Slashdot Mirror
Chernobyl...18 Years Later
abysmilliard writes "A young Ukrainian woman has posted a photo journal of her motorcycle rides through Chernobyl and the area surrounding it. Included are pictures of the now-emptied city, maps of current radiation levels, and a discussion of how the area has changed. While the english is quite broken, it's often rather surreal, as well, with quotes like, 'I don't know how sound the silence to those tourists that they can not stand it, but to me after hitting a red line on my bike tacho it sound like all those ghosts cursing 1100cc kawasaki engin.'"
The essay was absolutely amazing. The surreal description is perfect, reminding me of apocalyptic movies of the 80's and describing what I imagined the world looking like in the RPG Gamma World. Abandoned buildings as people left them, houses falling apart, yet seeing scenes of prezwalski looking horses crossing a stream.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
I read this, and I look at the pictures, and all I can think, numbly, is "...holy shit..."
'If you're flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit.'
This is quite scary and fascinating at the same time.
First of all, this should very much be an example of the terrors, not of nuclear power per se, but of nuclear war.
With a war-happy president, this is all the more scary.
On the other hand, wouldn't it be terrible and exciting at the same time to ride through these places?
If I make enough money when I grow up (being barely of voting age) I might do that one day. Affermation of my anti-war beliefs, strange sci-fi fanboy fantasy, who knows...
Amazing.
It was science.. It still is. It shows what happens when you don't respect what power these things truly have -- or to reword it, shows you that you should always respect something that you barely have under control.
I've left to find myself. If you happen to see me, please, keep me there until I return.
The disaster was a damn good example of bad mix of technology, science and politics. Boy, don't we have plenty of that in the U.S.
Not to meantion that the system had little to no foresight that humans would be using it. When it started overheating the alarms went off full steam and the workers got scared and threw all of the rods into the core. (The rods are supposed to slow down the reaction.) Well, since the core was so hot, the rods started reacting inside of the reactor and _increased_ the temperature.
The moral of this story is that there is no moral. All great system failures or any other "big" event never is caused by the apparent singular event right before the shit hit the fan.
I've been to Ukraine 3 times in the past 2 years: my gf is of Ukrainian extraction. Chernobyl is a name to conjure demons with there. Even more so than in the West. What's even scarier is that the Ukrainian government's denial over the state that it is in. They still are running at least a couple of the reactors and they are not being terribly maintained. The Russians came out stating that the buildings that the reactors are in are about to collapse...yet the Ukrainian government is unwilling to shut the place down.
Expect a sequel there, folks, and it's gonna be just as ugly if not worse. To make matters even more horrifying, based on the behavior of the Ukrainian government, the people are going to be informed through western sources long before, but far too late even so, that anything wrong is happening there when it does.
Note I say when, not if. I really mean it too.
Do you know why the road less traveled by is littered with the bones of the unwary?
I can't believe some girl's photo album was the single greatest link I have ever read off slashdot. And it wasn't even M$ or SCO related. Incredible.
I am not exactly sure, but there must have been some combination of bright light and higher energy radiation. From a retinal vision perspective, all one would need to do would be to activate opsins and this could easily be imagined happening with all of the high energy particles being emitted by the bomb.
Also, a quick google search reveals that others have relayed the same experience.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
I realize this might be slightly off-topic, since I don't think this article really discusses the any of the dangers/merits (or lack thereof) of nuclear power in the first place. However, I know that all the same, some people are going to try to bring it up, so before anyone starts trolling about how dangerous nuclear power is, I just thought I'd point out:
1) Chernobyl was based on very old technology. Nuclear power is much safer today.
2) France gets >80% of its power from nuclear sources. Nuclear power is one of the cleanest sources of energy in the world. (I have nothing against fossil fuels, either--at the moment NOTHING has proven as economical. But I do think ultimately, we will have to find alternatives, and nuclear power is certainly a viable option.)
3) It is my opinion that the worst part of Chernobyl was the way the communist regime tried to keep it a secret, until they found out that it was just so big they simply couldn't keep it a secret anymore. Sure, many other governments in the world (and I am NOT naming any ones in particular) have also been forced to fess up to things later, but that is NOT an excuse. The Russian government was truly evil, and I will not retract that statement, as long as I live.
Because, one day, we are going to run out of fossil fuels, and one day, our energy needs will be greater than that possible by covering the available areas of the Earth with solar energy collectors.
