The Filthiest Chernobyl Men You've Never Heard Of
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- Опубліковано 5 вер 2024
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At 1:23am on Saturday, April 26th, 1986, a failed experiment blew the 500-ton safety cap off of the Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Nuclear Power Plant's Reactor Number 4. According to Sasha Yuvchenko, a member of the night shift at Chernobyl, the building's thick concrete walls [quote] "were bent like rubber." Further recalling the event for the Guardian newspaper in 2004, Yuvchenko said, "There was no ceiling, only sky; a sky full of stars." Ionization radiation shot into the air like a blue laser beam as the core of the nuclear reactor was exposed to the world. He remembered, [quote] "thinking how beautiful it was."
Despite trying to hide the failure from the world, the sheer magnitude of the disaster soon called for a massive response force to be formed to deal with the fallout. Officials hastily assembled an army made up of firefighters, pilots, miners, and local volunteers. Their long list of tasks included removing the irradiated debris from around the reactor, constructing a sarcophagus which would entomb the destroyed reactor, wide-scale decontamination, road building, and the destruction and burial of contaminated buildings, forests and equipment, not to mention animals both wild and domesticated.
To say that theirs was a mammoth task is an understatement. It was a clean-up effort that would span for three years following the disaster and put many of the first responders in mortal danger. While some in their ranks were forced by their superiors and Communist Party officials to work at Chernobyl by means of direct orders, many thousands more actually volunteered to participate in the Chernobyl clean-up. Many even extended their work in the zone beyond the initial compulsory term.
These workers were called “Liquidators.”
- As images and footage of actual events are not always available, Dark Docs sometimes utilizes similar historical images and footage for dramatic effect. All content on Dark Docs is researched, produced, and presented in historical context for educational purposes. -
My grandpa served as a bus driver in the exclusion zone. He helped transport civilians out of Pripyat. He later died from cancer in 2002. Radiation no joke.
How old was he when he died? Because to be honest, lasting 16 years after being that close is good going, sorry about your granddad though
Dat Blue-Eyed Devil I believe he was around 50
Well, he served well to transport people out of danger. Truly a comrade
Agreed radiation is no joke and the fact that you can legally buy uranium here in America makes me sick and scared because you can turn uranium into plutonium
You say he was 50 you had to be 30 to 34 so 1986 to 2002 would not of made him 50 sorry guy busted. Those who where close to this age where volunteers considered sons of farmers. The rest was the army. An those who DID survive are well over 60 years of age back in 2006. Sooo.
Glory to the liquidators. Heroes, every single one of them.
Yup, fact.
Or morons.
@@davejones5640 lemme guess...morons because they knew they'd surely die. When you're older you might understand needs of many outweighing needs of the few
Heroes are people who don't get the tell their story or don't get to survive to see what happens
@Wubba Wubba i know it's tough but ignore wankers like Captain Sarcasm, these little piss ants only exist in life just to provoke arguments online which they thrive on, dont react and dont reply as this only gives the tossers the satisfaction
They died to save millions of people and alot of the environment, may those brave men rest in piece
... pieces?
@Matthew721 79 chill
comrade piece.
Men and women.
Peace or intentional?
The fact that you can just be in the presence of something for a few seconds and it’s an incurable death sentence is absolutely terrifying. These people were and are amazing.
And the fact that you can't even see it either! I think that is the most terrifying part about it
. ua-cam.com/video/88yQhk7kd6E/v-deo.html
@@brianchaffin4779 And even more terrifying is that fact that if you did see it then it meant there was so much radiation. You're only going to see if ionizing the air if there is a lot of radiation.
I like to remind people of this everytime someobody talks about godzilla and his blue spines and back like its a cool thing.....reality of it is more haunting then cool unfortunately
So let's build more nuclear reactors!!!! Genius!
You know it's bad when the films taken in Pripiyat show flashes of light due to the extremely high radiation hitting the film.
@@harrisonkarn2078 no it is actually from the radiation. The white specks you see in old films and pictures is the actual radiation hitting the film. Its beautiful and deadly.
@@harrisonkarn2078 correct not in pripiyat but close to the reactor the white specs are from radiation. I missed the pripiyat part in the initial comment.
@Michiel Tak is there somewhere I could read about that, it sounds pretty cool.
@@drchristmas359 There's an article on popular mechanics called "how-kodak-accidentally-discovered-radioactive-fallout"
@@Matt-vb3vx thanks
"All the machines were destroyed by the radiation."
"Send the people."
You get the idea what the soviet communism was.
Somebody had to do it
@@JanKowalski-bf8rq bro America would have done the same lmao
@@freewayross4736 America would never be able to, there would be too many people unwilling to do it and America doesn't have the same grasp on it's population that the soviets did in order to get people to clean it up.
@@Mrtuttz how many Americans have ran into gunfire?
These men had 2 seriously big balls to get up on that roof...
Now they probably have 4
sleary123 haha original joke haha
Ok everyone, stop whooshing me. I got the reference, I was just trolling. I will even fix the joke. "THESE MEN HAD 2 SERIOUSLY BIG BALLS TO GET UP ON THAT ROOF.....
NOW THEIR BALLS ARE LIKE PEAS....
GET IT, RADIATION....
My original post was you cant grow balls idiot. I was just trolling though.
Alaskan1Medic you’re the idiot if you didn’t understand the radiation reference
More like none!
Lol I’m givin a like
Some of these liquidators continued to work well past their limits, knowing they would die a horrible death, but they did it anyway. It shows a certain type of courage and love for their fellow human
horrible death is pretty relative terminology.
Sometimes ya do what ya gotta do
i shouldnt have watched this, now iv got to spend the rest of the day watching videos on Chernobyl.
jus rewatch the chernobyl show on hbo and you'll be satisfied :) its only like 12 hours
Watch Shiey in youtube and you can see him travel there to the city (trespassing)
It's been a week for me. all i watch on here are Chernobyl videos 😌
Your name is sucks LOL
Dont worry, i have been watching things about chernobyl for a few years now. I am still obsessed :/
I grew up in small town in Latvia and my neighbor was one of liquidators. He lost half of his leg.
