I've yet to cover the Three Mile Island accident, but here's my video on the Windscale Fire in case you'd like to learn about a British nuclear disaster: ua-cam.com/video/pxYz3lJ-iiQ/v-deo.html
TMI is more of a Fascinating Failures video, IMO. Kyle Hill has gone into detail on it already, and made it clear that the "disaster" part of the incident is one of public relations, not science.
If you're going to do a US nuclear disaster, you should cover SL-1 instead of TMI. Not enough people know about it, and the story is truly fascinating.
I live near Chalk River. It has the nickname "The Bomb". There is so much radioactive junk buried around there that it was the full-time job of several people FOR DECADES to search the forests for machinery that people just walked away from. Even now, the Ottawa Valley which the Ottawa River flows through has much MUCH higher rates of cancer.
Actually terrifying how much danger and destruction was caused by two simple human errors. Imagine if you sent an email to the wrong person, and then your boss made a typo when correcting you, and your entire office building just fell apart.
@@DEATH-THE-GOAT no those were not errors but a necessary weapon to end the war. Using a weapon because the enemy refused to surrender and you don’t want to sacrifice a million of your own troops to invade is way different than a supervisor accidentally misspeaking and a diligent employee carries out the accidental order. Stop trolling
Indeed. That was also my first thought when I heard that part. After 70 years + a 4 times increased risk for Cancer compared to average citizens... Another thing added to that, is that I presume it might also not be so straightforward for everyone to 70 years later be able to produce the correct paperwork which proves that you really were there, and did so or so work etc.
Thank you for mentioning President Jimmy Carter. Many years later, he and his wife, Rosalynn, also a nuclear engineer, entered the Three Mile Island facility during its crisis. It wasn't just a publicity stunt for the president - he understood the science and engineering of what was going on. The nearby residents of Pennsylvania were greatly comforted by his visit. I hope you'll include that part of the story in your TMI video.
Oh wow, thank you! I forgot they did that and Carter is my favorite President. He was the epitome of Decent Human Being, and apparently Rosalyn too. I like Amy, I remember her at some protest, not sure if Secret Service were guarding her but she was just being a regular person and I respect that. I hope she's having an excellent life.
I love how the horror feel of these videos doesn't come from any over reaction or over hyping, it's just the straight facts and basic and simple foreshadowing. Nice :]
I question how "trained" the operators were if, despite the supervisor obviously misspeaking, they didn't realize that withdrawing more rods was the opposite of what they should do. It absolutely doesn't make any sense. "You are about to hit a wall. Stay calm. I need you to stomp on the gas pedal!"
Totally agree! It infuriates me every time I hear stories similar to this one. It goes to show just how far, and how dangerous, a heard mentality is. If I was the operator, I would have quickly rebut to the supervisor if he's sure he wants me to REMOVE more control rods... I'm sure the mistake would have be immediately identified and corrected. Instead, most just act like sheep and blindly follow orders
@@damieg82 this is exactly why control room personnel have now train in team resource management or what the FAA calls crew resource management. Most people will not re-butte a supervisor even if they know it will have detrimental consequences.
With no evidence to support this, I choose to assume that it wasn't an "obvious" mistake. Like, that button's primary function wasn't in any way related to removing rods, but pressing the button started a process that did 4 things and when systems A and B were in emergency mode and console 3 was set to mode D, the 4th thing caused the rods to lift further.
@@PatricioGarcia1973 Sure it is. So, what's your point? The operators were still acting directly counter to how a nuclear reactor fundamentally works. A couple of people that definitely should have known better majorly screwed up. I'm not trying to drag them over the coals from my safe ivory tower, I just don't understand how "trained" operators of what was one of the most prized pieces of equipment in Canada at that time could foul up so badly. We can criticize AND sympathize.
Hometown mention! There's two towns next to each other Deep River and Chalk River. During the war years and building of the site the scientists lived in Deep River and it was a gated community. Everyone else lived in Chalk River. It stopped being gated after the war I believe but the towns still hold this weird history of academic classism. They also used prisoners of war to help build it. There was a POW camp where the good sledding hill is now. The snail watching club got into a fight with the gastronomy club.
"The snail watching club got into a fight with the gastronomy club." Did the gastronomy club attempt to eat some of the snail watching club's racing snails or something?!
My granparents lived right between the two towns along the highway. He worked for the fire crew at the plant after the war. I remember my dad telling me about the POW camp while we were sledding at Hill House. I knew most of the scientists lived in Deep, but didn't realize it was a gated community at one point! Thanks for sharing!
I am routinely amazed how you keep uncovering these buried moments in history. How quickly we forget history and how easy it is to orchestrate a cover up; truly that’s the horror.
Most underrated channel on YT, in my opinion. Thanks for never asking me to play warhammer or use your code for some new service. No real shade to any channels that do, I get it - FH is just one of a kind, fr.
I'vr never once heard him request that we hit "like" or "subscribe." Never once. I subscribed partly BECAUSE of that. He doesn't beg or even run through a list of Patreons or anything. He just presents info. Videos like his are becoming more and more rare. I love this channel.
Fun facts: The NRX (the first reactor accident) was rebuilt and continued to operate until 1993. The NRU (second reactor accident) operated until 2018 and produced more isotopes for nuclear medicine than any other facility in the world (including 75% of the world's supply of Cobalt-60).
This, so many people don't realize how key Canadian reactors are in developing medical isotopes, I believe the Bruce has been one of the first facilities worldwide to start producing a new medical isotope a few months ago
Wait, is the double negative intentional and you are seeking a utopia in which snail watching is absent, or was it a mistake and you wish to find a community in which you can partake?
