this situation when thinkingof people being evacuated,
potential news footage of thatbeing leaked and him going
through?
And this is one official, ofcourse, but you imagine if this
is the overall conversationthat's in the room there is a
delay in the response to what isknown as the greatest disaster

(40:14):
of all time because of a certainamount of pride and state that
is involved in this.
And so, yes, two days later,essentially when morning news
comes out with that, the USSRreleases a statement and
evacuations begin.
And unfortunately, there's notquite a way to document the

(40:35):
deaths and cancer that followedthis, other than the fact that
there's an estimate that a verylarge portion of the individuals
it's like close to half dealtwith some kind of cancerous
consequence that was there and alot of that could have been
avoided had they actedimmediately on this.

(40:56):
That could have been avoidedhad they acted immediately on
this.
So, to go back to the you knownew chef, I suppose, um, if
you're thinking about peoplethat are dealing with a cold war
and the fact that you know the,uh, the um, the phone, I think
immediately of the phone in um,strange love, yes, strange love,
right, like the fact that, likethis is probably something that
you're dealing with at allhours of the night, at all times

(41:17):
in having these conversations.
It seems like there's a directcorrelation to a.

Don (41:22):
Pride was more important in this case which is not at all
surprising, yeah, to somebodywho lived through the 1980s and
like, yeah, it was, it was acommon reaction from the soviet
union.
Like they, there's the I can'tremember the name.
There's a submarine that sankoff the.

Doug (41:39):
Red October, not that one.
Thanks for bringing Clancy in.

Don (41:43):
And they just kept denying that it had happened, even
though all these other countrieswere offering to help rescue
the men and they just theyrefused to admit that it
happened and just let the mendie.

Ron (41:54):
I can't remember the name it's, I don't know.
I'm always interested in liketo what extent that's it's the
case today.
I mean, like I know the sovietunion was sort of notoriously
like secretive, um, and it sortof felt like it was alone on the
world stage right, likeeveryone was its enemy, more or
less um, and I'm sure that likefueled a lot of that.

(42:14):
But I I do feel likeinternational relations are
frequently more like like kidson a schoolyard than we give it
credit you know like like thenations do have personalities.
You know they are personified inmany ways by their heads of
state or their diplomatic.
You know, teams and embassiesand things like that, and I
think sometimes we're like, ohwell, clearly, like those are

(42:41):
all level-headed and logicalpeople who are the best
appointed to their job at anygiven time, but like that's not
always true.
Like there, there is a lot ofreputation at stake and how a
country is perceived isimportant, right, and because
those things factor into howpeople, you know uh, carry
themselves and negotiations anddeals, and you know like it can
give leverage right, well, yourcountries that are the idiots
who can't even keep theirsubmarines afloat.
So, like you know, we will beless afraid of you and your

(43:05):
capacity and we feel like we canboss you around.
These sorts of these are someof the motivations, I presume,
for why they, they act this way,why nations sometimes act this
way, right, so the submarine Iwas thinking that was called
k129 and, uh, it sank in 1968yeah and they just denied it
that it had sunk and 98 men wereon board, um.

Don (43:26):
But here's, here's the fun fact um, the cia, rcia went and
got it and recovered somematerial from it, and this is
the first documented use of thephrase.
We can neither confirm nor denythe existence of such a project
.
It's called the Glomar response.

Doug (43:46):
Wow, oh, I didn't know it had an official title.
That's fun.

Don (43:51):
Anyway, so yeah, so yeah.
So I don't think that's unusualat all that the Soviets deny.
Like that was.
I remember that being likeeveryone was saying, no, we know
something is happening, let'slet us come help.
Like that was.
I remember that being likeeveryone was saying, no, we know
something is happening, let'slet us come help, let us come
and it was just a few days of no, there's nothing wrong.