So sad ): Definitely brave though
ralfs filips very brave man 100% 👍🏻 from me to all of them and former military 15 years I my self would have question if I wanted to be there but they fucked up a lot the government that is communist bull shit lies cost a lot of life’s
KISS HOOTERS because it's bullshit.
Im from lithuania and my grandpa managed to bribe the soldiers to avoid going to clean.
Good man
The fact they got footage of the liquidators working is crazy in itself, as their was massive amounts of radiation
yeah who had time to stand around up there and take video footage? unless it was a mounted static unit. amazing video.. true heros.
@@JohnSmith-bn7bl actualy it was a man Vladimir Shevchenko who died 1 yr later from the radiations
@@JohnSmith-bn7bl well idk people do that all the damn time. Tornado? Film!
There was
The photo of the Elephant Foot cost the cameraman’s life.
These guys deserve a international remembrance day, like all their names need to be shown on the tv st the date this catastrophe happened. If these heroes didn’t do what they did Europe would be dead and inhabitable with the reactor still spewing out the radiation to this day.
Of course these liquidators are heroes there’s no doubt about that, but they wouldn’t have had to put their lives in danger had it not been for scientists trying to act smarter than they really are
I agree with you. every April 26th I take a few minutes to respect the brave men who were willing to sacrifice their lives to save pretty much the world.
This should be remembered 👍
If I shoot someone on the chest and take him to the hospital right away I’m a life saver right? Lmao
Agreed.
''somebody had to do it ''
-The highest definable meaning of taking responsibility and being accountable thru conviction fm the heart.
I agree but the people who made those courageous sacrifices as with the guys on the nuclear subs were not the ones responsible .
Would never happen today
@@twc0117 of course it WOULD ! It d have to be done mate can`t just leave it there... so yes bio robots again
@@twc0117 it depends of the country, the more invididualistic the country the less likely it is
That should be on a memorial to them all, "Somebody had to do it".
"We didn't know it was the reactor. No one had told us."
-Volodymyr Pravik, Chernobyl Power Station Firefighting Brigade
June 1962-May 1986
May the souls of those brave Liquidators of Chernobyl who died containing the disaster rest in forever lasting peace.
Most of the fire fighters died for pointless reason - they could have controlled the peripheral fires & leave the site, but many went too close to the reactor to try putting the main graphite fire out.
This was a completely pointless task and has no effect on the fire. If anything, it makes the contamination worse by immediately creating highly radioactive steam from the water sprayed.
philosophical inquirer how many firefighters in Russia at that time were that educated to know any better? None. Be respectful of their dedication to their job.
philosophical inquirer they did not tell them. Jesus!
They should have told the fireman that the nuclear core exploded!! .. that the fuel was burning in the open-air!! .. that it was highly irradiated!! .. they should have told the fireman so that they could have protected themselves .. those were SOVIET firemen!! .. so you knew they were still going to show up!! .. they just would have been better prepared .. they deserved that much .. that part was so upsetting to me!!!😠😡👎🏽👎🏽
Mutherfuqbucket The firemen weren’t told about the radiation! .. of course they know what radiation is! .. They could have been more protected just like the liquidators were told!😡👎🏽👎🏽
I'm a proud grandson of one of the liquidators.
I dont mean this in a disrespectful manner at all, just genuinely curious, Do you have any deformities or health issues due to it?
@@rreprah9515 Luckily my mother was born way before that, so noone else was affected
What was his name?
Filip Zimoch
Allah Chenko
You are related to a liquidator. Why make up such a dumb lie?
My grandfather was one of those man on the roof, he took the graphite with his own hands.
died in 2014 at the age of 74. God bless those heroes ❤️. Вечная память
They saved the whole planet from a thousand years of hellish disease.
And now the same bastards that caused this disaster want to build nuclear reactors all over the world because of "global warming". The criminals of humanity have risen to the leadership of every country.
God save us all.
Your grandfather mustve had gigantic radio-balls
Ive seen 27 niggas say this, im convinced that some of yall are capin
It’s amazing he lived that long after that
Did he ever talk much about it?
they saved europe. always remember that.
After their nation caused the catastrophe.
I mean.....it kinda was their fault, but....yea they cleaned up that mess as “responsibly” as you’d expect...
well if I shoot someone in the chest and afterwards also heal him in the next couple of years so there is only a scar on him left, then yeah.... I saved a life... in theory right?
Not really, since you did SHOOT them.
Achilles 1776 Yes!
I think that those Soviet soldiers and civilians where incredibly brave we should not forget their deeds
They risked their hearth as volunteers, not by being forced...
@@davidhollenshead4892 If they had known the actual danger they were exposed to many wouldn't have done it. Most of them thought it would be not much different than moping the floor of an elementary school.
@TheOtherWhiteBread0 They should have been told I won';t argue that at all....But, I don't think the truth would have made as much of a difference as you think. If they knew the dangers to themselves, and the dangers to the nation and world as a whole I am certain a great majority of them would have gone in anyway.
@@peniku8 They should have been told I agree. But, I Think you underestimate the willingness of people to expose themselves to great danger even certain death when a far worse catastrophe is possible if they do nothing. For every man who walked away one would have taken his place. There was no choice the situation had to be dealt with, people had to risk death, disease and horrific suffering or it would have spread to women and children across the country. even if they knew it was a death sentence people would have risen to the challenge.
@@davidhollenshead4892 if forced or not, those men are the real soldiers,
giving their lives by fighting for the country and most of for the people who have to live there.
"Comrade soldier. You're done."
"I work for the Soviet Union"
"Thank you"
Yes.
"Work done or life done?"
"Yes"
Starfish Prime in the HBO show, because of who it was said to, both could apply given the tone of voice the man used when he said this
'Looks At Boot' 'Scared Face'
The whole world should dedicate one day in a year to celebrate and honor the sacrifices of these men, the least we can do for these heroes
They are actually remembered and celebrated, on April 26th, by many nations. Though, sadly, not by the entire world.