Nuclear power is dirty, but... unless we use and research it NOW, it'll always stay dirty. Coal plants, while still emitting pollution, are MUCH more efficient and much LESS polluting than they were 50 years ago.
If it's not down now, it will be soon.
Should he go save the pics after the site is dead?
That this was the most eye opening thing I have seen linked on /. in a long time. Really makes all the SCO and Ipod stuff seem kinda small. I mean that was one of the most surreal things I have experienced in a long time.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
This is a site worth mirroring. It's a history lesson. 50-100-500 years from now, people will be referring to archives of that sight to give people an impression of what Chernobyl did.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
You don't need to prove a link. Your story says enough.
I'll say a prayer for your wife tonight.
Peace,
wbs.
Huh?
But what do we do with the waste produced by nuclear fission plants?
Block off a few square miles and store it. That's all it takes. The amount of nuclear waste generated is miniscule compared to the amount of other types of waste that we don't think about twice. The whole "what do we do with nuclear waste" thing is way overblown.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
Wow, welcome to the 1940's. Where have you been in this last half century? I'd say the furious over-regulation by governments world-wide is unbelievable. For instance, I now have to recycle the few micro-grams of mercury contained in fluorescent lamps and batteries. Do you know what's the biggest cause of cancer in humans due to chemicals? Salt. Sodium chloride, that is. Do you know what's the biggest cause of cancer due to radiation? Sunshine. Do you know what's the second biggest cause of cancer after tobacco? Obesity. Don't believe my words, ask any oncologist. No, the biggest environmental threat to humans isn't either radiation or chemicals, it's ignorance, stupidity, and paranoia.
Exactly, this is what the WWW was great for back in the day. When I set up my first "homepage" on geocities back in 96 or 97 people would e-mail and say how they enjoyed it... I have actually searched google for a tour of the now deserted Chernobyl, b/c a friend in the Marines got to visit there once. Her story and pictures are excellent...
Elliott Smith Tribute CD available now on Double D Records! Visit www.doubledrecords.com to order.
Naaa, this is Slashdot. The story has nothing to do with games, SCO, the latest video card benchmark, or esoteric science. Therefor, it should last fairly well.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
http://home.etria.com/files/kiddofspeed/page2.html
Wow, that's the most powerful thing I've seen on the internet in a long time.
Its actually the visible light, I have seen this effect many times at work, I was a plumber and pipefitter, when working on boilders or pipelines a guy would yell arcin, and if you were or had to be looking in that direction would close eyes and depending on the aperage and stick cover it with your hand, you could "see through" it sometimes , there was however one phenomena I never figured out maybe a slashdotter could help, during the same experience it was not uncommon to see your own retina, blood vessels and all for a very brief flash, I was not the only one to experience this, was it somehow reflecrting off the front inside of the eyeball due to the intense light ?
Nuclear FISSION is just as bad for the environment as Coal and Gas are. Do you know where the spent nuclear waste is? In the United States it gets packed in rusty barrels, which are then welded shut, and then the barrels are buried in the desert. The barrels are also beginning to get corroded and waste is starting to seep out. I'm not a fan of acid rain personally, but I'd find it difficult to justify contaimenating the ecosystem with three armed apes.
The waste is ALWAYS a byproduct of nuclear fission plants, the meltdown at Chernobyl is a damaging event, but it's also very rare.
We need to get fusion technology perfected, then we have no nuclear waste, and no chance of meltdown, just maybe a containment field collapsing and a ball of plasma burning for a few minutes. So let's make it cold fusion, then we're totally covered, since we'd rather harness the same power the sun uses, instead of harnessing all the power the sun radiates.
Learn something new.
"The whole "what do we do with nuclear waste" thing is way overblown."
No, it's not overblown at all. I can deal with a lot of things but this is one that I don't want in MY backyard!
It doesn't take much of this radioactive shit to cause a serious disaster. I agree with using something like Yuca Mt. to store it all in but even this has problems.
1) Transportation. Getting it there will be more than half the fun. What if there's an accident on the way in? Which town along the way will become the next Chernobyl?
2) Possible environmental consequences. Things like water table contamination are a real concern.
3) Natural disasters. A sudden earthquake or volcanic activity could certainly ruin your day.
Can you predict the future for 10,000+ years? That's how long a site would need to remain stable.
