As one who generally likes to tramp around old buildings and such, I found the imagery and concepts [url= http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/25366953#25366953 ]here[/url] to be mildly amusing, although the slick newsy approach tends to water it down a bit and just make it a bit mass market for my tastes.

My wife found this and pointed it out to me, she happened to be on a weekend field trip in some mountains near Chernobyl at the time, and relates that the stuff she had to drink did not taste good.

(Imagine being a parent and getting the call ... "by the way, your child was near the reactor when it melted down, but, no worries, we've got everything under control".)

Unfortunately my knowledge about preparedness for this sort of thing is sadly lacking, so the newsbyte just serves as a stark reminder to update my reading list.

In other news my children are turning out just fine. I think.

I just looked at the place on Google Earth. No place I want to visit...

Clark, how about we swing through there on our way back from China?

-Blast

Blast, you will be too late, the place already blew up...

The core is still hot. It's just buried under tons of cement.


-Blast

So you want to blow that cement away???

Isn't that cement crumbling already?

Probably what started the whole mess in the first place...

Nah. All I want to do is climb up on top of it. The idea of standing atop the most FUBARed place on the planet appeals to me for some reason.

-Blast

"...standing atop the most FUBARed place on the planet appeals to me for some reason..."

You are one sick puppy

Yeah, Blast, its like some kind of radioactive siren luring me closer.

Regardless of what the report says, the locals still stay away tho... I was working with some Ukranian graphic artists a few years ago, and they accidently made a wrong turn and ended up on the road to Chernobyl. The driver freaked out when he saw the sign and almost put them in a ditch trying to turn around in a hurry.

IRMC, wasn't there a web site of some russian girl on a Ninja motorbike that used to ride through the streets of Chernobyl. She gives some very useful info about the radiation, some of the pictures tell there own story of radiation.

Found the site:

http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/index.html

The Pripyat of Call of Duty 4 is as close as I'd ever want to get to Chernobyl. It's creepy enough in a video game.

There are birds nesting *inside the Chernobyl Sarcophagus* now. As long as one stays on the approved & cleared roads a day trip shouldn't be a big deal. Though I can think of other tourist destinations I'd rather visit...

A little bit more trivia on Chernobyl I learned at Idaho State. The way they "doused" the fire was to pour tons of what our presenter called a "talc-like powder" onto the smoldering fire. Then, the place was cemented up. The problem is, like Blast said, it's still a seething hot core under there. The presenter said that there is a very real possibility of it blowing up again, this time releasing the fine talc into the atmosphere. He said the second one will make the first look like a "minor incident".

Another interesting thing on his trip to Chernobyl. They had geiger counters, badges, etc. to measure the radiation during their trip. There were signs on the road that said "keep your windows up" d/t high radiation levels and everyone was freaking out about the radiation. He then showed a slide of the levels of exposure plotted over time. There were some smaller spikes, and then one big spike at the end. That one tripled the other spikes. Someone in the audience said "Is that when you were at the Chernobyl site?" "No," came the reply, "that was because someone left the detector on during the flight home." That was when I first learned how important the atmosphere is to stop radiation from frying you.

Wow, that site is great. I was just reading over the part about how there are 2000 abandoned towns/villages in a 150 mile radius around it. She says Chernobyl translates to wormwood, which has some religious symbolism if you are into that sort of thing (a star that falls and poisons 1/3 of the rivers on earth). Wikipedia pseudo-correlates this, inferring that wormwood is in the mugwort family.

Love the photos. Thanks for the link.

Uh, with all due respect, I wouldn't put too much faith in that girl's (elena) knowledge of radiation dosimetry.

She makes it sound like the helicopter pilots were killed by being irradiated with gamma radiation. They crashed. The mortality rate from those irradiated with extremely high gamma and beta doses was a little over 1 percent. Gamma radiation sounds super scary and its range *is* scary, but it is such a high energy particle that most passes through your body harmlessly. The scary stuff is beta-emitting particles(when inhaled or ingested).

Did anyone hear that the cancer rate of the exposed emergency workers and inhabitants of Bryansk (the most radiation contaminated area)were 15 percent and 5 percent lower, respectively, than the general population? That's not sexy data, and you'll never hear it on the news at 10.

Chernobyl was a worst-case scenario nuclear disaster, and less than 100 people died directly from it. The 4,000 thyroid cancer deaths that the WHO attributed to it is VERY debatable and IMHO is due to an increased screening artifact.

Was Chernobyl bad? Yes, but it *should* have been much, much worse.

I can tell you, as a fact, that the death rates are much, much, much higher as 1998, I believe was the last intel I was privy to.

Gov't cover up?

Wouldn't be surprised.

I remember that "Kid of Speed" website from years ago. I just followed the URL posted here and went back to it. It has expanded. The only thing I remember from years ago was the "Ghost Town" picture essay. I always thought it was a neat website. Interesting.

As I understand it, the lady biker (Elena) did travel through Pripyat and the surrounding areas, but she was part of an organized tour and some of the pictures were posed to look like she was by herself when they were clearly taken by others, etc. A mix of reality and fiction, but it still made for an excellent story, and of course the pictures she took were authentic, if not necessarily in context.