Doug (44:09):
Well, luckily, the USSR does fess up and they do give an
incredibly specific statementfollowing Sweden's reveal, by
saying, as quoted an accidenthas occurred at the Chernobyl
nuclear power plant.
One of the reactors has beendamaged.
Measures are being taken toeliminate the consequences.
Move to the next news segment.
And that was as far as it gotimmediately two days following

(44:33):
that.
So, as you can imagine,probably a certain amount of
confusion.
Fear unlocks.
There are accounts at thehospital.
The first people that needed tobe responded to were the
firefighters that had reacted tothe fire that was going on, and
something that I found is thefirefighters didn't really have

(44:55):
knowledge of the radiationbecause, again, they're just
responding to a fire, um, andmany of them died within weeks
of combating the fire.
Their clothes that were takenoff by the nurses, speaking of
people who react incrediblyquickly, the nurses actually
immediately took the clothes ofthe firefighters, knowing that
they were, um, radiated, um, andbasically started to pile them
up in in a basement, um, that is, in on location and on site.

(45:20):
Those clothes are still thereto this day and the room cannot
be open because it is stillemitting lethal levels of
radiation just off of theclothes that were directly there
next to the reactor.
Yeah, that's some scary stuff.
There are a few photographsthat has been taken that you can
look up, but it's yeah, it'sabsolutely terrifying.
So we got to solve this problemright.
Graphs that has been taken thatyou can look up, but it's yeah,
it's absolutely terrifying, sowe gotta solve this problem

(45:41):
right it's part of the horrorthat it's not like other horror,
right like I think so.

Don (45:51):
It's like any horror.
It's not a horror of skeletons,it's not a horror of blood.

Ron (45:56):
It's, it's the horror of.
Clothes are dangerous, likethat's a.
That's a really weird thing.
Yes, human mind to process, yes, yeah, the unseen not for
hercules denaro poisoned him.

Doug (46:11):
That's right, let's get the follow-up of how chernobyl
and the tale of hercules areconnected.
That's right, um, so the two ofyou are obviously very advanced
scientists.
How do you take care of this?
What do you do?

Ron (46:25):
oh, big time you gotta get an antidote material, douse it
in a in a non-fissile club sodabe right back yeah, and club
soda was the answer.

Doug (46:38):
Club soda was taken directly.

Ron (46:41):
That's why they have Coke there now.
That's right.

Doug (46:47):
Well, the solution that was initially offered was taking
I don't exaggerate the entirestores of the USSR's sources of
sand and boron.
So they are extracting frombeaches and then the supplies of
boron throughout the entireUSSR are being helicoptered in

(47:07):
and dropped over the site.
You just got to bury it rightEssentially right, and so,
because that was what the safetyrods were made out of, they
just said like we're going toneed all the boron that we have
as a resource in this country inorder to map this.
There was a challenge, though.
The problem is is this um, youcannot fly directly over the

(47:29):
radioactive source, so theybasically had to track where
wind was blowing and releasethese giant boxes of the sand
and boron as close as they canget, knowing that a majority of
it would miss.
So this takes days upon daysupon days of helicopters going
through, including an accidentwhere a helicopter made contact

(47:52):
with a crane that was in thearea, completely destroyed it.
It falls to the ground anddestroys itself there.
The problem is and this gets tothe only pre-talk that I had
with Don was he was excited totalk about the elephant's foot,
and we'll get into that in justa second the elephant's foot.
Yes, this boron it's theelephant in the room.

(48:13):
Yes, it's well, that room forsure, that room for sure.
This boron has an interactionwith the open core, essentially,
and water, and it creates thissubstance called corium, which
is basically like nuclear lava,that's the best way to put it.

(48:34):
So it does slow it down, itisn't actively burning, but it
turns it into this lava thatcontinues to sink through
basically the facility and sooninto the earth it burns through
the concrete.

Don (48:47):
It's like it was 3000 degrees celsius.

Doug (48:50):
Yes, and so, as this fire keeps burning and this lava is
being created, it does end upslowing it down and there's a
gigantic deposit of it thatlooks like the bottom of an
elephant's foot.
That's in the bottom of one ofthe reactors that's seeping
through the cracks.
Um, there's only, I think, twophotographs of it, but you can
look it up.
It is fascinating to look atand it is directly the like, if

(49:14):
not the most deadly, one of themost deadly, um, basically,
installations of radioactiveparticipation that exists in the
world.
There's only two photographsthat exist from 1986 it's been
photographed since then okay,got it so from the, from the
original the uh and uh.