@swahilimaster I guess the double negative in a Brooklyn thing it does seem negative but definitely looking for Snails I watched someone feed a giant African Snail rice with a spoon then it stretched it's neck out to be scratched it's hilarious my wife would shit a chicken if I brought one home but I'd love to get one eventually haha...
@@istaycatchingfish2552 The land snails we get locally are tiny, not many of them either, but larger snails are pretty cool, I'd also probably keep one as a pet. I used to have an aquarium I was responsible for as part of a class in high school where I had managed to scrounge up some really cool stuff to go into it, including a giant horse conch, which is the only snail I've ever taken care of. I had the luck of having the biggest aquarium for the class so I really wanted it to have some interesting stuff in there, I managed to get hold of some peacock mantis shrimp as well, but that meant that most of the fish that went in were much more common, since the mantis shrimp could kill pretty much anything we put in the tank besides the conch if they chose to. I also took care of a smaller aquarium that had some of the coolest hermit crabs I had ever seen, we pulled them up while trawling on a field trip and their shells were jet black with bright purple points and teal highlights, and the crabs themselves were black with alternating bright orange and teal stripes at the joints and along the tips and inner part of their claws. After graduation we managed to arrange for everything but the fish in both aquariums to be picked up by the Texas State Aquarium.
It's the kind of voice one would want commentating an afternoon of snail watching. I actually believe that's a euphemism for something truly filthy. Strictly unmentionable on prude tube.
I know! You get watching the latest "Fascinating Horror" upload to utube on your work terminal, and wham, the reactor goes 500% over acceptable power output, and you get a call from your supervisor screaming . . . hit the Scram Button . . . hit the Scram Button . . . it just puts you off a bit, you know?
It is a testament to the availability of information that so many people in the comments section of a UA-cam video know what happens when you remove control rods from a nuclear reactor. I think people need to have some appreciation for the fact that this happened in the 1950's. Our general knowledge and understanding then was not what it is now.
except that they had radiation monitoreing, decontamination procedures, maximum safe limits, sand filters, knew to strip paint etc. Even if they didn't know everything they knew plenty. especially when it came to control rods. I mean you don't have to know everything about radioactive contamination to understand that when you remove the control rods the reactor medium boils off and that's bad. This may have been the first consistently power generating nuclear reactor in Canada, but obviously they had done smaller scale tests on test reactors before that, And surely melted plenty of them down accidentally or on purpose along the way. at the end of the day the supervisor messed up and the employee who pressed the button possibly did as well, depending on how much they knew about that procedure. whoever was in charge of making sure that the supervisor and control room operator were prepared to act appropriately in a situation like this failed as well. whether you are running a nuclear reactor or a Wendy's, people in charge of things should know how to follow their training about it, and supervisors in particular should be able to deal with stressful situations. Otherwise what are they getting paid for?
scary. terrifying really. and incredible how something can be so beneficial but so dangerous to us - the distinction being under our control and how we use it, and the precautions we may or may not take
The words "Nuclear reactor" and "experiments" should always be accompanied by a full contingent of well-rested, top of the field expert engineers, and not the half asleep early morning shift jfc
Jimmy Carter wasn't a peanut farmer, he was a nuclear physicist and engineer. He was ordered to Chalk River to lead a U.S. maintenance crew that joined other American and Canadian service personnel to assist in the shutdown of the reactor.
Further information: He was, at the time, a naval officer who had been trained in nuclear power and engineering as part of the U.S. Navy's fledgling nuclear submarine program.
When your health And Safety procedure is to demolish and rebuild the workplace because the foundations become irradiated you might have something to worry about.
@@kimm6589 I find particularly hilarious how they demolished and rebuilt entire buildings to prevent them to become too irradiated in the long term; but they buried the rods inside wooden crates, which ended up irradiating the soil in the long term.
I live a few hours away from Chalk River and had never heard of these incidents until recently. It is scary to think that this spot is fairly close to our nations capital of Ottawa. As an added note I believe Jimmy Carter (RIP) had a much bigger role in the cleanup than this story indicated.
Canadian here 🇨🇦 I just live 15 min from Chalk River. I worked at the nuclear plant for a year. We were grateful for Jimmy Carter back then. They are strict on safety and training now.
My dad's side of the family all lived in a community just 30 minutes away from Chalk River so this is an event that I've definitely known a decent amount about for a long time
@@MrWombatty *SIR! HOW DARE YOU SLANDER AN HONOURABLE MEMBER OF THE **_"ROYAL CANADIAN SNAIL WATCHING SOCIETY"._* *SIR, I DEMANS SATISFACTION* * * _Duelling is called demanding, and giving satisfaction_
In the years that followed snail watching was less a hobby and more a necessity as the gargantuan radioactive gastropods the size of Buick sedan threatend to chomp their way through the town's prize floral displays, and neighbouring town hall.
My daughter lives right by the Pickering Nuclear Plant in the Toronto area. Her and her husband were given iodine pills in case of a nuclear incident. Not much comfort to me (or them!), but also not much I can do about it. It is what it is, as they say.
In fact, Russia had at least 4 meltdowns prior to Chalk River. A serious one in 1949 that killed dozens, and two in 1950 and 1951 involving their early heavy water reactors
I see Chalk River, I give my first actual comment on a UA-cam video. Canada has a fascinating history of nuclear science, so glad to see a big channel cover this event!
