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Latest Chernobyl Motorcycle Photos

wrx writes "Elena has taken another motorcycle ride through the Chernobyl area, and has updated her site with a whole lot of new photos and text. The pictures now show several surrounding towns, the radiation level of the magic wood, and many more details inside buildings. After the dust had settled from the original slashdot story, Elena wrote 'who are those slashdot people? they swept over like Mongol-Tartars.'"

127 of 951 comments (clear)

  1. Watch the hit counter spin by azuroff · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm counting around 100 or so hits every few seconds...

    We'll show her who "those slashdot people" are.

    1. Re:Watch the hit counter spin by magn · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Maybe if everyone stopped reload it to see the hit counter it wouldn't spin so fast :)

    2. Re:Watch the hit counter spin by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Funny

      How appropriate. We "nuke" her website.

    3. Re:Watch the hit counter spin by Falc0n · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yup... Just in case Angelfire decides her bandwidth is too much, here is a mirror: http://www.fcdnet.org/chernobyl/

    4. Re:Watch the hit counter spin by carcosa30 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Those aren't hits, they're roentgens.

      My hair feels funny...

      Once again, mad props to crazy Russian girl. Her recklessness is unimaginable.

      --
      Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
    5. Re:Watch the hit counter spin by ShallowThroat · · Score: 5, Funny

      Ahead is atomic plant.
      Huge is bandwidth bill.
      Sad am I.

      --
      The "Insert Quote Here" line is almost as predictable as inserting an actual quote.
    6. Re:Watch the hit counter spin by frostyboy · · Score: 5, Informative

      Heh, looks like you made the same mistake that I almost did. The link on that first page just goes right back to angelfire. The -k option in wget is most useful for these situations

      True mirror at: http://netfiles.uiuc.edui/benoc/mirrors/www.angelf ire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/



      Visit the oldest running human webcam on the internet:
      http://www.mitwebcam.com
      --
      Who is General Failure? And why is he reading my disk????
    7. Re:Watch the hit counter spin by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 5, Funny

      Bribing the guards 6000 rupels
      Tank of petrol 190 rupels
      Nice digital camera 2500 rupels

      having glow in the dark hair - priceless

      --
      liqbase :: faster than paper
    8. Re:Watch the hit counter spin by Pathwalker · · Score: 5, Informative

      If you want to grab it via bittorrent, and contribute bandwidth back to other people who are downloading, I've got a torrent of a mirror set up here.

      Bittorrent is probably overkill for a 5 meg site, but who cares; it helps spread the bandwidth load around...

    9. Re:Watch the hit counter spin by shadowbearer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Mod parent up.

      I would hope, however, that the admins at Angelfire would have waived the bandwidth limitations for this particular user. If they have any human decency that is... what she has to say, and what she's doing, should be viewable by everyone, regardless of b/w limitations or not. I'd mirror it myself (have a complete local copy) but I'm out of webspace...

      Some things are just too damned important...

      SB

      --
      It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
    10. Re:Watch the hit counter spin by Bombcar · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Note that if you look at some of the Images, it seems pretty obvious that she's in the process of registering and moving her site to another location

    11. Re:Watch the hit counter spin by JoeBaldwin · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Let's have a little perspective, huh? She didn't cure cancer, she took some photographs of the apea around Chernobyl.


      Yes, but at great personal cost to her health. Nobody else would go there; she says so herself. These are *one of a kind*.

      Fuck just waiving bandwidth restrictions, I'd give her a medal.
    12. Re:Watch the hit counter spin by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Anyone that didnt say "holy shit" and gained a new perspecitive on life is either a moron that is incapable of comprehending what they are looking at or a sick individual.

      sorry, but those photos gave me the intense creeps for the past 2 hours and has reminded me that things are not bad at all here in the USA.... at least my child's school is not equipped with children's gas masks.

      I feel that every american shoudl be required to view that entire website, and high school classes need to take a week to discuss what happened there.

      I remember when it happened, and it's unbelieveable how this one person's website has brough back all those fears I had as a kid then returned and compounded with the realization that ... "It really was as bad as I feared it was."