Of course, where it's all stored now is a bigger nightmare because it can hardly be protected - particularly from terrorists. Then there's the waste of the plants themselves. I haven't heard any real info on what to do with a decomissioned plant yet other than just 'leave it lay'. Not good at all.
I'm not nuke-phobic, but I am realistic about man - an imperfect being handling something that you simply CANNOT make a mistake about.
The sad thing is, this is hardly the first time this sort of thing has happened. I don't usually support Greenpeace, but check this info out about the city of Mayak since a nuclear disaster. These people still LIVE THERE! Some of the pictures in their image gallery are quite disturbing:
http://archive.greenpeace.org/mayak/index.html
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
it might just've been the light of the fire on the smoke or cloud bottoms.
A couple of months ago a magnesium recycling plant in ohio (i think) burned up. A town webcam was pointed in its direction, and despite being miles away, the sky looked as bright as day from the white light reflecting off the bottom of the clouds at 2 am. You could definiately say it was glowing.
or, it could actually have been the radiation ionizing the air (is this possible, nuclear physicists?). I seem to remember some descriptions of nuclear blasts causing purple glows in the air from radiation ionizing it.
-
Ditto. There are a number of great books describing exactly what happened. (It's amazing how much info never made the mainstream press even in the years following, even here in the West)
IMHO, they should be required reading in any engineering classes ( or, perhaps, in any and all high school classes) but the latter is not likely to happen..
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
There is something sad and beautiful about being to look into a land that has been poisoned and shut down from the other side of the world.
It is eerie that a beautiful young woman would be our guide. Eerie that she would chronicle this deadened scene for us to view while enjoying the freedom it gives her, well aware of the danger and of those who died and still suffer the effects of the worst nuclear disaster the world has ever known.
As I slouch back in my chair, well aware of the life around me in this chilly San Francisco evening, it becomes clear that sometimes the internet offers us too much.
Safe passage Lena.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
One can only acertain the feeling of nostalgia that dominates that site. We almost forget what the advances of modern civilization will inevitably become.
It reminds us that we will be consumed by our own creation, entropic in nature.
And also disturbing.
austintsmith.com
This double true.
She is, I am very certain, very fast moving on that ZX-11.
More so moving, I have perhaps never been so humbled as a human being as viewing her site. It should be praised. Insight into one of human kind's saddest tragedies that I rarely think one person has, and she can convey it to others so completely.
Thanks. I learned a lot more from her site than I expected to by following that link.
~8^]
[Shudders]
Shit... I watched that film in science at school... everyone spent the week beforehand getting all excited, because another class had seen it, and told us about how crazy it was.
For the second half, we had no teacher, because she'd gone to do anything but watch it... I don't think anybody ate that lunch time.
It's some scary, scary shit, but if you can handle that, well worth watching.
There was also one recently by the BBC about smallpox, which was disturbing, but not in quite such an extreme way.
I think "eat your bike" means that the chemicals are pretty corrosive.
I'm not so sure....IANAP but like to contemplate these things anyway :) if there is a physicist here and I'm wrong please correct me (us?).
Firstly, the citizens viewing the catastrophe from the roof apparently noted that "it was shining of radiation". I wish I could talk to a few of them to determine exactly what they meant by this but I would tend to think they wouldn't have made that bizzare characterization of what they saw if it was merely burning graphite on the ground.
Cherenkov radiation is not observed in air (you need particles with mass traveling with speed higher than the speed of light in given medium , and the optical density of air is low (close to vacuum), the particles would have to travel at speeds near to c - which are difficult to obtain because of relativistic effects. (You can get that from accelerators, but not from fission)
The beta particles coming from the aerosolized radioactive isotopes should be at least Mev scale which I would think is enough....no? Also the reactor was an RBMK design which when it exploded should have released a huge amount of steam (small water droplets) likely intensifying any cerenkov effect...
There is similar-looking bluish shine/flash around extremely strong sources, like criticality accident with Pu, U, or in nuclear explosion (the mushroom has bluish envelope). This shine is caused by intense ionisation of air molecules by radiation, mostly X-ray.
In the accounts I've read of the observed "purple glow" from a nuclear blast, it is usually attributed to the mushroom cloud, which after a couple of seconds must not emit much at all in the way of x-rays(I think x-rays are only emitted when the initial fission/explosion plasma is still extremely hot[blackbody radiation]). So if the blue glow is there during the mushroom cloud it is either Cerenkov or ionization by particle radiation coming from fast (intense) decaying isotopes in the air.