I didn't know about the commemorative day, how sad we don't join in. I have marked 26th April in my calendar and I'll say a quiet prayer for them all.
No, people need to stop with the holidays, shark week, national donut day. Just stop ✋
Why on earth would the whole earth care about this
Hard pass. Typical Soviet mentality-create a problem, cover it up, lie to your own citizens and provide terrible equipment to the first responders. Chernobly should have never happened.
Not too long after the Chernobyl disaster, Sergei Sikorsky, son of famous aviation pioneer Igor Sikorsky, spoke to a group of American Air Force officers about being invited to the USSR to chat with a number of their helicopter pilots who had flown the boron missions. He related to us that when he asked them how they found the site at night without proper navigational aids or night vision gear, they responded that all they had to do was follow the blue glow. Pretty soon their aircraft were glowing too.
That's effing crazy. :/
so reactor worked as a giant electric flycatcher
@⸚ You're correct, the helicopters weren't directly glowing, but the radioactive isotopes stuck to the metal, causing the oxygen near the helicopters to glow.
In a sense this is how powder coating worked. Except instead of a coat of glitter or somesuch, it was radioactive isotopes.
@⸚ I would assume so. Particle and Nuclear physics is incredibly beyond me however.😋
The "volunteers" had absolutely no choice. The vast majority of them were taken from all over the western USSR. My mother-in-law who lived in Kazakhstan at the time clearly remembers military trucks arriving and taking away men from late teens up to middle-age to resolve the issue. A lot of them didn't return, and many of those who did died young after developing cancer.
Those men are heroes.
What's tragic is that the roof should have just been left alone, all those people wasted their health on a completely pointless job.
@@motherofallemails why should it have been left alone?, i would think the dust radiated a lot of radiation.
@@svenvolwater5473 all dust went into the air and got blown away during the explosion. What was left was only solid pieces. Clearing those was a COMPLETE WASTE OF MEN and their health. Complete waste of time. Clearing up the mess for who? Who will visit the roof tops to appreciate the tidy swept roof?
Just LEAVE it there, you can't move it to a "better place". This is the tragic truth of it, men's health was wasted for nothing, because of a stupid Communist regime that has to have its mess cleaned up for it to save it from embarrassment every time. It's just awful.
@@motherofallemails well maybe they wanted to clear those pieces to have less radiation, otherwise they also needed to make the sorcophogus over the roof. Also i think those pieces stil radiated a lot of radiation, that isnt handy while building a massive structure a few meters from it. But yea i dont know shit about radiation but what i do know is that the ussr wasnt always good at making good decisions......
@@svenvolwater5473 they were far from building a structure over it at the time, what they should have done was leave it alone, so that the most radioactive elements with the shortest half life have a chance to decay, and only do any clearing after a minimum of months if not years, as late as possible, but communism doesn't make smart decisions like that, it's a stupid regime led by stupid people making stupid and costly decisions that other people have to pay for, with their health.
What makes the HBO series so scary is the attention to detail and the fact that (nearly) everything happened exactly the way it was shown.
Yup...and not too much overdramatic disaster movie stuff. They act naturally with a sprinkle of dramatic suspense like Ignatenko screaming, 90 second rooftop cleaner, and the flaslight scene.
Heli crash wasnt accurate but its ok
@@FreQ_97 it was. You can see it hit the cable, they just made it seem like it was cause of radiation
@@fergushamilton241 in HBO chernobyl series helicopter crashes by touching crane rope by propeller, it happened in real life too with helicopter
Sad but truth
Did you forget to mention those 3 guys that went underwater to open manually the faulty valves of the pool under the reactor?
They survived
@@Abysia one died at the spot but other 2 stayed alive
@@SDZKProductions one didn't die at the spot he died later from a heart attack
@@CoriumSeer ah, ty for thr info
@Ashton Engelbrecht Not just that, but all of Europe wouldn't be habitable until the radiation either broke down and wasn't deadly or was safe enough but still there
My wife is Ukrainian. Her brother (my brother-in-law) is on the list mentioned toward the end of the video. He lives with us here in the United States because he is disabled.
A few years ago, he had to have his thyroid removed due to his previous radiation exposure. The doctors did an excellent job. He has to take hormone replacement medication for the rest of his life, but his prognosis is good.
Interestingly, one of the doctors assisting in his surgery was Russian. She had so much previous experience doing this type of surgery on former liquidators that her talents were called on to assist. Wonderful doctors and nursing staff. They took very good care of him.
How is he doing?
@@ethanstang9941 Very well. Thanks for asking. He will obviously need care for the rest of his life, but otherwise he is living a good life. We're lucky that he was able to come here for care under a humanitarian visa.
@@erikjs He also has wonderful family members taking care of him. May he live a long, peaceful life.
Prayers for him good luck and tell him he’s a hero and send my respects 🙏🏽
God bless him. If he wasn't rewarded in this life hopefully in the next he will be
Man, seeing the real footage makes you appreciate the lengths HBO went to portray things as accurately as possible, down to the smallest details. Conversely, seeing the HBO series makes you appreciate even more the bravery and heroism shown here.
May all the Liquidators(and everyone involved in the clean up) be remembered for all time.
When you realise what these guys did the saying “lions led by donkeys” come to mind.
Before Chernobyl, liquidation always meant to break something, to eliminate, to destroy. After the accident, the word received a new life and meaning. A liquidator became a person who rescued people and living things. A person who creates. They were proud of this, and put their souls into the work.
hahaha maybe in the simple language of english. but in french where this word originate it doesnt mean that at all. it only means to get rid of something. the original world "liquidateur" in french come from liquidazione from italian that mean to sell at low price.