      Makes Our three mile island look like a simple fart.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    13. Re:Watch the hit counter spin by boaworm · · Score: 3, Funny

      I'm on my way to the US in three weeks, first visit ever for me. I am dying to find out what is really so great "over there". I mean... even your animals love for America is such that they try to get back from Europe :-)

      (From article)

      Zoologists also brought two American Bisons, but idea to breed them didn't work out and bison male run away. I don't know, if he run from radiation or from his bride, but last time bison has been seen in Belorusia, he heading west and may be he just decided to return to America.

      --
      Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
      Aristotele
  2. Soaking up the gamma by NatlLabGeek · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I can't even imagine the dose she's soaking up. I look at the reading she's showing in pictures and she's taken up my YEARLY dose in HOURS. Is it really exciting enough to give away years of your life for a helluva ride?

    Then again, I chase storms.

    Go with God, girl.

    1. Re:Soaking up the gamma by b0r0din · · Score: 5, Funny

      Some people smoke. Others drive their motorcycle through the worst nuclear incident of all time. In my opinion, the second one sounds much cooler. For some reason Snow Crash comes to mind.

    2. Re:Soaking up the gamma by gumbi+west · · Score: 5, Informative
      Not so sure. You probably get about 300 mR/year and you may get way more. For example, if you smoke you get an additional 1000 mR/year (1 R/year) in addition to all the other things in the tobaco.

      Also, 300 mR is only enough to increase your risk of cancer by 0.01 %, i.e. it's not going to take any time off your life (unless you happen to be the one in 10,000 who gets cancer as a result of that additional exposure, and even then, your chances of dieing are only 1 in 2).

    3. Re:Soaking up the gamma by gumbi+west · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Wait a second! she is showing readings of less than 1 mR/hour. Power plant workers can work in 1 mR/hour for the entire year and not exceed NRC's strict 2 R/year limit. In otherwords, this is nothing. Parent poster doesn't know what he is talking about.

    4. Re:Soaking up the gamma by chornobyl · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The worst nuclear incident of all time? Hiroshima?

    5. Re:Soaking up the gamma by Jeremy+Erwin · · Score: 5, Interesting

      At least she's documenting her journeys. IMHO, the most interesting thing about her picture is not the radiation, but that the whole place is preserved from the Soviet era. Sort of like a depopulated Pompeii, without all the digging.

    6. Re:Soaking up the gamma by gumbi+west · · Score: 5, Insightful
      The highest reading she shows or talks about is 3 mR/hr. This is only 30 times higher than the levels in Grand Centeral Station, and is many times less than a number of natural locations.

      Sorry, I'm not trying to karma whore, but my day job relates to getting people not to be affraid of radiation, so seing this post have such high mod points is really getting to me.

    7. Re:Soaking up the gamma by fm6 · · Score: 3, Insightful
      I'm not sure a motorcycle ride is worth even a 1 in 10K chance of getting cancer. But then, I'm not a biker.

      But to continue the relative risk theme: visiting a meltdown dead zone is not they only way to expose yourself to radiation. There's living in a house made of brick. (Not very much, I admit, but some.) There's living in a poorly ventilated house that's over a Uranium deposit. And of course, there's sunbathing or visiting a tanning salon, which Elena's pastime look positively healthy!

    8. Re:Soaking up the gamma by cpt+kangarooski · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, plenty of people ride motorcycles around Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I'm sure.

      --
      -- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
    9. Re:Soaking up the gamma by gumbi+west · · Score: 4, Informative

      Living in a home made of brick (as I do) will increase your dose by about 30 mR/year. On the other hand, living in a poorly ventilated house over a soil rich in Uranium can increase your dose by about 1000 mR/year. This is all in the United States NRC's (not online) NuReg 1401.

    10. Re:Soaking up the gamma by Aglassis · · Score: 5, Informative

      You said: " Wait a second! she is showing readings of less than 1 mR/hour. Power plant workers can work in 1 mR/hour for the entire year and not exceed NRC's strict 2 R/year limit. In otherwords, this is nothing. Parent poster doesn't know what he is talking about."