Disassembleing a structure 90 secs. at a time seems like viable videogame idea. Almost like Star Trek: Bridge Crew, where each player had specific tasks they have to master under pressure. Set it in a steampunk type world with challenges like "Reassemble The Airships Gyroscope" or "Stop The Mad Scientist's Rocket." With a wave of steam or electricity that would pass every 90 secs. Up the difficulty in later levels by requiring different tasks to be done across the structure simultaneously by two or more players.
this is one of my top 3 channels that I have to watch the moment I get notification! Such a great job, production, voice, technical details sum... Soon I'll rewind and watch each day from the very first upload! But don't wanna binge it, cuz it really leaves a taste and impression on me that more than two a day would turn me into full blown panicking fear-monger! ahahhah
Something invisible and unintelligent can sentence you to a horrific death without you even realizing it. And within minutes. At best you might see light or taste metal, but if you don't know what it means, you're helpless.
It's crazy to see this on one of my favorite channels. I used to live in Chalk River, now just 20 minutes away. I toured the plant in 2013, including the reactor buildings. One of which was still active at the time.
Dear Mr. Fascinating Horror. I've been an avid watcher of your channel for years. As a proud Canadian, your videos helped inform me of little-talked-about tragedies that occurred in our nation. I lived in Ottawa for several years, and I had never heard of this accident before now. Thank you for covering this, I found it very educational!
I think the only people who really talk about it much are the folks who lived in that part of the Ottawa Valley at the time, my dad's family comes from a community that is about 30 minutes from Chalk River so he talks about it anytime nuclear energy is brought up
I still find it amazing that critical safety steps are overlooked. On something as simple as doing an oil change on one of my bikes I make it hard [nothing is impossible!] to accidentally start the bike until the change is done and the new oil is in to the correct level. I'm usually doing other service items while waiting for the oil to drain, or something on another bike but the keys go in the house and a bit of rag goes over the ignition switch. The lack of water in the water filled container should have been near impossible. with checks and confirmation before the rod was lifted out. When I have to work with someone else on a lift, there is always confirmation of the stop being in before moving into a place where there is a hazard and confirmation that it's safe to move before taking the stop out. The operation of the stop is directed by the person doing the inspections and confirmed by the second person doing the 'driving'. Over the years I have been into a few places more hazardous than normal, sometimes once, sometimes on a 6-month cycle and never got blase about what could kill me.
Incredible work again Kristian! I live near Montréal and never heard of this! I am still willing to help you on both brake failure incidents near the region of Charlevoix like we talked on Patreon. Anytime. Cheers!
Chalk River shut down a few years ago. In the interim between meltdown and decommissioning it produced countless amounts of radio isotopes for medical and research applications.
The explosion at SL-1 US Army research facility near Idaho Falls in 1961 during the early years of nuclear power development was a grim and tragic reminder.
I know for a fact that they have had nuclear accidents and kept it hush hush to not alarm the local public. A family member worked there in the 80’s and 90’s.
A suggestion for a future video is the tragedy at Seveso in Italy. The facility released dioxin into the atmosphere and people suffered effects for a long time.
Chalk River donated a name to the industry - "Crud." AKA "Chalk River, Unidentified Deposit." Radioactive rust and corrosion products found in the cooling system, mostly consisting of radiocobalt. Crud remains one of, if not *the,* most common forms of radioactive waste material.
NOW that's some news I can use! Sometimes we just have terms that are floating around in the zeitgeist and we have no idea where they have come from! I genuinely appreciate you adding to my love of vocabulary terminology! Much love to you for this! Warmest regards from Greensboro, NC USA!
It seems like the early years of nuclear power were literally a trial by fire. This seemed like a safe facility that did a lot of things right. It also stresses the importance of reading back such important directions like "put the cooling rods back in" as opposed to "remove more cooling rods".
So Deep River was a Canadian version of an Atomograd?😁 Kind of cool. When I was young, I lived in another fully planned town near Edmonton called Devon. It was built in the late 40s for Imperial Oil employees and their families.
I heard of the first Chalk River incident a few years after high school, in 1979. Three Mile Island was the top news story for weeks, but where I lived, southwest of Toronto, lots of guys in their fifties said re: TMI, oh yeah, this already happened in Chalk River in ‘52. These guys were not talking about classified info, just chatting at coffee in a number of places, so it must have been in the newspaper or on CBC radio during the early 1950’s. But I never heard any mention of the 1958 incident till just now.
Governments are ever so willing for people to put their lives on the line to help their efforts. But, when it comes to those same people needing governmental help, the answer is normally a big, fat NO! 😮
A small nuclear leak happened around 1981 or 1982. My wife knows this because at the time she was a kid living in a small rural area about 33 km from Chalk River. She says that one day (spring or fall - there were no snow and nice weather) she was playing in the backyard when suddenly she felt really sick, weak, nauseating, to the point she could only walk hunch over very slowly back home. She sat down a little bit then went to bed feeling very weak. The next day or so she was still feeling sick, but she felt good enough to go to school. It was a small rural school of a total of about 20 students. At one point, students were all sitting together with the teacher for a group project. The teacher looked at her and said, “I’m taking you home”. Blood was dripping from her nose, and she was very pale. That day some of the kids also became sick and went home. Next day they closed the school as all the kids were feeling sick. That week we heard on the radio that a leak was recorded at the Chalk River nuclear center, but it had been quickly contained.