Don (49:33):
They didn't discover it until october, so it took them
six months or so to get in there.
The uh.
If you're looking at the photorun, it looks like the uh, the.
We're not sure who the guy isright, but the, the.
The urban legend is that hedied minutes later because he
was standing standing next to it, yeah.
Yeah, it would have been um uh,emitting 10,000, uh of radiation

(49:58):
, which they say is about islethal in 30 seconds.
So the it's great, the it's.
It's a dose of about 10sieverts, but we think that he
had that.
They figured out who it is.
They think that that's our twoKorniav and he actually lived to
2010.
That's fantastic, so good onhim.

Ron (50:19):
Yeah, good for you us thanks, yeah, um.

Doug (50:25):
Now, one thing we didn't discuss is um, all that water
that was inside of the plant andthe fact that water is released
as a mechanism for um coolingdown this reactor.
As scientists continue to weighin on this issue, there is a
problem of there is a giantdeposit of water that is

(50:47):
underneath reactor four and, asthis lava is being made, the
corium, essentially, if it makescontact with this water, what
was said in the officialsmeeting is the impact and steam
that it would release would blowthe other three reactors that
are in the building, causing thelike, basically creating a hole

(51:08):
in the earth to where this isgoing to be a disaster that can
potentially wipe out all of it,like because of the atmosphere.
Wiping out the entire continentis what is what was said.
Atmosphere wiping out theentire continent is what was
said.
This led to three men, olenskiand Nalekul, valery Bespelov and
Boris Baranov, who volunteeredtheir lives to go down into the

(51:31):
radioactive water in what is theequivalent of essentially
wetsuits, to empty the watersources from the area and
redirect it, so people would nothave to endure this explosion.
What was promised to them was400 rubles and the state would
take care of their families forthe rest of their lives.

(51:52):
In order to do this.

Don (51:54):
That's easy because that's only like three weeks, no
problem.

Doug (51:57):
Exactly, yeah, we're done.
And also good news followingthat.
Um, the elephant's footphotograph, gentlemen um, the
only one who has recorded tohave died was in 2005.
Boris passed away of a heartattack.
The two others, if medicalrecords keep up and what we can
take, are probably still aliveto this day.

(52:19):
Um, so yeah, those guys havemade it out okay, but there was
600,000 people between tunnelingsources of water away, making
sure that water supplies weren'tcontaminated from this, that
were assigned to the job andwere involved in these
containment efforts.
And, of course, the question oneverybody's mind is how much

(52:40):
radiation am I going to beexposed to?
The workers who were clearingthe graphite from the top of the
building from the exploded corebasically took 90 second shifts
in which they were releasedfrom a helicopter, pushed the
material back into the core,into the lava, and then would be
escorted off.
But there are records ofseveral of these people saying I

(53:01):
want to go back again, and sothe recorded.
There was somebody who wentback at least 30 times because
of the amount of pride that hehad, knowing that it would still
be lethal for him to take it,because he wanted to do this for
his country, and I guess Ithink about it in terms of
service and the way like asoldier would give his life for
war.
It seems like the amount ofpride that people would take in

(53:21):
doing this is is likeinsurmountable, for this being
an accident instead of thisbeing necessarily a cause, but I
guess it is a cause in somerespects it's so slow.

Don (53:33):
It's like the um which you'll know.
Which star trek movie is itwhere Spock has to go into the
right that con.
I don't know, but like.
But.
You see him melting right andand like the effects of
radiation happening immediatelyin real life, it doesn't happen
like that.
Yeah, like the, your lethaldeath of radiation is like it's.
It's not going to explode youinstantly.

(53:55):
It's going to be something.
So, especially for you know,someone who maybe is a Soviet
soldier in the 1980s may nothave like the most academic
instruction about the dangers ofradiation, Like what's there to
be afraid of?
Why are we only here for 90seconds, Like it's fine, I'm not
that right.
So I don't know if that couldplay into it too.
Like not to downplay the pridethat I'm sure they had in

(54:17):
sacrificing themselves.
That I'm sure they had insacrificing themselves, Cause
there were definitely scientistswho knew, like Karnia, for
example, knew that he wasstanding next to his death when
he was going down to look at theelements.
Foot, yes, Um, but uh.
But so he was going in eyesopen.
I don't know that everybodyinvolved in the cleanup was
going in eyes open, yeah, andhow they were coerced into
working on it.