      The NRC limit (see 10 C.F.R.) is 3 rem per quarter, and 5 rem per year. A rem is a weighted roetgen (R). The weighting factors are used because while a roetgen measures the energy deposited, a rem measures the physical damage (exposure versus dose). An example of a weighting factor is a gamma will have a factor of 1, while a fast neutron may have a factor of 20. So a 1 mR/hr exposure rate will give you 1 mrem/hr for gammas, and 20 mrem/hr for fast neutrons.

      --
      Suddenly, the hairy finger of a familiar monkey tapped me on the shoulder. It was time.--G. T.
    11. Re:Soaking up the gamma by anagama · · Score: 4, Insightful


      As a motorcycle rider, I can tell you that the increase in safety margins she enjoys riding on empty roads is probably 1000 times greater than the increased health risk the radiation poses. That's not all that clear. Look at it this way - "cell phone chatting back seat kid swatting speeding paying no attention to anyone else cause I have the biggest SUV in town" type drivers are a much greater risk than elevated radiation levels. On a bike, she's definitely safer in the Dead Zone than in a poplulated zone.

      On a side note, women who ride motorcycles (as driver not passenger) are undeniably the most alluring of all. I'm in love!

      --
      What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
    12. Re:Soaking up the gamma by Forgotten · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Actually it is all about cumulative damage, so in a sense you are soaking something up. DNA can be repaired, but the more damage there is, the more likely something really catastrophic will happen. A very high flash dose virtually guarantees enough cells have scrambled machinery that you will die, but the same sort of thing can happen with a small dose over time.

      It comes down to how fast and how completely the exposed tissue is replaced or repaired. In this case she's not spending all her time in the hot zone - her visits are sporadic, unlike say the old guy with the horse-drawn cart (who lives there all the time). So she's probably ok, because she has time to heal in between exposures.

      Also, there is a way you can take it out with you - by inhaling radioactive particulate (fallout). This is part of the reason smoking is dangerous - all organic matter has a small percentage of radioactive isotopes, and small particles get lodged in the lungs where they just keep on giving. It's also the only real danger in handling stuff like depleted uranium rounds, if there's an opportunity for them to produce dust. Radiation that can't penetrate the skin can hurt you from within your body. She's specifically staying in the centre of the asphalt and away from the irradiated dirt and dust that's washed off to the side of the road, so again she should be ok.

    13. Re:Soaking up the gamma by Artifakt · · Score: 4, Informative

      Most of that increase is from Radon, which is an inert gas that is produced by the breakdown of Thorium or Uranium. It's much heavier than mormal air and so tends to linger in basements, and as a gas, of course it goes right into a person's lungs.

      Then there's Granite. Some granites produce 500 to 800 mr/year or so exposure. 'The' UN building in NY, NY is sheathed with a moderately hot granite cladding, resulting in, if I recall correctly, employee exposures of 200-250 mR/year at full time, and some buildings are much worse.

      --
      Who is John Cabal?
    14. Re:Soaking up the gamma by Aglassis · · Score: 5, Informative

      You said: " Yeah, potasium iodide, they are saying it keeps radiation out of your system for X amount of dollars, like this: http://www.nukepills.com/"

      Potasium iodide doesn't 'get the radiation out of your system'. Please understand that radiation is the transmittal of energy through EM-wave or various particles (betas, alphas, neutrons). Radiation may pass through your body (perhaps doing harm) but it won't stay. Contamination is some radioactive substance that emits radiation governed by its half-life. If you drive by the a site that has alot of contamination you will get some radiation dose. As long as you don't ingest any of the contamination you will not get a dose when you leave.

      The purpose of potassium iodide is to minimize the dose to your thyroid. One characteristic radionuclide from nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons is radioactive iodine (typically I-129 and I-131). Your thyroid can absorb a certain amount of iodine before it become saturated. If you use iodine pills, your thyroid will absorb a non-radioactive nuclide. This means that when you ingest radioactive iodine following a casuality, little of it will be absorbed into the thyroid, reducing the dose to the thyroid. Please note though, that the thyroid isn't the only organ that can kill you if it gets exposed to a significant amount of radiation. Its just the only one that there is an effective preventive measure for. If you are in the area of radioactive fallout, it will increase your chances of survival slightly, but it won't make you a radiation-resistant superman.