In the '40's there was a scientist at LosAlamos, Louis Slotin, who was doing a very foolish experiment to measure the criticality of a sphere of plutonium called "tickling the dragons tale" where beryllium hemispheres are slowly closed around a small core of Plutonium. Slotin slipped and the assembly went immediately critical releasing a large flux of beta particles. Slotin died, but not before noting a "blue flash" at the moment of criticality which may have been either Cerenkov radiation in the air or.. more likely in the jelly inside his eye which would have made it look like it was filling the room. So I still think the Cerenkov explanation is possible.....
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
Oh Christ, "Threads".
Don't remind me.
At around the same time one of the U.S. networks had a similar made-for-T.V. movie that was supposedly very controversial: "The Day After". However, it came off like an Irwin Allen disaster flick compared to Threads.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
Sorry to say this, but the fact that on such a story -- which is highly interesting and moving at the same time --, the first five comments are (+5, Funny) ones, makes me feel rather sad.
Anyway, these are great pictures. Most people have forgotten about Tchernobyl now -- I bet practically everyone thinks that life is just going on there normally by now. The pictures show us the dangers of working with nuclear energy -- one small mistake, and the whole region is doomed for a long time, far beyond the lifetime of a single human. If this doesn't teach us a lesson about safety and security, I don't know what will.
"There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone."
--Sara Teasdale
--"You can lead a man to knowledge, but you can't make him think."
Iraq had weapons of mass distruction, the USSR was an empire of evil ready to conquer the world.
Houston, we have a pattern.
Wenn ist das Nunstueck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.
this is to keep them from going insane from the silence.
A friend of mine once did some work in an anechoic chamber (no echoes, soundproofed from outside noise). His boss told him that people can start hallucinating from the sensory deprivation, and that he'd be back about every 20 minutes to check on him. Every 20 minutes, the guy actually did show up, he took it that seriously.
I personally haven't ever experienced silence like that. But sometimes in town here on winter nights, when the trees are bare and there's no traffic, it gets really quiet. Creepily quiet, because when you go outside you normally think of it as being a noisy place. Chernobyl is probably something like that, except *all the time*.
Yeah, me too. Stupid piss-taking jokes about an event that goes beyond the realm of experience of any one of the lives of a small group of people currently sitting on their ass in a comfy place, reading a website called
Prosperity does not give one the right to degrade another persons experience
And before anyone pulls out the ol' "get over it, its only a joke" excuse, let me just say that jokes have their time and place.
The Chernobyl incident was a completely different time, in a completely different place. If this site was hosted in Russia, and the jokes were about American disasters, how many of you would consider them to be flame-bait, or make a noise about how 'inappropriate' it is?
Ridicule aint no compliment, and it aint no reflection.
That said, I hope that the generations yet to come understand that the generation currently alive are sorry for what they did to the future, with Chernobyl.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Is it so? Tell me than, why my friends, relatives, friends of relatives, and relatives of friends have died or are dying because of cancer?
Whenever Chernobyl is mentioned, there are always those people eager to explain why it doesn't matter, because the same thing couldn't happen with more advanced reactors. Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure....
Of course the SAME thing couldn't happen. But other things could/will/do. Anyone who is an engineer knows that, as there simply are no perfect fail-safe systems.
Here in germany people were also priding themselves about their fail-safe reactors, especiually compared to Chernobyl. But then along came 9/11, and they wondered what would happen if a Jumbo Jet would crash on the nuclear power plant. No, the shielding wouldn't hold - the best idea they come up with now is to use fog bombs to make the plant invisible. Like that's going to make a difference with GPRS available.
You know, the nature of such catstrophies is that they come in a way nobody has thought of before. Of course Chernobyl has been analyzed over and over, and people won't make the SAME mistakes. But you bet they'll make OTHER mistakes. To deny that is just being in denial.
I know you're trying to make a political point, but it has been estimated that, although different radionuclides were released, the total radioactivity of the material from Chernobyl was 200 times that of the combined releases from the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I think what matters most is that more people died from it in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Even if the radioactivity was 200x less, it still was much more than enough to wipe out entire cities.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Pretty amazing stuff. The desertion so nearly complete. The suffering and loss of life. The fact that the evacuation was so late.
I found it strange that the tourists who went to the ghost town were disappointed that it was so quiet! I would have thought that was the point.
Great stuff! To be commended.