@@Francois_Dupont lol yea thats how I've always understood it too
@@Francois_Dupont it means the same in russian actually
Before Chernobyl, "liquidation" in Soviet Union meant sending the kulak to the gulag
I've lived in Russia my whole life and have heard the term "liquidation" thousands of times. It still has multiple meanings, but in most cases means eliminating/getting rid of something/somebody. I've never heard somebody refer to a person who creates or rescues people as "liquidator". Even when we talk about Chernobyl, a liquidator is understood as a person who helps to get rid of the radioactive materials.
I appreciate the serious manner you address the issue with. This is not a subject that should be exploited for clicks/ratings, or to score cheap political/social points..The men involved deserve to be remembered and their efforts, and the cost of their efforts, known to the world.
William Byrd j agree completely. This video is a wonderful and respectful tribute to the brave souls who made the ultimate sacrifice. May their courage never be forgotten.
may they rest in peace
Yeah. Makes you wonder how bad it's effects on the rest of the world might have been had it just been abandoned and left to burn out by itself. On that note, we're all lucky it was safe enough to get it contained,even if it did cost many lives. We can never be sure that an incident will never happen that creates so much danger that nobody can get near enough to stop it..Then we're all done for. These places have no place in the current day and age and must be stopped, before something uncontainable happens
General Tarakanov is still alive at the age of 80+ but he takes many pills because of the radiation. He likes the HBO Chernobyl.
Edit: I just received a reply notification tonight and did not expect to have 1.3k+ likes. Thank you for recognizing my comment.
jien1988 he seems like a good enough dude
Also, Putin refuses to pay him, and he's in a long argument with the state...
@@anthonyminarik1962 Yeah he looks like the kind of leader that men would follow into Hell. And they did!
He said he almost fell in love with Ralph Ineson’s portrayal of him
jien1988 did you mean the guy wear a glasses?
"...But all the machines failed, as the radiation corroded its circuitry, therefore forcing the the clean up crew to use man power..." let that sink in
It made me distraught watching that part
The fuck does it want now?
I let him in once. Big mistake
Why didn't they use brooms surely they would've gotten much debris off the side of the roof then shovels
@@AirQuotes Have you ever broomed thick layer of debris with 10kg chunks of graphite?
@@AirQuotes it isnt all fucking dust, its whole chunks that weigh 5 to probably even 20kg
😢 may god bless all of you liquidators.
You guys are real heroes..
Indeed! 😢❤
Asif Talpur .........
@@xenomorphyongaming61 a man's gotta eat 😢
This is just one example of humans uses other humans like were dog shit. Really scary we can be this dumb and awfully evil
@Kin yoshida you can't be a communist and a hero.
A few days after the disaster it rained in Yorkshire England. I took a Geiger counter outside and pointed it to rain puddles, the radiation was well above the norm. Though the instrument was only looking at very low levels of radiation it peaked off scale. Just think what could have been if these poor people were not there. We owe them so much, RIP.
Madness
i call bullshit xD people on the internet say whatever dumb shit they wanna say nowadays. hey, im the kid of elon musk, my net worth is 123 million and i went to the moon secretly 3 times on spacex rockets!
My uncle was a liquidator, working there for about 3 months. He told me that at some stage liquidators were given dosimeters to carry with them all the time. The idea was that a person would be sent back home when the absorbed radiation reached certain level. He also told me that there was a kind of black market there where some people would pay money for their dosimeter to be taken by somebody else to a more radioactive place and left there for some time. Obviously this would increase the dosimeter's reading meaning that a person would be sent home earlier. Another thing I remember him telling is that liquidators were forbidden to have kids. At the time he had a young son and his wife wanted a daughter, but they decided not to risk it.
“...to deal with the fallout.”
Very rarely does that phrase contextually apply both figuratively AND literally...
Ted Mosby????
Funny thing that after the HBO show, everyone is doing Chernobyl-related videos...
Yes indeed, although I love this UA-cam channel I find it insulting that so many idiots that had access to Wikipedia hadn't even bothered to read about the Chernobyl disaster. Then HBO make a drama about it and they think every minor detail in it is factually accurate or a new revelation.
Most people don't deserve smartphones.
I'm amazed that an already popular and well known subject has gotten such a resurgence.
And I'm loving every minute of it.
Gotta cash in on disasters and people's death while the getting is good.
The more who know about it the better.
“(…) all the machines failed, as the radiation correded and destroyed their electronic circuitry”.
Let’s do it by hand!
No choice at that point unfortunately
Somebody had to do it
Misha Korol May they rest in peace.
Any other suggestions?
*biorobots have entered the chat*
Some really brave shit these people did. Honestly some real balls here
Very. Honestly I wish I could say I would do the same however if it truly came down to it I don't think I could.
I'm sure the threat of the state destroying your life and your family's life for refusing to do your job was enough to keep you on task. Communism has its ways of motivating people, even if it means walking into certain death.
Radioactive balls
Not really considering this was still communist Russia and you didnt have much choice.
When you're not told of the severity of the situation, and not given a choice whatsoever
I was living in Germany when this happened. 11 years old. I had NO idea that any of this was happening at that time. So insane to go back now and learn all about what happened.
Well done. I was in the USAF during that time. We all watched closely, often in classified briefings, as this work went on. Our hearts went out to the people forced to endure this event.
Force to is a bit insult most of them did willingly
@@OSTemli I think the context of his post flew over your head guy.
Forced is a bit insult....LOL hey buddy ur Russia is showing....don't worry the USSR is dead so u don't have to lie for the state anymore....funny how Chernobyl is mentioned and waves of sad Soviets flock to keyboards to defend the "honor" of mother Russia
@@doesntmatter4477 he's not simping for the state, it's honor to the men that had to endure the situation. These people are modern heroes.
@@OSTemli just like ukraine nowadays, most people did not want to do it. they have no choice, in USSR your only options were "yes" or die.
“Somebody has to do it.”
God bless the liquidators and everyone who had to suffer the consequences of the disaster of Chernobyl.
I swear to god...
You could narrate an ingredients list from my grandma's cookbook and I would think it was somehow historical and deadly.
Yeah I'd watch that
Grandma's famous Uranium-234 cookies.