      --
      Suddenly, the hairy finger of a familiar monkey tapped me on the shoulder. It was time.--G. T.
    15. Re:Soaking up the gamma by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      One of the units at Chernobyl had gotten a license to operate, even though they hadn't run all of the required tests. One of the tests they hadn't run was to verify that the spin down of the turbine after a turbine trip could power the unit until the standby generators could be activated. The unit was coming up to a planned shutdown, so they decided (or were told) to run the test and get it out of the way.

      However, rather than simply tripping the turbine and reactor, which would only give them one shot to get the test right, they decided to keep the reactor running at low power level and simply trip the turbine. That would let them repeat the test as many times as they needed to in order to make sure they passed it.

      Sure enough, the operators flubbed the test on the first run through, but they also allowed the reactor to sink to an extremely low power level. So low, in fact, that they got into an unstable operating range that they didn't know about. So, when they goosed the reactor to repeat the test, they got a runaway instead.

      The resulting pressure excursion and/or steam explosion blew the head off of the reactor and the roof off the building. The reactor, like all Soviet reactors, had no containment structure. This allowed air to enter, which allowed the graphite blocks that served as a moderator to catch fire, creating a radioactive smoke plume blowing downwind. The rest of the world (ie., us) found out about the accident when Swedish scientists reported a radioactive cloud passing overhead.

      The graphite in the reactor all burned away eventually, in spite of many days worth of truly heroic (and fatal) efforts to put it out. The fuel all coalesced into a magma and the proceeded to sink down through the building structure where it (fortunately) dispersed into the different basements and sub-structures until it had been dispersed and cooled enough that it stopped. It's all still there and will be continue to be deadly dangerous for thousands of years to come.

      So much for safe, clean, and efficient nuclear power.

      All this is from memory, so please forgive any errors, which are entirely mine.

    16. Re:Soaking up the gamma by Tackhead · · Score: 5, Informative
      > She mentions at one point that on the "day of disaster people gothered on the roof of this builing and have been looking at a beautiful shining above Atomic Plant. This was the shinning of radiation."
      >
      >I have never heard of radiation producing visible evidence (immediately, that is), but then again, there was a lot of it. What is this "shinning" all about?

      Chernobyl was a graphite fire - the fire is probably what is being described.

      There is a visible phenomenon - Cerenkov radiation - a beautiful blue glow produced when fast moving particles strike water (speed of light in a transparent medium is a function of refractive index -- if particles have to "slow down", that energy has to go somewhere - it gets shot out in a cone of radiation).

      If you're seeing Cerenkov radiation at the bottom of a reactor pool, it's beautiful. If you're seeing it because the neutron flux through your eyeballs is enough that your vitreous humor is glowing blue, it's probably less than beautiful, given that if you know what you're seeing, you realize that your lifespan is probably best measured in hours/weeks, rather than years.

      Given that the only probable reports of seeing Cerenkov radiation from within the eyeball have been criticality incidents at very close range (1946, Tickling the dragon's tail"> and 1999 Japan, Tokaimura), I'm skeptical that the people on top of the building were seeing Cerenkov radiation from within their eyeballs.

      Chernobyl wasn't just a graphite fire, however, it was also a steam explosion. It's plausible (I don't have the numbers) that the neutron flux being spewed from the building was high enough to make condensing steam in the nearby air glow blue.

      From the account provided, there's insufficient data to sway me one way or the other -- were witnesses seeing light from the burning graphite and related fire, or were they seeing Cerenkov light released when you dump a massive neutron flux into a tower of condensing steam. The simpler hypothesis is that it was merely light from the intense fire.

      If I had to choose, I'd go with fire, but a single picture from the rooftop, or an eyewitness reporting blue in the fire would be enough to convince me that the shining was the blue light of Cerenkov radiation brought on by the dumping of insane numbers of neutrons into condensing droplets of water as the steam condensed.