Fun fact Oppenheimer lived in deep River for a few months and his house is just down the road from me. It's funny because it's common knowledge of the locals. My next door neighbor parents were deeply involved in the chalk River project they were involved in the lates 50s clean up and research. There's a lot of history in this town and most of it is spoken. Even today most people can't talk about the work they're doing in any greater detail then the department and general activity. Even myself I don't work directly for them but I work on projects that are associated with them and I have to limit what I can talk about on a public form. As somebody who lives in deep River and has a somewhat intimate knowledge, the cleanup effort is still going on is still going on, the majority of the really nasty stuff is disposed of properly but they are still cleaning up the cleanup. It's mostly environmentally sound now at least there's literally people that get paid $70,000 a year to go fishing on the lakes on site.
It's sad to see that this accident happened *despite* the staff's best efforts, obvious hard work, and some genuinely impressive safety precautions before the accident.
Live 25 kms from point zero, great area to live in for the outdoors and well versed on it's workings that are closed down and they are building a new reactor now.
I've yet to cover the Three Mile Island accident, but here's my video on the Windscale Fire in case you'd like to learn about a British nuclear disaster: ua-cam.com/video/pxYz3lJ-iiQ/v-deo.html
As always, an excellent video. Learn something new almost every Tues.
TMI is more of a Fascinating Failures video, IMO. Kyle Hill has gone into detail on it already, and made it clear that the "disaster" part of the incident is one of public relations, not science.
If you're going to do a US nuclear disaster, you should cover SL-1 instead of TMI. Not enough people know about it, and the story is truly fascinating.
I live near Chalk River. It has the nickname "The Bomb".
There is so much radioactive junk buried around there that it was the full-time job of several people FOR DECADES to search the forests for machinery that people just walked away from.
Even now, the Ottawa Valley which the Ottawa River flows through has much MUCH higher rates of cancer.
I know about 3 mile island. I would love to be reminded about it. My uncle worked and lived near to Windscale.
Actually terrifying how much danger and destruction was caused by two simple human errors. Imagine if you sent an email to the wrong person, and then your boss made a typo when correcting you, and your entire office building just fell apart.
Do you mean Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
I worked there.
@@Le_Comte_de_Monte_Felin Bruhh, I currently work there, I stg
Try being a nurse or Dr. Same thing on a personal level.
@@DEATH-THE-GOAT no those were not errors but a necessary weapon to end the war. Using a weapon because the enemy refused to surrender and you don’t want to sacrifice a million of your own troops to invade is way different than a supervisor accidentally misspeaking and a diligent employee carries out the accidental order. Stop trolling
Monetary compensation after more than 70 years. It's like they were waiting for everyone doing the clean-up to die.
Indeed. That was also my first thought when I heard that part. After 70 years + a 4 times increased risk for Cancer compared to average citizens... Another thing added to that, is that I presume it might also not be so straightforward for everyone to 70 years later be able to produce the correct paperwork which proves that you really were there, and did so or so work etc.
The lawyers were. That's how that almost always works.
i HATE IT when the snail watching session with my homies gets interrupted by a nuclear meltdown
🐌
😂
IKR?
....🐌
Especially when you have super-powered, radioactive snails to watch!! LOL!!
Thank you for mentioning President Jimmy Carter. Many years later, he and his wife, Rosalynn, also a nuclear engineer, entered the Three Mile Island facility during its crisis. It wasn't just a publicity stunt for the president - he understood the science and engineering of what was going on. The nearby residents of Pennsylvania were greatly comforted by his visit. I hope you'll include that part of the story in your TMI video.
Oh wow, thank you! I forgot they did that and Carter is my favorite President. He was the epitome of Decent Human Being, and apparently Rosalyn too.
I like Amy, I remember her at some protest, not sure if Secret Service were guarding her but she was just being a regular person and I respect that. I hope she's having an excellent life.
thats also why he lived so long
Also, the Amazing 50 Foot President. 😂
Rosalynn Carter was a nuclear engineer??
@@Revolver1701The Pepsi Syndrome skit from SNL! 😂
I love how the horror feel of these videos doesn't come from any over reaction or over hyping, it's just the straight facts and basic and simple foreshadowing. Nice :]
I am Canadian and I have never heard of this accident. Thank you for the history lesson!
Same!
Read books on the development of nuclear power and you will come across other accidents you weren't aware of.
Another Canadian here, who never heard about it until now.
If you want to dive deeper check out Plainly Difficult's videos on these accidents
My uncle worked at chalk river.
I question how "trained" the operators were if, despite the supervisor obviously misspeaking, they didn't realize that withdrawing more rods was the opposite of what they should do. It absolutely doesn't make any sense. "You are about to hit a wall. Stay calm. I need you to stomp on the gas pedal!"
Totally agree! It infuriates me every time I hear stories similar to this one. It goes to show just how far, and how dangerous, a heard mentality is. If I was the operator, I would have quickly rebut to the supervisor if he's sure he wants me to REMOVE more control rods... I'm sure the mistake would have be immediately identified and corrected. Instead, most just act like sheep and blindly follow orders
@@damieg82 this is exactly why control room personnel have now train in team resource management or what the FAA calls crew resource management. Most people will not re-butte a supervisor even if they know it will have detrimental consequences.
With no evidence to support this, I choose to assume that it wasn't an "obvious" mistake. Like, that button's primary function wasn't in any way related to removing rods, but pressing the button started a process that did 4 things and when systems A and B were in emergency mode and console 3 was set to mode D, the 4th thing caused the rods to lift further.
its easier to say that from the comfort of home, than from the floor of a nucler plant having a meltdown
@@PatricioGarcia1973 Sure it is. So, what's your point? The operators were still acting directly counter to how a nuclear reactor fundamentally works. A couple of people that definitely should have known better majorly screwed up. I'm not trying to drag them over the coals from my safe ivory tower, I just don't understand how "trained" operators of what was one of the most prized pieces of equipment in Canada at that time could foul up so badly. We can criticize AND sympathize.