Doug (54:36):
I mean, yeah, there's so many different ways of kind of
taking it, um, and even theoutlaw, who was again our person
, who was orchestrating the um,the test that was being done, he
did die of cancer, but he diedof cancer at 70.
Um, so he still had many yearsof his life that he lived out
following that um, as ithappened.

(54:58):
So to this day, what we'relooking at is I've mentioned it
earlier but essentially what iscalled the sarcophagus is they
built this gigantic structurethat was around the plant to
contain the radiation whichthey've just had to replace
because so many of theradioactive elements have
actually destroyed it that itjust kind of keeps having to be

(55:19):
replaced.
Elements have actually destroyedit that it just kind of keeps
having to be replaced.
But there's so many facets ofthis that, like I find
fascinating that I haven't evenbegun to kind of dip into, like
the fact that now there is thepossibility that you can tour
some of the areas near Chernobylwhere the disaster happened,
the fact that we now are lookingagain, if Gorbachev is saying

(55:40):
this is the end of the sovietunion, um, because this is such
a you know kind of egg on theface in this moment of we didn't
take care of what we needed to,but also an unprecedented
disaster that mirrors nothing.
I mean, there's just never been, there had never been, a
disaster of that size and stillhasn't to this day, even with
other nuclear uh power plants uhmalfunctioning um't to this day

(56:01):
, even with other nuclear powerplants malfunctioning up to this
point.

Don (56:03):
But the you keep calling it a big disaster.
How many people died?

Doug (56:09):
Do I have that on here?
Wow, let me see I should.
I certainly hope I do.
Immediate death toll.
The immediate death toll wasonly 31 people see, yeah it's
fine.

Don (56:23):
31 it's not that big a disaster.
I've seen bigger disasters thanthat.

Ron (56:28):
I'd love access to don's internal arithmetic for
calculating the disasteralthough I also have 1500 people
on the satanic.

Don (56:40):
That's pretty great disaster, yeah yep, good point.

Doug (56:42):
Then what have we learned today?
The titanic leo really had itright it's all the hubris of man
.

Ron (56:49):
Yeah, all of these linked.

Doug (56:51):
The who does estimate that somewhere between 4 000 and 93
000 people, though to have theirlives cut early because of this
disaster.
Belarus, ukraine and Russia sawspike in thyroid cancer,
especially among childrenexposed to uh radioactive iodine
and if not for the lives.
Can we also say that over 50150 000 square kilometers were

(57:13):
contaminated because of this?

Ron (57:16):
it's a massive ecological disaster too right yes, yes.
Like you know, like all thatwater runs into the ground,
presumably right, Like that'swhat groundwater tables that are
poisoned for generations.
Yes, Potentially right, Right.

Doug (57:30):
Although interestingly I saw that apparently only 1% of
the livestock in the areaactually have mutations Like
they generally have adapted tothe area, actually have
mutations Like they generallyhave adapted to the area.
There's really terribleaccounts of soldiers going
through and basically having tokill um animals that were in the
area because they didn't wantthem to continue to like either
be sources of milk production orto contaminate population.

(57:52):
There's an absolutely horrificscene on the show of going
through homes and having to findpets and basically take care of
them, which I don't know andcan't speak to the accuracy of
other than it's a great dramaticeffect of how painful that must
have been as a part of your job.
But yeah, that was oneinteresting fact at least.

Don (58:11):
And it's kind of become like a little nature preserve.
Now, though, right?

Ron (58:13):
Yes, it has.

Don (58:14):
So there's a type of horse the Loshi Brezvalskova horse
that was extinct in the 1960sand, uh, they released them into
the exclusion zone and theyhave thrived wait what until
until now.
They're being poached, but forlike the last 30 years, they've

(58:35):
been thriving in this area, andso have have wolves and wildlife
, and it's been a it's been a.