      Aside to Elena: Thank you again for documenting this.

    17. Re:Soaking up the gamma by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Chernobyl is the Hiroshima that keeps on giving. Hiroshima's been rebuilt. People live there; it's safe. Chernobyl is still hot...

    18. Re:Soaking up the gamma by einTier · · Score: 4, Informative
      I once got to watch a small nuclear reactor fire up, and got to watch the Cerenkov radiation at the bottom of the reactor pool.

      That picture does not do it justice. While I was somewhat disappointed that the whole nuclear reaction was fairly anticlimatic -- no rumbling, no vibration, no nothing discernable except the blue light -- that blue light at the bottom of the pool was probably the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. There's just no way to describe the color. It's so vivid and so intense.

      --
      -------------------------------------------------- $665.95 -- retail price of the beast.
    19. Re:Soaking up the gamma by True+Grit · · Score: 5, Interesting
      1. So much for safe, clean, and efficient nuclear power


      Nuclear power has 3 problems: 1) it generates waste that is toxic for a long period of time, 2) it was over-sold and over-hyped when it was first introduced in the US, which led us to jump into this technology before we were competent with it, and 3) in the minds of average people its hopelessly linked to nuclear weapons, and the fear of mass destruction, even though the technology and goals are completely different between the 2 disciplines.

      If you want to bash it on those reasons, especially the waste problem, fine, I can understand that, but I'm tired of hearing people use Chernobyl as the example of why nuclear power is "too dangerous".

      There was *never* any such thing as a safe, clean, and efficient *anything* in the old Soviet Union. They routinely built nuclear reactors (and a hell of a lot of other buildings for that matter) that would never have been built in the West because of their atrocious design and lack of safety. Chernobyl isn't proof that nuclear power is too dangerous to use, its just proof that a communistic system of government is a greater threat to its own people than any outside "enemy".

      NP can be safely used now, now that we've had 30+ years of experience. Look at France and Japan. Heck, did you read about the experimental mini-reactor being used by a village in Alaska? Totally self-contained and safe, its interior is sealed at the factory and isn't opened again until its decommissioned 15-20 years later when its fuel is exhausted. It can't melt-down or have a run-away reaction because there literally isn't enough fuel in the system to reach critical mass. The thing is about the size of a trailer, transportable, and thus removeable after its core is depleted. The company that makes it just comes back once its core is gone, takes it back to the factory for dismantling and salvaging/reprocessing. The irony may be that NP really is an answer to some of our problems, our mistake was spending 30 years thinking "big", when we should have been thinking *small*.

      I can understand the criticism of the 1st and 2nd generation nuclear power plants (NPP), but while the US has virtually stopped development of NPPs, the rest of the world is working on the 4th and 5th generations of NPP design, just when they are starting to get *really* good.

      As for NP technology *today*, as opposed to 30 years ago? When the founder of Greenpeace changes his mind and becomes pro-NP after his initial fanatical opposition to it, that should make a lot of people stop and reevaluate it, I think, at least those people still rational and open-minded enough to consider changing their minds on this subject.
    20. Re:Soaking up the gamma by omarin · · Score: 5, Informative
      One thing that people are forgetting is that, like it or not, radioactivity is EVERYWHERE. Even before our nuclear age, nature has been putting out radioactivity. Unfortunately many of us don't know this fact and act like hypochondriacs when the topic is mentioned. Here is a list of natural radioactivity (from various web sources):


      1. Our bodies: about half of the radioactivity in our bodies comes from Potassium-40 (naturally-occurring radioactive form of potassium.) Potassium is important for the brain and muscles. Most of the rest of our bodies' radioactivity is from Carbon-14 and tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen. These naturally-occurring radioactive substances expose our bodies to about 25 "millirem" per year, abbreviated as "mrem/yr".)


      2. Radioactivity in food and water: for example, the radio- (and non-radio) active forms of iodine and sodium. The food we eat contains radium-226, thorium-232, potassium-40, carbon-14, and hydrogen-3, also known as tritium.