Hometown mention! There's two towns next to each other Deep River and Chalk River. During the war years and building of the site the scientists lived in Deep River and it was a gated community. Everyone else lived in Chalk River. It stopped being gated after the war I believe but the towns still hold this weird history of academic classism. They also used prisoners of war to help build it. There was a POW camp where the good sledding hill is now. The snail watching club got into a fight with the gastronomy club.
"The snail watching club got into a fight with the gastronomy club." Did the gastronomy club attempt to eat some of the snail watching club's racing snails or something?!
@@Teverell ~ Yes, you guessed it. They were accused of eating the snails!😂 Gotta love it!
This part was so funny!😂
My granparents lived right between the two towns along the highway. He worked for the fire crew at the plant after the war. I remember my dad telling me about the POW camp while we were sledding at Hill House. I knew most of the scientists lived in Deep, but didn't realize it was a gated community at one point! Thanks for sharing!
LMFAO
I am routinely amazed how you keep uncovering these buried moments in history. How quickly we forget history and how easy it is to orchestrate a cover up; truly that’s the horror.
I always love the history lesson and I don’t know why it’s being slowly taken out of our schools.
Back in ‘97 I got to visit the Chalk River site as a University student - I’ll never forget being able to stand on top of a nuclear reactor
Most underrated channel on YT, in my opinion. Thanks for never asking me to play warhammer or use your code for some new service. No real shade to any channels that do, I get it - FH is just one of a kind, fr.
Videos used to be better.
But where will you get extra gold and HP points.
I'vr never once heard him request that we hit "like" or "subscribe." Never once.
I subscribed partly BECAUSE of that. He doesn't beg or even run through a list of Patreons or anything. He just presents info.
Videos like his are becoming more and more rare. I love this channel.
If you want a similar (imo) channel, try scary interesting.
@@daffers2345or sell merchandise.
Fun facts: The NRX (the first reactor accident) was rebuilt and continued to operate until 1993. The NRU (second reactor accident) operated until 2018 and produced more isotopes for nuclear medicine than any other facility in the world (including 75% of the world's supply of Cobalt-60).
This, so many people don't realize how key Canadian reactors are in developing medical isotopes, I believe the Bruce has been one of the first facilities worldwide to start producing a new medical isotope a few months ago
The fact that no community I've ever lived in didn't partake in Snail Watching 🐌 keeps me pushing forward to find such a Utopia...
Deep River also had a Watching Paint Dry Club and a Watching Grass Grow Club. LOL
Wait, is the double negative intentional and you are seeking a utopia in which snail watching is absent, or was it a mistake and you wish to find a community in which you can partake?
@swahilimaster I guess the double negative in a Brooklyn thing it does seem negative but definitely looking for Snails I watched someone feed a giant African Snail rice with a spoon then it stretched it's neck out to be scratched it's hilarious my wife would shit a chicken if I brought one home but I'd love to get one eventually haha...
@@istaycatchingfish2552can I join this snail watching club? This sounds so relaxing
@@istaycatchingfish2552 The land snails we get locally are tiny, not many of them either, but larger snails are pretty cool, I'd also probably keep one as a pet. I used to have an aquarium I was responsible for as part of a class in high school where I had managed to scrounge up some really cool stuff to go into it, including a giant horse conch, which is the only snail I've ever taken care of. I had the luck of having the biggest aquarium for the class so I really wanted it to have some interesting stuff in there, I managed to get hold of some peacock mantis shrimp as well, but that meant that most of the fish that went in were much more common, since the mantis shrimp could kill pretty much anything we put in the tank besides the conch if they chose to. I also took care of a smaller aquarium that had some of the coolest hermit crabs I had ever seen, we pulled them up while trawling on a field trip and their shells were jet black with bright purple points and teal highlights, and the crabs themselves were black with alternating bright orange and teal stripes at the joints and along the tips and inner part of their claws. After graduation we managed to arrange for everything but the fish in both aquariums to be picked up by the Texas State Aquarium.
Your smooth calming voice contrasted with the description of such horrific events is always amazing.
It's the kind of voice one would want commentating an afternoon of snail watching. I actually believe that's a euphemism for something truly filthy. Strictly unmentionable on prude tube.
I love your editing style it’s so much nicer to have a real person narrating than an ai voice
His voice is the perfect English accent. Clear annunciation, slow paced and measured.
Snail watching?
Bunch of guys sitting round a table staring at a single immobile snail,
"Takes your breath away, Dunnit?"
Dull Men's Club
Must be some slimy characters there!
"no greater risk than crossing the street" in the 1950s, with drum brakes and drunk drivers huffing lead fumes
so they weren't lying lol
Not to mention bias-ply tires, which sucked.
Unfortunately we still have the drunk drivers. But with very little penalty, why would they stop?
That was a good one...
@@tomrogers9467 Hey, it reduces inhibition...
Always on time. Always fascinating. Thanks dude!
It's very easy to confuse the 'shutdown' button with the 'meltdown' button. I do it all the time.
I know! You get watching the latest "Fascinating Horror" upload to utube on your work terminal, and wham, the reactor goes 500% over acceptable power output, and you get a call from your supervisor screaming . . . hit the Scram Button . . . hit the Scram Button . . . it just puts you off a bit, you know?
As always, truly amazing stories most have unheard of or forgotten, and so nice to no ai trash thrown, keep up the fantastic work!