My grandfather was one of the first firefighters on the scene he was 26 on that day the week before was his birthday he died in 2005 he is my hero to me and Ukraine I will never forget his bravery every time I go to Chernobyl I have this Erie feeling that his spirit is with me the whole Journey
So hang on...how old are you? Your grandfather was 26 in 1986, say he had your parent a year later and then they had you when they were 20, that makes you 13....and you've been to Chernobyl...."multiple times". Suddenly I don't believe you.
@@uhejnjd They may very well be speaking about a great grandfather. Many people refer to their great grandparents as grandfather and grandmother while referring to their parents parents as grandma and grandpa.
@@uhejnjd I didn't know him he died in 2005 and I was born in 2005 I'm 16 now
@@dizzypenguin6509 yes especially in eastern European culture we either say Бабуся or Дідусь
And Putin is threatening nuclear war…
All those men didn’t know how bad radiation was.
Oh, they knew alright. We had civil defence drills regularly at work, even had inter-company competitions. Everyone knew.
thats messed up man
Didn’t even get a Geiger counter
@Old Blue Witch
Are you sure? -Probably they weren’t told, that they probably die a horrible death within months. -Skin peeling off.
How much could they know, without a TV, when nuclear was so secretive.
Some nationalist call, bottles of vodka and empty promises and you could find some liquidators, probably even today.
I really doubt officials were honest. If only the UdSSR could, Chernobyl would have stayed a secret. A town that never existed.
In the end, they could just force them to liquidate or take away their apartments.
But probably people didn’t know enough, about radiation. Beautiful blue tscherenkov radiation. Beautiful gray ash. Like snow.
Most of the spectators watching the spectacle from a bridge died.
The fireman didn’t know about radiation as well.
The reactors were considered totally safe. As safe as the titanic was unsinkable.
@Old Blue Witch
Do you have any ideas how to improve comments in other ways?
These unknown men are true heroes. I can't imagine doing what they had to do. And I say that as a former US Army soldier. I know what it's like to take and give orders. These men had courage. God bless them.
9:47
They look so happy, it warms my heart. The sign says "the government's mission accomplished"
My dad was there, got to be on the roof of the 4block several times, he is 67 now and pretty healthy(fingers crossed) I was very young but I remember that night when around 4am we got a knock on the door and he was given enough time to get his stuff. after being on a freight train for several days he arrived in Ukraine. I saw him again around December that year.
If this is true u are 1 of the very very lucky one's
Respect from 🇺🇸 Your father great man
@@scottrobinson2286 thank you sir!
that’s insane!
Respekt from Germany!
Imagine waiting for your son/father/brother to come back safely from that roof cleaning. I can't even imagine what those people went through. I really admire them.
I was one of them...
James Rogers says that with one of the most non Slavic names I’ve ever seen
yeah sure @@AnatolyDyatolov
The footage of the guys running out onto the roof to throw debris over the edge is one of the most haunting bits of footage I've seen.
HEY! Most don't know reactors 1, 2, and 3 still were up and running and staffed.
Last was shutdown in 2000 or so
Yes, they were always staffed, but 3 was shutdown hours after the 86 explosion and 1 and 2 were shutdown 24 hours later. 3 was finally shut down in 2000 since running since late 1986 after the accident. 1 had a partial meltdown September 9, 1982 and was up again 8 months later. Reactor 2 had a turbogenerator fire in 1991 and never restarted for political reasons. In 2013 the pump that raises cooling water up to a pond at the plant was finally shut down. The pond will eventually evaporate. Chernobyl #5 and #6 were approaching completion, one of them was at 70% complete and was used to train the liquidators how to work with the nuclear fuel and graphite blocks. Numbers 1 and 3 literally meters from #4 cranked out power for Ukraine for decades. For all the safety issues, the RBMK-1000 did allow a lot of power generation.
@@hoghogwild Thank you for this explanation - really apprecaite it. I was not aware.
And people still have to work there. Nuclear plant itself doesnt make power to the public, but it still needs constant maintenance and supervision. Same thing all around the world.
As an American, I look to these people as the heroes they are and were. I don't care what history our nations have... Bravery and selflessness transcends politicial ideals and borders. These people were heroes and they should always be recognized as such.
I've been doing alot of research on this lately, thanks for doing this! Puts alot of perspective on the unsung heroes most people know nothing about.
Like the man who saved the world...
im so pleased they made the series, its an easier way people can know about the heros and the event itself.
"SOMEBODY HAD TO DO IT" mighty strong 💪 words!
Love & respect from 🇺🇸 USA
Respect from- you know
This is the most American comment I've seen
A weird person on the internet Okay but that’s the truth
"If not us, then who?"
A weird person on the internet a comment praising soviet workers is the most american comment???
"Every lie told incurs a debt to the truth. Eventually the debt must be repaid."
Edit: thanks for the 1k likes :))
You're delusional.
Aren't we all?
My man made a whole ass UA-cam for that mini series
No, on average only 3.6 out of 15 000 are delusional.
@@pug5330 3.6, from the feedwater?
Every single one of the liquidators are heroes
90 seconds would have felt like an eternity for those men.
Sad part about all this is that the soviets were warned by accidents involving this exact same reactor in Lenigrad in 1975 and the Unit #1 at Chernobyl in 1981 showing the unstable characteristics that led to the Unit 4 accident. Political leadership so full of themselves and a military system so far away from accountability that they didn't care, one way or another. Then, this.
And then they USSR government tried to hide it initially. Radiation sensors across Europe were sensing high readings, and the Russian government was saying “really?? That is weird, but Chernobyl is fine…nothing up here.”
The real cause is far different. Whoever did the testing was quite dumb and incompetent, as he disabled at least two safety systems that should NEVER be disabled! The design of the reactor was bullshit, as it didn't had a safety shell on the outside to prevent massive leaking of radiation. They were also ignorant to the fact that the safety rods were not optimal and that the reactor was being overutilized by additional input power.
Glory to the fallen, may their faces never be forgotten.