Ron (58:41):
Nature is healing I hope there was like an endangered
horse they're like.

Doug (58:46):
I'll throw them in the irradiated place yeah, it kind
of doesn't make sense to me aswell, yeah because they were
looking for a refuge and so itwas free land.

Ron (58:55):
So yeah you tell me there's not more free land in Russia.
I'm guessing real estate pricesare pretty low.

Don (59:02):
It's a very tiny country, that's right, but yeah.

Doug (59:08):
I mean disaster, a reaction to disaster.
Obviously, we're talking at thebeginning of this about our
childhood cover-ups of differentcolored pens, butter and
breaking somebody's toe.
You had the worst one, ron,sorry tell you to say this.
You committed violence, butyeah, it's.
It's immeasurable the amount ofdamage that can be done for not

(59:31):
taking responsibility foractions.
It seems, I think, that that'sthe thing that I find the most
horrific.
But I was curious, your takeson it as well.

Don (59:39):
Well, the same amount of damage would have happened if
they had right, like because thereactor exploded as much as it
exploded right and and andyou're, I think, um, criticizing
the soviets for not reactingquickly enough and and spending
time denying it instead ofcleaning it up.
And, and you're right, i'm'mnot denying that at all, but

(01:00:02):
that's just a matter of a fewhours after a disaster had
already happened.
So would it have if they hadadmitted it the instant that it
happened and began cleaning itup?
Would it have been better?
Or it just would have beenbecause, I don't know in the
1980s?
It's the thing about nuclear.
It's why we've shut down somany nuclear plants now is

(01:00:24):
because it's a lot dirtier andwe don't know what to do with it
.
Right, like when it runs away,like there's literally nothing
you can do but just to watch,yep, because you can't throw
water on it, you can't cool itdown, you literally just have to
watch until it runs itself out.
You can't cool it down, youcan't.
You literally just have towatch until it runs itself out.
And, and it's the work of thehumans to have concentrated it

(01:00:46):
so much into one tiny little,you know spot that it, uh, it
becomes so powerful.

Ron (01:00:51):
Oh, yeah, it is like.
Uh, I don't know, it's a, it'sone of those weird things.
I guess you were talkingearlier about how the, you know,

(01:01:13):
soviet Union went through likethis process of trying to assign
blame right, like who'sresponsible for this?
like it's a bad mistake.
It's a big mistake, uh, butlike it is just so.
Not like the same with, likeyou know, going back to titan,
do we?
Is there someone we canactually blame?
Like sure, someone made a calland the call went bad, but, um,
I'm also interested in this ideathat, like, well, who do we

(01:01:34):
blame for this thing?
Right, and the idea that weneed to blame, that we need to
take corrective action forsomething that just got away
from people.
It is just probably beyond thescope of people to handle fully.
It was always going to happen.
There was always going to be anuclear power plant accident
somewhere.
There has continued to be right, this was we did not learn all

(01:01:57):
the lessons from chernobyl, andthere will not ever be another
accident like this.
Right, as fugishima provedright.
And when was that?
2011, yes, something like that.
So, I don't know, it's justsort of like, it's just a
tragedy to me.
There's no like, uh, sort ofcorrective way to to think about

(01:02:17):
it.
Um, I guess, like surely thereare lessons.
I don't super know what theyare, though.
You're talking about thegovernment cover-up part, and I
feel like also, there's anelement of the Soviet Union
didn't release a lot of thisinformation.
We know a lot more about it nowthan we did immediately
afterwards.

Don (01:02:36):
Right.

Ron (01:02:37):
Yeah, I don't know to what extent.
Maybe like that would have beenmore beneficial for everyone to
have access to, to fully studythe, the magnitude of the of the
situation and how that couldhave improved.
Uh, you know nuclear safetyregulations in other countries,
or or even if, uh, russialearned from this or, you know,

(01:02:59):
soviet Union learned from thisand started implementing new
protocols in their other plants.
Do we, do we know much aboutthat, like, is there a silver
lining somewhere, is there asilver sarcophagus that we can
place on this Silver liningbeing put into silver
sarcophagus, really takes iteven darker.