      To quote a web page: The U. S. Department of Energy gives the following concentrations as examples:

      • Salad Oil 4,900 pCi/l
      • Milk 1,400 pCi/l
      • Whiskey 1,200 pCi/l
      • Beer 390 pCi/l
      • Tap Water 20 pCi/l
      • Brazil Nuts 14.00 pCi/g
      • Bananas 3.00 pCi/g
      • Tea 0.40 pCi/g
      • Flour 0.14 pCi/g
      • Peanuts and Peanut butter 0.12 pCi/g.

      3. Flying: Flying in an airplane increases our exposure to cosmic radiation. A coast-to-coast round trip gives us a dose of about four millirem.

      4. Living at higher altitudes: Generally, for each 100-foot increase in altitude, there is an increased dose of one millirem per year. (So, San Francisco vs. Boulder, for example)...

      5. The rocks, soils and beaches around us are radioactive: In Ohio, radiation in soil and rocks contributes about 60 millirem in one year to our exposure. In Colorado, it is about 105 millirem per year. In Kerala, India, this radioactivity from soil and rocks can be 3,000 millirem per year, and at a beach in Guarapari, Brazil, it is over 5 millirem in a single hour -- but only a few residents who use that beach receive doses in excess of 500 millirem per year.

      6. Radioactivity in our homes:
      A: If you live in a wood house, the natural radioactivity in the building materials gives you a dose of 30 to 50 millirem per year.
      B: In a brick house, it is 50 to 100 millirem per year.
      C: In a tightly sealed house with little ventilation, natural radioactive gases (radon) can be trapped for a longer period of time and increase your dose.

      7. People/coworkers: Each person with whom we spend eight hours a day gives us a dose of about 0.1 millirem in a year.

      8. Cooking: Using a gas stove can increase the dose by about two millirem per year because of radioactive materials in the natural gas.

      9. Smoking: A person who smokes two packs of cigarettes a day receives a radiation dose of about 1,300 millrem per year. This is because polonium (a radioactive element) is part of the smoke and when inhaled, it gets trapped in the lungs.

      10. Misc: There's also the sun, and medical X-rays...

      Basically, on the whole we need not fear natural radioactivity, as our bodies evolved to cope with it (cellular repair). What we need to fear/respect is man-made radioactivity and its waste products, because when human error/greed/fallibility get involved, that is when man-made radioactivity bites us in the ass...
    21. Re:Soaking up the gamma by superyooser · · Score: 3, Informative
      That picture does not do it justice.

      More pictures here

      Then again, I'm sure these pictures still don't do it justice.

    22. Re:Soaking up the gamma by lars_stefan_axelsson · · Score: 4, Insightful
      The rest of the world (ie., us) found out about the accident when Swedish scientists reported a radioactive cloud passing overhead.

      And it should be noted that it was actually the staff of the westernmost, northernmost nuclear power plant (Forsmark) that noticed the increased radiation levels. As in: "We have a leak!". The whole emergency plan for evacuation/containment was put into motion before the operators could figure out that something was 'funny'; "If we have a leak, then why is the radiation levels higher outside the plant than inside?"

      It was more or less only bad luck that we got any fallout at all. There was a weather system that moved west during the day and settled over the norther parts where it started to precipicate. The prevaling winds are westerly so chances are we otherwise wouldn't have learned about this incident at all save for several days later when the satellite photos could have provided confirmation.

      Sweden now has a nation wide radiation detection system integrated with the weather station network. We never thought we'd have to have one before...

      --
      Stefan Axelsson
    23. Re:Soaking up the gamma by sxpert · · Score: 3, Interesting

      no, that one is categorized as "intentionnal crime by application of weapons of mass destruction"

    24. Re:Soaking up the gamma by swb · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You misspelled "victorious limited strategic nuclear bombing campaign."

      The real war crimes were the firebombing of Hamburg and Dresden.