The world owes a tremendous amount of gratitude and respect to these brave men that willingly and unwillingly answered the call of such a terrible catastrophe. God bless all of these men, may they rest in peace.
Im happy that HBO brought all this extra attention to the Chernobyl melt down. This has been one of favorite subjects for years and now many great channels are making great content about it. Of coarse Dark5 and DarkDocs are my favorite.
The King Trump is very similar to Dyatlov in character: an incompetent, narcissistic person who is incapable of understanding the complexities of their actions.
Alex Baldwin. Why do even supposedly informed programmes and people, constantly refer to Chernobyl #4 as a 'Meltdown'? You have obviously heard the term used with respect to TMI in 1979 and Fukushima Daiichi in 2011, but Chernobyl was NOT, repeat not, a meltdown in the accepted sense of the word. It was a phucking explosion. It was unique to nuclear accidents and probably unique to RBMK, low power density reactors, never built outside the old Soviet block. Do try to keep up.
Roger Whittle Chernobyl definitely was a meltdown. There are still 2 tons of corium in the reactor.
@@aceyage The accepted definition of 'meltdown' is what happened at TMI # 1 and (I think) at least three of the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi. There was a classic LOC (loss of coolant accident) which meant the core was uncovered, temperatures rose to the point where the fuel and cladding began to melt and the reactor was damaged beyond repair. In all cases however, the control rods were already fully in to the core, dampening criticality. The meltdown was, of course, dangerous and could, in theory, melt through the bottom of the reactor vessel. In both cases the superheated fuel cladding interacted with any remaining water and formed hydrogen.
At TMI the operators managed to bleed off the hydrogen and avoid an explosion. At Fukushima they weren't so lucky and, in three cases, the water/cladding interaction formed hydrogen which operators could not control and there were explosions. These were in the containment - which was damaged (breached) - but not in the reactor vessel which remained intact.
At Chernobyl, the 'positive void coefficient' increased the reaction when the operators expected it to decrease. First there was a steam explosion which prevented the control rods from descending and opened up the vessel, where upon the increasing reaction - nuclear reaction - rose rapidly to some 30,000 Mw thermal. This was more than ten times the rated maximum and the melted fuel/cladding/moderators vapourised and blew much of the core out of the vessel in a massive and lethal explosion.
Yes, the materials of the core were 'melted', but the mechanism was entirely different to what is generally accepted as 'meltdown.' It is thus erroneous and confusing to use the term.
Roger Whittle I think you are getting caught up in semantics. No nuclear scientist would deny that Chernobyl was an explosion, then followed by a meltdown due to the enormous tempatures. If I remember right about 75% of the material was spit out. So yes, not a full meltdown, like Fukushima, but definitely a partial one.
I can count the times i've been at chernobyl on my fingers, 13 times
Ha I got 16 noob
@@AeroZeppelin-rb4pt ha i got a new hand to count on beat that
Kek
@@goat5815 that only makes it 15 he still has one more....
Classic.
500ton cap. Blown off. Jesus. Thats a lot of weight.
*HEAVY LIKE B I G B O O M*
My father died @ 61 and did time in Chernobyl. The amount of pills he took, he also had type 3 diabetes, was insane.
The pills were taken due to the effects of radiation?
@@anna.318 After, when he faced all the medical issues what came with it, but You can say because of the effects of rads, Later in life.
Wow your dad invented a new type of diabetes? I think you mean he had both 1 And 2. Plus if he was a liquidator, no amount of pills could've saved him
@@Joseph-mw2rl not every liquidator died
@@Joseph-mw2rl don’t be disrespectful, he had more courage than you could ever muster
"50,000 people use to live here.
Now it's a ghost town."
Chernobyl.
Christmas for the bad guys.
Ok capt price
Wow I never heard that before on the other 5000 Chernobyl videos!!! You're so funny and original thanks for sharing!!
Look at Raqqa or other places In The Middle East tell me it’s worse
All the pubs are being closed down...
if they were fraction as efficient at running the plant as they were in the cleanup... there would never have been a nuclear disaster. What an amazing effort to clear it up... and the sacrifice.
While the reactor design had inherent flaws, the cause was a DELIBERATE experiment, where specified safety protocol was willfully violated. One of the senior personnel felt he knew how to control a shutdown better than the manuals specified and commanded procedures that lead to the explosion. He was jailed for a while, but not executed.
The pain these men must have went through is unthinkable.
Radiation is a quiet killer. They probably didn’t suffer too much pain. Atleast before the vomiting and suffocating
They didn’t just protect there country they Protected the world / maybe? /
Let’s not forget the three men that went into the flooded reactor building’s basement to stop a potential second explosion, and were only given two weeks to live.
Two of them are still alive today.
Link please?
general tarkanov, who commanded the liquidators, said that the miners never worked naked, although it is disputed. for the purposes of a documentary, I wouldn't outright say they mined naked
I read somewhere that the Russian term for "naked" doesn't mean completely naked but it could mean stripped down to their undies.
Kaiser Wilhelm II He said they stripped down but not completely naked. Probably a few in their underwear. Then a group with no shirts. Some still fully clothed. That’s my theory and makes sense between the two extremes which is everyone butt naked or everyone still fully clothed
In an Interview with two of the miners they said, that they never worked naked. This was made up by HBO.
First Last right lol there not that stupid too put there full body at risk of radiation and what ever else is down there 🤣
To be honest, it probably didn't matter.
@@adamandannadaddy2151 eeehm.. that is exactly what they did..
You think a sweater protects them?
So all those video image of them not wearing mask and shirtless is hoax??
So, two miners spoke for all of the others? Huh.
I was part of the team that observed the event and the following cleanup via "the eyes in the sky". As part of Naval Intel, it was our mission to monitor and report up to the minute progress of the event to our chain of command which was used to filter the facts to the western world.
Most notable were the hundreds of Helo pilots who appeared to commit suicide attempting to extinguish the melt-down. I recall seeing their open-faced flight helmets as they stuck their heads out to aim at the drop zone. Most were dead within 30-days of their mission after receiving prolonged direct exposure from 100 feet above...