She did admit that radio-activity on the roads she travelled is still many times normal background. I hope her dad knows his safe doses well...
Posters recognized by their sig,
Exactly. Which is why our next reactors will have only infallible humans operating them.
Oh, wait.... our next reactors will have only infallible computers operating them.
Dang! Wait... our next computers will have only infallible humans programming them.
Wait...
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.
I live in sweden, we were too affected by chernobyl, I must say I find it very disturbing when people like you makes a comment like this about a non-native english speakers english, especially when the linked article is such a honest and sad story.
The moderators modding this up as funny are probably the same modding me down when I wonder why there are 1000+ people being kept without a trial in Cuba.
10 pages, but only 2 Mb in total size.
A sparse but informative site.
Net sa best, mar it koe minder
Ozymandias
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
I gather from your Web site that you are from the U.S.
Do you think that the September 11 attacks are a joking matter? Those attacks killed thousands; the effects of Chernobyl may have killed 300,000 if one accepts an estimate from a U.K. charity. The radiation of Chernobyl spread across multiple countries. -- I remember news reports reporting radiation tracked all the way to northern Finland ; radiation was tracked to Central Europe and the Mediterranean .
I entered college 90 minutes' drive east of Three Mile Island in the Fall of 1979. The campus was still on edge because of the accident and uncertainty about its long-term effects -- because weather can go from west to east there....
Links that may be useful rather than callously "funny:"Zeal.com search on Chernobyl
www.chernobyl.info English-language pages
Chernobyl Charities U.K. page on book Voices from Chernobyl
My uncle was a member of one of the first rescue teams that were sent to Chernobyl after the disaster. This might be slightly off topic, but if you think that the pictures of the empty city are disturbing, take a look at people who were there after the tragic event.
I hate a lot of things about my former country, the Soviet Union, and its leaders. One of the things that I hated the most was the fact that people were never told the truth. In May of 1986 my uncle was told that he had to go to Chernobyl to help patch things up. Since he was a memeber of an elite task team that was a part of chemical forces, a special unit within the Soviet Army, he had no other options. He went there in May and he spent some quality time there. His major task was to drive tons of cement to a helicopter that would drop it off on the damaged reactor.
The not-so-funny thing was that nobody who was in my uncle's shoes knew what was going on there. The superior officers, had to tweak radiation meters down so nobody could find out the real level of radiation. People did not have proper protection, tools to work with; moreover, the Soviet leaders did try to play things down a notch. Afterall, how could a superpower have a major disaster?
Out of all of my uncle's rescue team, only a dozen or so people are alive now. All of them are disabled. My uncle has problems with his eyes and due to this fact he had to quit his job: he was a professional photographer. The Ukranian government pays him a small pension, not enough to buy food for a week. His immune system got reduced down to 60% of what he used to have. Still, he's better than his son. My cousin's system is 40% of the normal level. I remember reading a newspaper about a woman who had to buy a bottle of vodka every day. She did it because her husband could not surive through pain without it. Just as my uncle, he was in Chernobyl trying to fix the Soviet problem without exposing it to the rest of the world. That guy was lucky. His kids had been born before he went to Chernobyl. You won't believe how many stories I've heard when people just wanted to die without pain and suffering.
Finally, here is a surprise for you. Chernobyl is not the only empty city. In fact, if you want to see more of them, you should travel to southern Belarus. See, due to the winds and the rain that happened right after the disaster, most of the radiation that escaped in Chernobyl ended up miles away in the neighboring state. In fact, Belarus recieved more damage than the Ukraine due to the wind pattern for that day. Most of the winds blew from the Ukraine straight into my motherland and the damage was done. I was lucky. Although I was in the rain that day, most of the radiation passed around my town. However, many towns received a solid amount of radiated water but the government did not do anything until it was late. As I said above, the government did everything it could to cover up the problem.
We were told to burn our clothing and take a shower. That is it. That was the f*cking Soviet solution to the problem. Months later dozens of small towns were evacuated. People left leaving everything behind in hopes that they would return. Return my ass. The only people who returned were either looters or bums who scored nice houses where they could live. Years later, after the Soviet regime had collapsed, some reporters were providing us with information places that were emptied out. Most of these places are still there. They are a real time machine. If you go there, you'll see pretty much everything as it was in late 80's. Pictures of those places are distrubing, but not as bad as pictures of kids with cancer or disabilities due to the Chernobyl disaster. As for me, I am afraid of having a child myself. Who knows what got inside of me during that f*cking rain... All I know is that some of my friends started to develop problems already.