It is a testament to the availability of information that so many people in the comments section of a UA-cam video know what happens when you remove control rods from a nuclear reactor.
I think people need to have some appreciation for the fact that this happened in the 1950's. Our general knowledge and understanding then was not what it is now.
except that they had radiation monitoreing, decontamination procedures, maximum safe limits, sand filters, knew to strip paint etc. Even if they didn't know everything they knew plenty. especially when it came to control rods. I mean you don't have to know everything about radioactive contamination to understand that when you remove the control rods the reactor medium boils off and that's bad. This may have been the first consistently power generating nuclear reactor in Canada, but obviously they had done smaller scale tests on test reactors before that, And surely melted plenty of them down accidentally or on purpose along the way. at the end of the day the supervisor messed up and the employee who pressed the button possibly did as well, depending on how much they knew about that procedure. whoever was in charge of making sure that the supervisor and control room operator were prepared to act appropriately in a situation like this failed as well. whether you are running a nuclear reactor or a Wendy's, people in charge of things should know how to follow their training about it, and supervisors in particular should be able to deal with stressful situations. Otherwise what are they getting paid for?
This is why its so important to not press the wrong button
Reminds me of the final scene in THE GREAT RACE, Jack Lemon's character (the villain) tells his henchman (Peter Falk) to "push the button Max!"
All I heard was "press the button."
Because it was 1940s tech likely without fail-safes and redundancies.
scary. terrifying really. and incredible how something can be so beneficial but so dangerous to us - the distinction being under our control and how we use it, and the precautions we may or may not take
we've come a very long way
like automobiles? 😁
The words "Nuclear reactor" and "experiments" should always be accompanied by a full contingent of well-rested, top of the field expert engineers, and not the half asleep early morning shift jfc
And redundancy at every step of the process.
Never Remove your Rod Prematurely ✔️
thank you, i was losing hope reading these comments until i saw this one
@@-DC- that's what she said
No "Roddus Interruptis".
Especially if using U269
I wish someone told me that in high school
Jimmy Carter wasn't a peanut farmer, he was a nuclear physicist and engineer. He was ordered to Chalk River to lead a U.S. maintenance crew that joined other American and Canadian service personnel to assist in the shutdown of the reactor.
Also why at Three Mile Island he brought his wife as he had a better handle on what the risks actually were.
Further information: He was, at the time, a naval officer who had been trained in nuclear power and engineering as part of the U.S. Navy's fledgling nuclear submarine program.
But he also WAS a peanut farmer.
He also ran the country into the ground like it was a river in india
@@Louzahsol That is simply untrue.
When your health And Safety procedure is to demolish and rebuild the workplace because the foundations become irradiated you might have something to worry about.
It was the 40s. They barely had knowledge of what they were working with.
@@kimm6589 I find particularly hilarious how they demolished and rebuilt entire buildings to prevent them to become too irradiated in the long term; but they buried the rods inside wooden crates, which ended up irradiating the soil in the long term.
You don't turn into the Hulk, a ghoul, Spiderman, or the Toxic Avenger. You either get cancer or rot from within.
ok? good to know?
Or adapt, like the wolves of Chernobyl. Some fascinating vids out there on what’s happened
"I rolled around in nuclear waste trying to obtain superpowers. Stupid? Yes. Idiotic? Yes!"
Nuclear radiation poisoning actually bursts your blood cells from within. Lovely thought.
Or become President of the US and live to the ripe old age of 100...
I live a few hours away from Chalk River and had never heard of these incidents until recently. It is scary to think that this spot is fairly close to our nations capital of Ottawa.
As an added note I believe Jimmy Carter (RIP) had a much bigger role in the cleanup than this story indicated.
He was one of many people to help out. His contributions have been greatly exaggerated in the media.
Canadian here 🇨🇦 I just live 15 min from Chalk River. I worked at the nuclear plant for a year. We were grateful for Jimmy Carter back then. They are strict on safety and training now.
My dad's side of the family all lived in a community just 30 minutes away from Chalk River so this is an event that I've definitely known a decent amount about for a long time
The death of society started when we stopped snail watching as a social hobby.
Those were the best of times 😭🐌
Have a hunch that it was some of the snail-watchers who were on shift at the time of these incidents!
@@MrWombatty *SIR! HOW DARE YOU SLANDER AN HONOURABLE MEMBER OF THE **_"ROYAL CANADIAN SNAIL WATCHING SOCIETY"._*
*SIR, I DEMANS SATISFACTION* *
* _Duelling is called demanding, and giving satisfaction_
An elegant activity from a more civilized age.
The best of times, the worst of times, sob.
4:17 I remember my first snail watch
That was too fast paced for me, I’ll stick with my paint drying races.
In the years that followed snail watching was less a hobby and more a necessity as the gargantuan radioactive gastropods the size of Buick sedan threatend to chomp their way through the town's prize floral displays, and neighbouring town hall.
🤣
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
My daughter lives right by the Pickering Nuclear Plant in the Toronto area. Her and her husband were given iodine pills in case of a nuclear incident. Not much comfort to me (or them!), but also not much I can do about it. It is what it is, as they say.
Nuclear plants are far safer than any other form of energy generation. Just stop.
By who? I grew up in that area was never given any. They have an emergency protocol in some schools that's it.
I have insider information on how that place is run. I’d never live within 50 miles of the place!
Candu reactors are safe.
@@ImOscarWallace I don't know. Maybe the condo complex where they live.
Yet another excellent mini documentary. One of the BEST channels on UA-cam.