Ten years after the event, I was honored to meet and photograph a child who was born at the scene the day following the incident. She was brought to the US to seek special medical attention as a result of her exposure.
say what you will about the whole thing, but one thing is certain: they made a huge effort to get a grip on it. they threw everything at it including the kitchen sink.....
They were incredibly brave. Dying from acute radiation sickness is one of the most horrible ways you could die.
Respect to these guys, I hope those who did die rest in peace.
We constantly think of the Chernobyl incident as something big and scary and haunting almost, with a “ghost story” kind of feel, but when we watch videos like this we see normal people, trying to save their homes. We think of it as a horror story or a ghost story with a big scary monster, but it was just an accident that regular people responded to…and that is kind of mind blowing.
Yes but it wasn't an accident, it was a failed test that could be prevented.
This one disaster destroyed the soviet union to the point of collapse. That is the power of just one small nuclear disaster. I truly hope nuclear war will never happen because that would just be the worst thing
It was a lot more than just Chernobyl that ended the USSR, it was sort of doomed by its internal politics, Chernobyl is more the symptom, not the disease.
kauske well said.
Skinny D look up leaking nuclear power plants - you’ll see it’s already a problem world wide - then ad in Fukushima and then you’ll see we’re fuked.
Not really a small nuclear disaster
I wouldn't call Chernobyl a small disaster. The wind carried the radiation from Ukraine to Europe to the Americas. Causing mass cancers today. We know it.
I remember the year that this happened. in January the Challenger blew up on live TV and three months later Chernobyl happened. I was in the 6th grade so I didn't know a lot about what was going on but I do remember that my school was a fallout shelter. We started doing something like a fire drill but for radiation just in case it made it to us.
Jeff Siers I remember we were told not to eat vegetables from our own gardens, here in The Netherlands, because of the fall-out cloud passing over western Europe.
Thanks for that story very neat info
I too was in 6th grade as well. Hard to believe it’s been that long ago, or how quickly things have changed within that that time table!
This is THE nightmare of our modern times. And yes, god bless these people that for more or less were forced into this deadly task.
Blu Crystl nuclear is still the one of the safest kinds of power even including the deaths of Chernobyl and Fukushima
Blu Crystl depleted uranium is stored in secure vaults underground while coal, oil etc is directly pumped in the air you breathe which have caused much more cancer cases and deaths then nuclear power ever has. And if you think nuclear power is obsolete you should probably go live in France. I will not pay 100 percent of the costs associated with nuclear power simply because I don’t have the money for it. We need enough electricity everyone’s needs. I live in Lebanon, a country that has blackouts every day for 8 hours simply because we have to rely on old obsolete coal power plants which also cause huge cancer cases.
Blu Crystl and btw here you can see why nuclear power plants are much cheaper then coal and oil in the long run ua-cam.com/video/UC_BCz0pzMw/v-deo.html
@Blu Crystl so many logical fallacies in your argument that I don't think you can be helped.
@Blu Crystl yes, someone does, and that's you. You haven't given any evidence to prove your claim, so you're just providing logical fallacies.
People of that era: somebody had to do it.
People of today: can't somebody else do it?
People of that era: just point the way and I will do anything you say because you cannot be wrong
People of today: let me know the full facts so I know what I am getting into, what the hazards are, how the risks are managed and how we can deal with this safer and better.
@@DavidOwen1978
People of that era: yes, I'm going to take the vaccine, because I feel sympathic to the people who have died and those who have survived with sometimes horrific sequelae. I trust the experts who have been doing scientific research for most of their lives and I want to contribute to the greater good of all people.
People of today: I might take the vaccine someday but first I will do my own "research" (to know what I'm getting into, what the hazards are, how the risks are managed and how we can deal with this safer and better). I will do this on my spare time and my sources are youtube and other social media, because I don't trust the experts that have been doing scientific research for a living, for most of their lives and I really don't care how this affects other people.
Why is it that we don't have a world holiday to celebrate the sacrifices of these people!
Good question! Well why don't you yourself just go ahead and start a brand new holiday!!
Everyone who helped clean up Chernobyl was brave but the liquidators who voluntarily charged into the mouth of hell to clean up this radioactive mess have bigger stones than just about anyone. Many of them are in their 50's now but have health problems comparable to those of people in their 80's.
Being a liquidator was the ultimate sacrifice R.I.P. they will never be forgotten for being full blown heroes and putting the well being of others ahead of themselves 🙌
How is that building not collapsing with the weight of such massiv balls 6:13
This brings me to tears. The thought of these brave men and women going into land that looks safe and clean knowing that an invisible force could kill them at any second.... I can't imagine it at all....I can't imagine getting that order....having to sleep under the shadow of that place while you cleaned up, burnt forests, killed animals, destroyed perfectly good looking food or run onto a roof and have 90 seconds to move rubble....
I saw the mini series on SKY for this and even still seeing the actual footage I can't even get it through my head what these people had to go through. The fact machines had to be buried within weeks of use....
Its such a scary event to this day
The USSR and the RF are always painted as "the bad guy" in games and film. Yet here they saved the world. To the men and women of the Soviet Union and the Liquidators of Chenyobl. I salute you for your sacrifice for humanity and this planet.
As an American during the cold war, I was taught Russians were evil, brutish people obsessed with our destruction. As an adult I have been able to meet many who have immigrated. They are a deeply kind, moral people who have been tempered to steel by hardship. I feel true admiration for them as a people. I long for a world where lies are no longer tolerated as a necessary part of human interaction.
The morally bankrupt fatcats at the top of a hierarchy (government) are the ones to blame, because they control the media and by extension, your opinion. The government can do good too however... would liquidators do the job they did if the government didn't call upon them en masse?
It is hard to believe what these men did. I had nuclear material nearly every day. Small amount, heavy shielded, dosimitry badge and cases for the tools. There is always risk with the material but the men of Chernobyl, k19, k119 and Fukashima are another breed. Nuclear is a great tool, but has a double edge. Power is to be respected.