Have a nice day.
To look at the pictures she has taken of the aftermath, the lives that were lost. I'm deeply disturbed, and saddened.
My hat is off to her and others that document this as a monument to those who lost their lives, their loved ones, and their homes. These people died needlessly at the hands of those that considered human life to be secondary to political goals.
In a time where we all worry about the possibility of a rogue nation, or a terrorist triggering a nuclear or "dirty" bomb, we need to look at this and be aware of the outcome.
May this tragedy never be repeated.
-dh
From the website: "People had to leave everything, from photos of their grandparents to cars. Their clothes, cash and passports has been changed by state authorities. This is incredible, people lived, had homes, country houses, garages, motorcyles, cars, money, friends and relatives, people had their life, each in own niche and then in a matter of hours this world fall in pieces and everything goes to dogs and after few hours trip with some army vehicle one stands under some shower, washing away radiation and then step in a new life, naked with no home, no friends, no money, no past and with very doubtful future"
I guess I must be a big pussy, but when I read that, it made me want to cry.
Also the part about the head doctor from the oncology hospital. He knew better than most any other people just what the fatal dose of radiation he had received was going to do to him, yet he must have kept working the best he could anyway until he himself died of cancer a mere 40 days later. Whew!
That ignores the fact that breeder reactors would never run out of fuel. If you consider the aggregate pollution of fossil-fuel plants I would expect their lifetime pollution to be equally hazardous as nuclear waste. Because its more diffuse, however, it seems to be accepted. Nuclear power, properly managed, can be safer in many respects.
Bush Lies On the Record.
The UN reports do address the quality of life and the impact this disaster had on 100,000's of people. Mostly the UN reports talk of the impact of the relocation and the fact there is insufficient money to help the population.
When I read the reports I looked for hard medical data on physical imparments. Other than the thyroid cancers, this seems to be not addressed. One might erronously conclude there really were only 40 or so people who died and that no one suffers from radation effects other than this small group.
I think it is really good to get the information out in the open. To me the UN report looks credible. But the personal accounts also look really credible and there seems to be a disconnect between them. It would be good to get more information.
As for the flora and fauna. Yes - the horses look quite happy actually. Is there evidence of mutation in the wild animals and plants in the area? How about physical effects? Still births? Premature death?
I'm sure the scientific community is doing research... hopefully they will publish it on slashdot or that someone from here will find it.
The WTC was designed to survive the impact of a 707. It probably would have, although they missed the effect that a massive paper fire would have on the denuded steel support columns, which is what brought the building down in the real world attack. However, it's a completely different type of survivability. WTC was not designed to have the airplane splatter against the walls, it was designed to absorb it and still have enough structure remaining to hold. The people on the affected floors get an express ticket to heaven. Despite the fact that the airplanes which hit the WTC were much larger than what the WTC was designed to withstand, the towers still managed to stay standing long enough for nearly everybody to evacuate.
Nuclear reactor containment domes, on the other hand, are designed to actually shield from an airplane impact. They don't just absorb it and survive, the airplane will not penetrate. This is a totally different degree of survivability. Not to mention that this has actually been tested, and the dome is barely even scratched. A bunker buster could crack it. A nuke going off right next to it could, but a nuke a little distance away probably wouldn't do much. These things are seriously strong.
About your completely nutty tin-foil hat theory about the causes of WTC, get real. People have been flying airplanes into things to destroy them since the 40s. An Algerian terrorist group tried to fly an airplane into the Eiffel Tower in 1994, and was only unsuccessful because French security forces learned of their plans beforehand and decided to raid the airplane during negotiations on the runway. An operation involving 20 people on four different flights timed to go off within minutes of each other requires years of planning to pull off. There's no way your show could have been the inspiration for the attack.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Hey, I just wanted to reply to express my simpathy towards you and your family. I think I can relate - my family had to survive the Holocaust, another great cover-up attempt.
No matter how long you live after that, or where you move, the images and memories will haunt you. And the older you get, the more you learn about how stupid and egotistic the political decisions can be. And the governments excuse themselves with "we didn't know..." and you feel how lucky you are to be alive today.
Live and tell the story. I think this is our purpose, the next-generation survivors. And if you truly do so, you'll see how people just don't want to hear, don't care, and excuse themselves with having more important things to do...
I truly hope you have a healthy child one day.