By Ed Sherdlu
Update: A reader with some experience working on nuclear weapons in the military, was kind enough to provide some more specific information about the radiation risks in Chernobyl, so this essay has been updated accordingly.
Thirty-six years ago, a combination of defective Soviet technology, poor planning, and an all-encompassing need to please the communist bureaucracy unleashed hundreds of tons of radioactive poison. The atomic explosion at Chernobyl* admittedly killed hundreds of people and poisoned food and water supplies throughout much of Europe. A huge swath of the rolling wheatfields of Ukraine now left fallow and untenable are an unmistakable reminder of everything wrong with Soviet communism. But that is not the end of the nuclear nightmare. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has now unearthed radiation that will kill hundreds, if not thousands, of his soldiers. The problem is not a new radiation release from the entombed Chernobyl plant. Instead, it’s the radiation lying in wait underground for the past 36 years, waiting to kill those who disturb it.
The 10th anniversary of the catastrophic meltdown at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant was a big news story. In 1996, I was one of only two reporters inside the 30 km wide “Zone of Estrangement,” an area forbidden to the outside world. We had previously broadcast the story of a Swedish missionary who provided critically needed medical aid to the families of the Ukrainian firefighters who died fighting the atomic fire at the plant. His contacts got us inside the control room of the then still-operating reactor number three at the Chernobyl plant ten years after reactor number four exploded. more here h/t NAACP
For some reason it just doesn’t seem like it was 36 years ago…
But it is!
I have to label this article under: Ho-hum fear mongering.
It also is contributed to an unnamed source. Sounds like all the other fake news that comes out of the MSM.
The biggest tell in this story is calling the Chernobyl disaster a “Nuclear Explosion”. That right there is BS. The official nuclear scientific classification for this event was a “failure of the cooling system that caused a reactor meltdown”. There was no nuclear mushroom cloud explosion. There WAS a radioactive steam cloud and a radioactive smoke cloud from the fire.
The only non-dramatized information here is that “YES, low level CONCENTRATED nuclear waste spilled out on the ground has a longer than desired half life”. That is why the area is off limits. Russia has a long history of stupid intentional nuclear waste disposal “accidents” even when one doesn’t count Chernobyl. Lake Karachay, located in the southern Ural Mountains in eastern Russia, was a dumping ground for the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapon facilities. It was also affected by a string of accidents and disasters causing the surrounding areas to be highly contaminated with radioactive waste. It has been described as the “most polluted spot on Earth” by the Worldwatch Institute.
I’m not excusing Russia for their ineptitude. But the last thing the world needs is more fear mongering and doomsday panic from hack journalism.
BTW…Ed Sherdlu is the pen name of a former CBS television network reporter.
CBS is notorious for spreading dramatized fake news. Just watch 60 minutes and you’ll get a gut full of their garbage.
I recall when the Chernobyl accident happened, the Soviets didn’t warn any other countries of the danger. It was only after increased radiation was noticed in Scandinavia that the rest of the world found out. People are expendable for the commies.
Just ask all the millions of dead Ukrainians who were deliberately starved to death by Stalin during the Red famine in the 1930’s. Fuck Walter Duranty and the NY Slimes for lying about the Ukrainian famine and trying to make like it was no big deal, just business as usual for the commies.
The way the russians handled this and what atrocities they’re committing now tells the world the true nature of the russkys. From some of the videos on YouTube filmed in russia it looks like there’s a thin line between being civilized and being a third world shithole.
HOMER SIMPSON IS A RUSSKIE!
So tired of hearing Russia bad/Ukraine good BS. The same people who are saying Russia bad are the same damn people who have put us through hell the last decade. Spare me.
Come on, Cheryl. What good is propaganda if you can’t steer people into thinking the way they’re “supposed to” think?
There are some pretty egregious errors in that article. First of all Cesium and Strontium isotopes DO have a half life of ABOUT 30 years. That does NOT mean that the remaining isotopes are 43% as poisonous as they were in 1986. The remaining isotopes are EVERY BIT as dangerous as the day they were released from the reactor. What HAS happened is just over half of those isotopes have decayed into a stable isotope that is no longer dangerous. The remaining radioactivity is every bit as lethal as ever.
Secondly we DO NOT MEASURE DOSAGE in “counts per minute”. We measure them in either the international units of Grays/Sieverts or the OLD measurement system of REMS/RADS….which is can be easily converted between by moving decimal points two places. Counts per minute are determined by the manufacturer of the meter being used and the sensitivity setting. God only knows what other nonsense and gross misinformation people are spouting about radioactivity when they have NO IDEA what they are talking about.
Why is OTWReport doing reruns? This was in the news at least a week ago.