    25. Re:Soaking up the gamma by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You probably do not know much about history, so I may enlighten you. Believe if or not, but Japan attacked up in a place called Pearl Harbor. Read about it (don't see the movie). They were fighting a war of expansion. At that point, we were facing a choice; end the war by nuke or invade the mainland. Frankly more people would have died if we invaded the mainland. Your comparison to New York is utterly irrelevant.

      I find it so interesting that people talk about Hiroshima, yet in WWII, more people have died in the firebombings of Dresden, Hamburg and Tokyo for that matter. People just do not know history nowadays.

    26. Re:Soaking up the gamma by goodhell · · Score: 4, Informative

      Ummmm, Chernobyl was tiny compared to other nuclear accidents that happened in the Soviet Union. The only reason it is so well, known is its location. It is very close to other European borders. When it went off, other national communities saw a huge spike in radiation levels coming from that region. The Soviet Union denied anything happened, but after repeated requests to know what happened they finally caved in and said what happened.

      I've lived in areas in the former Soviet Union that had worse nuclear accidents. With Chernobyl, they had a crack that formed over the waste plant, and from that it started to spew waste from it. They flew a chopper over it and dropped some cement over it to stop the process.

      Chelyabinsk Sorok (40 kilometers from the city) had much worse problems. In the '50's and the '60's it had a couple accidents. It blew the top off the waste plant completely. There was no stopping the waste from coming out. They had to bring people from outside the region to clean it up, because the residents in the area knew what it was and would not clean it up. (Normally the Soviet Union would have only those who were in the area clean it up, so rumors wouldn't spread.) This happened again in the '60's. And another time they decided that because there are so many lakes in the area, why not take and dump some of the nuclear waste and dump it in one of those?

      Another city that a huge nuclear accident happened at was Novosibirsk. Although I am less familiar with the details. I just know that some days were "warmer" than others depending on how the wind blew.

      (Please note that I actually lived there and conversed with many people in Chelyabinsk -- who openly scoffed at Chernobyl. I've even conversed with a person who cleaned it up. He was so cancer-ridden that he could barely move.)

  3. Bok bok baaaAAAK! by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Funny

    Re Giant Egg: "big egg as we passing 86th kilometer we'll see this big egg. This is where civilisation ends and where Chernobyl ride begin. Someone brought this egg from Germany. The significance of this egg is LIFE that will break through, life that will survive through radiation."

    I don't think that symbolism will work. People instead will think of Giant Mutant Chickens and run like hell.

    1. Re:Bok bok baaaAAAK! by angst_ridden_hipster · · Score: 4, Funny

      Ah, yes.

      I've heard of rumors of the giant, self-cooking Chicken Kiev...

      --
      Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?
      www.fogbound.net
  4. Reminds me of by Jediman1138 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    the recent Danny Boyle film 28 Days Later.

    While the evacuated scenes of London in the film don't have the wear and tear of a few decades of desertion like Chernobyl does, it kind of gives you a representation of what it might be like to be there.

    Scary stuff...What's our world coming to?

    _________________________________________

    --

    nothing.can.stop.me.now

    1. Re:Reminds me of by glesga_kiss · · Score: 3, Funny
      Unfortunatly, what with all these Al Qaeda Asshats wanting us all back in the dark ages, this reminds me of what could still happen if some them decide to target our own reactors.

      Yeah. You'd better vote for Bush so he can protect you.

  5. Such an amazing and atypical slashdot article by daddy+norcal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The pictures and story she has on her site are quite simply amazing.

    Being an American kid at the time of the incident, I was fairly well removed, both politically and geographically, from the disaster, but Elena's pictures serve as a reminder of just how terrible and far reaching the effects of the meltdown were. From the initial coverup to the resulting FUD pumped out by the Russian government during the aftermath, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that this event displaced tens of thousands of people, and many more are still dealing with the legacy or horrors the fallout has inflicted.

    Kudos to Elena and the editors for a great human interest story.

    1. Re:Such an amazing and atypical slashdot article by cybermace5 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It is pretty amazing, and a horrifying reminder. The most striking group of photos is here. As Elena said, these photos don't need any explanation, they speak for themselves.

      --
      ...
    2. Re:Such an amazing and atypical slashdot article by VividU · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Probably one of the best web sites I've seen. A real testament to the power of the Internet.