Chernobyl was caused due to the lack of a protective shield which contains the nuclear fuel and preventing a catastrophe seen of that scale.
Nuclear power is you get what you paid for. Be cheap and you'll run to problems faster than anything ever imaginable.
When you look at other forms of power, they can be just as nasty, even worse. For coal, look no further than the great smog of london, one turn of the weather and coal fumes killed thousands and ruined the lives of so many more. Gasoline? Look at what happened to LA, they has smog so bad it was lethal as well. Someone once messed up in Pensyvania in the US in a coal mine, decades later, it's still burning and has turned the area into a hell on earth that cannot be inhabited. It will keep burning, likely for centuries, and nothing can stop it.
No energy method is truly safe, even with solar, those panels and batteries eventually wear out and become extremely hazardous waste. Wind probably has the best track record, but the areas wind farms are built end up ecologically devastated. Track-record wise, nuclear energy is just about the safest. You can count the major incidents on one hand from roughly 70 years worth of nuclear energy. Aside from wind, the overall cost of other methods is so high it cannot be reasonably expressed.
cmdr corp ❤️
@@kauske Nuclear Energy is not safe. Anybody can build a nuclear reactor. However it's the safety measures that insures it won't destroy an entire ecosystem and to an extent a chunk of a continent.
Statistically speaking, it's safer than just about everything else, save for wind power. Solar might not be so nasty, if we didn't ship E-waste to countries where they burn it for valuable metals and pollute their drinking water. But the amount of deaths from nuclear incidents is pretty tiny in the grand scheme of energy related disasters.
Love this channel, please do more of Chernobyl! I'm obsessed with learning about this.
There are hours and hours of documentaries on UA-cam. I've pretty much seen them all several times, most of them are really good. It's amazing how much info is available today, when the event happened it was shrouded in secrecy. The USSR didn't say a word about it. I believe it was actually Sweden that first detected the radiation cloud covering most of Europe. I would really like to see something about the political and diplomatic action behind the scenes during the catastrophe on both sides of the Iron Curtain. That reactor certainly wasn't the only thing melting down.
Read Midnight in Chernobyl. Excellent book.
Get a TI-84 manual
Then why don't you read about it? I know, because translating all the latter's into an own opinion is kind of hard I guess... Ridiculous.
Indeed, these heroes must be remembered forever
Thank you for telling their story. I knew it was a huge project but never thought of the sheer scope of all the tasks that had to be completed and had no idea that it was likely more than 400,000 people who did the work.
One of the liquidators said, "somebody had to do it." Well, it should have been those responsible for approving, planning, design and management of the reactor.
@Blu Crystl well, if you're that wise, why don't you tell us why the world is still using so much coal when even nuclear is obsolete.
@Blu Crystl what's is it? Tesla?
@Blu Crystl Nikola Tesla creator of AC current? Also was developing a way to transfer unlimited energy wirelessly by working with the earth's own ionosphere. Thank JP Morgan and friends for killing that. How about Stan Myers? He invented a car that he drove across america using only water as fuel. He died not too long after. His brother claimed he was poisoned.
@Blu Crystl all I was asking is what technology has made nuclear power obsolete? I think nuclear energy is our curse. All you're giving me are these wierd esoteric questions instead of an answer.
Ahh the reservists.. No matter which country, always in the meat grinder.. 🙃
@Headtrix 1652 As with all things I think it's not that black and white...you need a certain amount of bravery to do really stupid things...
That's the point of them. To face anything and everything that needs to be done. It something we all need to have prepared so the rest of us can continue.
Lol!
True. I've seen Rambo First Blood.
@WolraadWoltemade 1652 well brave did you wathc the video? alot volunteered ,my guess out of duty and help to your fellow worker these values were very prevelant in the ussr
This is absolutely the best Chernobyl video that I have ever seen. Well done.
Jajaja you have no seen many
This is so sad. My great great uncle was a liquidator there, he was in the army and got taken there to liquidate the disaster. He sadly died after the disaster, he was very young.
The Liquidators plight appears very similar to the 911 firefighters & other first responders...
Thank you. That is a great analogy. Both are true heroes who sacrificed themselves for strangers.
@@gregorybowe9383 Exactly, the Liquidators knew the Risks and Volunteered Anyway...
except one knew the dangers and the others didn't
Not even a close comparison. These guys are either all dead or suffer a slow death throughout the rest of their life. Its downplaying the liquidators suffering immenesly to ckmpare it with 911 first responders
@Victor Korgoth Is still nothing compared with radiation. Also firefighters were doing their job, while many liquidators were forced
I refer to them as "Gods soldiers" or "The army from above" due to their heroics, some were forced but those that volunteered were responsible for tons of lives being saved, they knew they would die and run into death. They did it for country. "You cannot surrender against an invisible mass genocider, nor can you retreat. You shall fight and be remembered" This is my personal motto for them, god bless them and their families.
My grandmother lived really near Chernobyl, my mother lived further away from it because my grandmother moved away from it after the incident, but she was born and has some problem with her elbows that makes the skin there turn bright red and get spots, only started appearing when she was 17 and she got it checked out, due to the radiation my grandmother had been through due to living near Chernobyl, it seems when she had my mother the radiation ended up giving a lot of the people on my mothers side of the family this same effect, just in different areas of the body, I hope I dont get it because she has to do all sorts for her elbows
The thought of doing that roof shovelling sends a chill down my spine
Despite the lack of transparency of their government still they managed to pull off a lot of essential frontliners in order to get this job done
@Suljo Omeragic dude i only mentioned the soviet not the americans
@@ralpjosephjavelosa7451 what did he say?
The cousin of my father was one of them, he has a daughter, grandchildren and still alive. Lucky Af.
The Liquidators are the reason why millions more did not die. Respect to the liquidators and their heroic efforts to save us all!
These men risked their lives to save Europe and whole world from massive radioactive poisoning.These are the true heroes.