Why is there even a "remove all control rods" button?!
That's just a recipe for disaster!
Maybe it was for maintenance? I agree it should not have been an option with the reactor running!
It's also known as the Self Destruct button.
Same reason you get /format c:
At least this makes the design of the Death Star ventilation shafts more plausible. :)
Snail watching sounds like something you'd do on day 3 of a power outage.
X-ray tech here. How does the worker not know removing rods causes meltdown. Communication errors are the worst mistakes
So easily avoidable 😢
homer simpson syndrome?
ever hear of Neutron radiation? neither gamma rays nor x-rays have the ability to make anything radioactive
Every week you deliver a gripping narrative and horrors I've never heard of before
Always love these videos. Thank you!!
FYI, the title is wrong. The first meltdown was at Reactor A-1 in 1948, involving 3 fuel channels and a graphite fire
In fact, Russia had at least 4 meltdowns prior to Chalk River. A serious one in 1949 that killed dozens, and two in 1950 and 1951 involving their early heavy water reactors
I see Chalk River, I give my first actual comment on a UA-cam video. Canada has a fascinating history of nuclear science, so glad to see a big channel cover this event!
Disassembleing a structure 90 secs. at a time seems like viable videogame idea. Almost like Star Trek: Bridge Crew, where each player had specific tasks they have to master under pressure.
Set it in a steampunk type world with challenges like "Reassemble The Airships Gyroscope" or "Stop The Mad Scientist's Rocket." With a wave of steam or electricity that would pass every 90 secs. Up the difficulty in later levels by requiring different tasks to be done across the structure simultaneously by two or more players.
this is one of my top 3 channels that I have to watch the moment I get notification!
Such a great job, production, voice, technical details sum... Soon I'll rewind and watch each day from the very first upload! But don't wanna binge it, cuz it really leaves a taste and impression on me that more than two a day would turn me into full blown panicking fear-monger! ahahhah
The effects of radiation on the human body are truly nightmarish.
MF you hadn't even watched the video yet lmao given the time you commented this and when the vid was released.
@@RGGaming940 I don't need to watch the video to know what I said was true.
Ya and that in itself is an understatement.
Something invisible and unintelligent can sentence you to a horrific death without you even realizing it. And within minutes. At best you might see light or taste metal, but if you don't know what it means, you're helpless.
Gamma radiation was absorbed by Dr Bruce Banner after he used it in his Super Soldier Serum, transforming him into Hulk..
As usual, this channel is top notch. I am always eager to see your presentations. Keep up the good work. Cheers Pat in New Jersey
Yet another quality video!
It's crazy to see this on one of my favorite channels. I used to live in Chalk River, now just 20 minutes away. I toured the plant in 2013, including the reactor buildings. One of which was still active at the time.
Amazing that the majority of us in North America haven't even heard of this.
It's quite strange how little-known these accidents are, given that one of them was the first nuclear meltdown in history!
We generating 1W of power with this one boys
Government doing it's best!
You can power almost a led with that amount of energy
Wow, I never knew the very first world's nuclear meltdown happened in Canada. Great video.
Yeah i know pretty crazy that its just a 20 minute sea-doo ride from where i live to the reactor site 🤯
I saw the title and thumbnail and assumed I was clicking Plainly Difficult... I was slightly confused when I heard the fascinating horror music. 😂
Dear Mr. Fascinating Horror. I've been an avid watcher of your channel for years. As a proud Canadian, your videos helped inform me of little-talked-about tragedies that occurred in our nation. I lived in Ottawa for several years, and I had never heard of this accident before now. Thank you for covering this, I found it very educational!
I think the only people who really talk about it much are the folks who lived in that part of the Ottawa Valley at the time, my dad's family comes from a community that is about 30 minutes from Chalk River so he talks about it anytime nuclear energy is brought up
One of few things no country in the world wants to be first. 💀
i literally never have any remaining questions after your explanations and deep dives. so thorough. thanks for another great video!
You said "snail watching" like that was an everyday, relatable activity
I still find it amazing that critical safety steps are overlooked. On something as simple as doing an oil change on one of my bikes I make it hard [nothing is impossible!] to accidentally start the bike until the change is done and the new oil is in to the correct level. I'm usually doing other service items while waiting for the oil to drain, or something on another bike but the keys go in the house and a bit of rag goes over the ignition switch. The lack of water in the water filled container should have been near impossible. with checks and confirmation before the rod was lifted out.
When I have to work with someone else on a lift, there is always confirmation of the stop being in before moving into a place where there is a hazard and confirmation that it's safe to move before taking the stop out. The operation of the stop is directed by the person doing the inspections and confirmed by the second person doing the 'driving'.
Over the years I have been into a few places more hazardous than normal, sometimes once, sometimes on a 6-month cycle and never got blase about what could kill me.
🙄🥱
I was born in Deep River! So cool that you covered this event!
I drive through this town often and was wondering when someone was gonna cover it. Nice job!
I have been looking forward to this one. Many thanks, dude.
Incredible work again Kristian! I live near Montréal and never heard of this!
I am still willing to help you on both brake failure incidents near the region of Charlevoix like we talked on Patreon. Anytime. Cheers!
Thank you for sharing this.
Thanks for the histories. Greetings from Colombia
Love from the US, stand strong
What a surprise, just as I'm about to start work for the day 😂
I'm going to sleep here. 😂😂😂
I live about 120 km away from Chalk River... I'm 46 and only learned of this event 4 years ago...