Don (01:03:22):
I don't know what they are cause.
I didn't uh, I have not done umresearch on it, but I'm I am
positive that there were changesmade in power plants around the
world based on what happenedhere, yeah, and the fact that
Fukushima was like it it blew,but it was a much smaller event
than than Chernobyl was.
But there was a couple of dayswe weren't sure that it was a
much smaller event than thanChernobyl was, but there was a
couple of days we weren't surethat it was going to be so yeah,

(01:03:44):
yep.
But, um, but I think the lessonis make sure you pay attention
to the omens, A hundred percentthe omens.
Oh yeah, Well did you did?
You did you read about theblackbird of Chernobyl?

Doug (01:03:59):
No, I just decided to be really confident, absolutely.
That's what I would have done.

Ron (01:04:05):
So now I'm the idiot.
I don't know about the omens.

Don (01:04:09):
No, tell me about that.
So just prior to the disaster,three days prior, and for the
three days prior, just before,people saw this giant six to
seven foot blackbird withglowing eyes, and they only saw
it before the disaster.
People saw this giant six toseven foot black bird with
glowing eyes, um, and they onlysaw it before the disaster.
And then, once it happened, noone has ever seen that sense.

Doug (01:04:28):
It is the disaster now.

Ron (01:04:30):
Damn, that's a, that's a whole.
Nother aspect of this is likeuh, how people pathologize like
uh, like disasters, right, andhow, how, if like uh, maybe the
thing I'm struggling for, whichis like, what is the nice little
bow tie lesson we can learnfrom a tragedy like this?
People will insert thatthemselves, right like oh well,
there was a.
There was a bird you shouldhave known about, the bird six

(01:04:52):
foot bird.

Don (01:04:53):
Yeah, that's a big bird I know it's a big bird.
It's a huge bird.

Ron (01:04:56):
I'm not.

Don (01:04:56):
I'm not saying it's not a huge bird it's not the only time
that bird's ever appeared.

Ron (01:05:00):
Oh, let me guess Shackleton's race to the South
Pole.

Don (01:05:08):
West Virginia Silver Bridge disaster in 1686.

Ron (01:05:14):
Oh, that's the Mothman.
You're talking about Mothmannow.
Mothman was at Chernobyl he wasat Chernobyl.
Oh, you should have startedwith that.
Doug, can you go back andre-examine this, but make sure
Mothman is the protagonist.

Doug (01:05:29):
Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and start over.

Don (01:05:32):
How are?

Doug (01:05:33):
you guys doing today.

Ron (01:05:36):
Do the thing about the toes and then talk about West
Virginia.

Doug (01:05:42):
Country roads take me home Absolutely.
Um, yeah, I don't.
I don't necessarily havesomething there.
I think I get hung up,obviously on the evacuation,
like we need to get people outof their way faster.
Some of the recorded factsabout um.
It would be way tooembarrassing to do this.
Of the recorded facts about umit would be way too embarrassing

(01:06:04):
to do this.
Maybe, um, I, maybe I do.

Ron (01:06:05):
Yeah, maybe I do mythologize a bit because my
sense of justice is like we needto help people immediately no,
no, you're, I think you're 100,I think that impulse is 100,
right, like, obviously, reactiontimes are important, these
things, and it would have beennice if they had kind of
acknowledged I mean, it wouldhave been good to better to
acknowledge what's happening andand get things moving a little
bit faster, right, yeah, um butthere's your answer.

Doug (01:06:27):
I like it well, I'd like to tell you both that, if my yes
, please, please first movefaster.
But uh, if my chernobyl everburns down, I hope that the two
of you are with me to keep mecool headed through it.

Don (01:06:44):
Why would you want me with you at a burning chernobyl?
You're in a.

Doug (01:06:47):
That's terrible thing to wish you're in an armani suit
though so you'll be fine, I'llbe safe I'm with you.

Ron (01:06:54):
Put me in the.
Put me in the culvert.
I'll look at the foot for youDoug.
Thank you, guys so much forchatting with me today,

(01:07:42):
dostoevsky, thank you.