August 24th, 2004

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Science
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Interview with Chernobyl Engineer

Fresh off the Slashdot press, here’s a fascinating interview with one of the few surviving engineers who was working the night of the disaster:

Everything that could be destroyed had been. The entire water coolant system was gone. The right-hand side of the reactor hall had been completely destroyed, and on the left the pipes were just hanging. That was when I realised that Khodemchuk was definitely dead. The place where I was told he’d been standing was in ruins.

He’s spent the rest of his life suffering from the longterm effects of radiation poisoning.

Comments: 4 Responses so far

Sue
August 24th, 2004
7:49 pm

If this sort of thing interests you, Check out http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk153/chernobyl/page2.html for some really interesting pictures and thoughts about the Chernobyl dead zone. There are a lot of pages… just keep going through. It was amazing.

[Reply]

Darren
August 24th, 2004
10:49 pm

Indeed, I have seen it. Though, in actuality, it’s kind of a hoax.

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Norlinda
August 25th, 2004
11:28 am

This reminds me of my chance meeting with a clean-up crew member on the Exxon Valdez oil spill. She had a lot of medical issues, including cancer. As far as she knows, she’s the only surviving member left of her crew who all died from a variety of illnesses she claims were the result of the clean-up process.

[Reply]

Darren Ratcliffe
March 5th, 2007
9:15 am

Hi

I’ve just returned from a trip to Ukraine and visited Chernobyl and Prypriat in the exclusion zone (see link for some short videos).

There was a lot of snow, but the trip was very moving and eye opening.

One noteable fact is that the swimming pool pictured on many websites and in my YouTube video was still in use ten years ago.

Darren

[Reply]

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