I'm surprised that snail watching isn't an Olympic sport yet... 🐌
Chalk River shut down a few years ago. In the interim between meltdown and decommissioning it produced countless amounts of radio isotopes for medical and research applications.
The explosion at SL-1 US Army research facility near Idaho Falls in 1961 during the early years of nuclear power development was a grim and tragic reminder.
Thank you for the time and effort you put into making these videos. 🎉
I really like your channel man. Great work thank you for your efforts that you put into your videos.
I know for a fact that they have had nuclear accidents and kept it hush hush to not alarm the local public. A family member worked there in the 80’s and 90’s.
Ear bypasses brain and finger pushes button.
A suggestion for a future video is the tragedy at Seveso in Italy. The facility released dioxin into the atmosphere and people suffered effects for a long time.
Thanks for another interesting video!
Chalk River donated a name to the industry - "Crud." AKA "Chalk River, Unidentified Deposit." Radioactive rust and corrosion products found in the cooling system, mostly consisting of radiocobalt.
Crud remains one of, if not *the,* most common forms of radioactive waste material.
NOW that's some news I can use! Sometimes we just have terms that are floating around in the zeitgeist and we have no idea where they have come from! I genuinely appreciate you adding to my love of vocabulary terminology! Much love to you for this! Warmest regards from Greensboro, NC USA!
But will he SELL that information to a global gazillionaire?! 13:01 13:01 ❤
Just as I was thinking that there should be a new episode at this time, you appear.
Every Tuesday
You should do one of Eben Byers since we're on the topic of radiation.
yeaaahhh buddy, this is going to be a good one.
It seems like the early years of nuclear power were literally a trial by fire. This seemed like a safe facility that did a lot of things right. It also stresses the importance of reading back such important directions like "put the cooling rods back in" as opposed to "remove more cooling rods".
Drove by this almost twice a week, never knew this happened. Crazy 😮
SL-1: Hold my beer, Canucks.
Windscale: Hold me Nukey Brown.
Chelyabinsk: Hold my vodka, Capitalist Pig...
So Deep River was a Canadian version of an Atomograd?😁 Kind of cool. When I was young, I lived in another fully planned town near Edmonton called Devon. It was built in the late 40s for Imperial Oil employees and their families.
I heard of the first Chalk River incident a few years after high school, in 1979.
Three Mile Island was the top news story for weeks, but where I lived, southwest of Toronto, lots of guys in their fifties said re: TMI, oh yeah, this already happened in Chalk River in ‘52. These guys were not talking about classified info, just chatting at coffee in a number of places, so it must have been in the newspaper or on CBC radio during the early 1950’s. But I never heard any mention of the 1958 incident till just now.
A couple of idea for future videos: The Oceangate Titan Submersible, and Air Canada Flight 797 . Keep up the good work!
Beautiful area of the world, HWY 17 (Trans Canada) along the Ottawa River. Driven through Chalk River a dozen+ times. ❤
The Ottawa Valley region really does have some nice landscapes
Governments are ever so willing for people to put their lives on the line to help their efforts. But, when it comes to those same people needing governmental help, the answer is normally a big, fat NO! 😮
A small nuclear leak happened around 1981 or 1982. My wife knows this because at the time she was a kid living in a small rural area about 33 km from Chalk River. She says that one day (spring or fall - there were no snow and nice weather) she was playing in the backyard when suddenly she felt really sick, weak, nauseating, to the point she could only walk hunch over very slowly back home. She sat down a little bit then went to bed feeling very weak. The next day or so she was still feeling sick, but she felt good enough to go to school. It was a small rural school of a total of about 20 students. At one point, students were all sitting together with the teacher for a group project. The teacher looked at her and said, “I’m taking you home”. Blood was dripping from her nose, and she was very pale. That day some of the kids also became sick and went home. Next day they closed the school as all the kids were feeling sick. That week we heard on the radio that a leak was recorded at the Chalk River nuclear center, but it had been quickly contained.
Always a great way to start a Tuesday with a Fascinating Horror vid
5:53 made me visualize that gif where people slap their foreheads. Facepalming so hard, 🥴 hurts just by imagining.😮🤯🤯
Fun fact Oppenheimer lived in deep River for a few months and his house is just down the road from me. It's funny because it's common knowledge of the locals. My next door neighbor parents were deeply involved in the chalk River project they were involved in the lates 50s clean up and research. There's a lot of history in this town and most of it is spoken. Even today most people can't talk about the work they're doing in any greater detail then the department and general activity. Even myself I don't work directly for them but I work on projects that are associated with them and I have to limit what I can talk about on a public form.
As somebody who lives in deep River and has a somewhat intimate knowledge, the cleanup effort is still going on is still going on, the majority of the really nasty stuff is disposed of properly but they are still cleaning up the cleanup. It's mostly environmentally sound now at least there's literally people that get paid $70,000 a year to go fishing on the lakes on site.
You should do a story on the Santa Susana Field Laboratory.
Thanks for making this. I'd no idea this happened
It's sad to see that this accident happened *despite* the staff's best efforts, obvious hard work, and some genuinely impressive safety precautions before the accident.
Live 25 kms from point zero, great area to live in for the outdoors and well versed on it's workings that are closed down and they are building a new reactor now.
Always loved stopping at the Laurentian View Dairy in Deep River for milkshakes. Wished I'd known about the snail watching.
Again another disaster almost forgotten until this video
What a fantastic detail about President Jimmy Carter.
His legacy is outstanding.
Thanks much for mentioning that.
A rather important bit of Canadian history I don't recall learning about in school. Thanks, FH!
Wow, I lived so close to this and had no idea. Unbelievable!