    3. Re:Such an amazing and atypical slashdot article by Ryvar · · Score: 4, Informative

      If you read through it she mentions that she brings one of the local die-hards who refuses to leave with her for exploring buildings because of the safety issues involved. Presumably said girl took the photo.

    4. Re:Such an amazing and atypical slashdot article by Siniset · · Score: 3, Interesting
      My friend from high school grew up in kiev, and talked about the summer where there were no kids in Kiev, because of concerns over nuclear fallout. Just really blew me away when she talked about it. Imagine a major american city, where all the kids have been sent away to live with relatives or friends in the country.

  6. Who are these slashdot people? by cgenman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "They swept over like Mongol-Tartars."

    And so you post her to the front page. Again. That's just spiteful.

    You can't buy this kind of publicity, but you are sure going to pay for it. Hopefully the bill falls on anglefire and not our friend on the bike.

    1. Re:Who are these slashdot people? by Almost-Retired · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Hopefully the bill falls on anglefire and not our friend on the bike.

      Me too. Its a rather sad state of affairs when someone like Elena takes the time, fuel, and a camera along and lets the rest of the world see what its really like, and then might have to pay for the bandwidth to boot.

      For the visual information that came out of her camera, I'll gladly forgive her occasionaly poor command of the english language. The pictures tell the story far better than any amount of words anyway. I followed the whole site, wondering when the server was going to melt down like it did the last time, apparently before I even got there, but this time it held up quite well.

      Many thanks to a totally cool lady. And to the hosting site for putting up with the rest of the geek world that represents the average /. reader.

      Cheers and many thanks Elena, Gene

  7. More Proper. by xanadu-xtroot.com · · Score: 5, Funny

    'who are those slashdot people? they swept over like Mongol-Tartars.'

    The Nazgul.

    --
    I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
    I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
  8. Is she single? Looking? by YetAnotherName · · Score: 5, Funny

    Come on, this is slashdot ... motorcycle riding photo-snapping babe through nuclear wasteland ... show me a geek that isn't drooling by now.

  9. Re:MOD PARENT +1 INSIGHTFUL by Egonis · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There are many things people do everyday that shorten your or reduce your health, mainly: Using Gasoline!

    >I too agree that the USSR should be ashamed and we should be Proud Americans.

    It's not like accidents don't happen in the United States, and I don't quite see where your statement is founded.... simply because another country has a disaster, does not give Americans, nor any other country in the world bragging rights. I think what should be truly done, is that we all learn from examples, so this won't happen to humanity again.

  10. Chernobyl/Springfield by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    "in year 1986 a guy named Akimov pushed wrong button and launched the biggest nuclear catastrophe ..."

    Hmm, looks like they had a Russian version of Homer Simpson working there. He was probably looking for the "donut button".

    1. Re:Chernobyl/Springfield by weeboo0104 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Hmm, looks like they had a Russian version of Homer Simpson working there

      D'ohsky!

      --
      It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
  11. Re:Not yet. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Oh please.

    TMI was a non-incident. The only reason anyone thinks it was a big deal was because of press coverage, and because of TV personalities arguing about it live on nightly news. The most exposure anyone got was around 100millirems, which is about the same as an x-ray at a doctor's office.

  12. I for one.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    think she'd make a great candidate for a slashdot interview.....

    1. Re:I for one.... by The+Bullroarer · · Score: 3, Interesting

      A motion has been made and seconded. Request the chair to call for a vote?

      As for contact info, the young lady does include a postal address on the last page of her photojournal.

      Moreover, with a little sleuthing, I uncovered an e-mail address! You'll notice that some of the pictures bear the legend "kidofspeed.com"? Well, the URL has a "coming soon" page, which I found only mildly surprising. However a Whois lookup revealed that it was just registered on March 11th, so that explains a lack of content. Moreover, the lookup gave contact information that is very similar to Elena's postal address. It also gave an e-mail address, which I post here for the benefit of the Slashdot editors:

      <crocodile@bk.ru>

      I only gave this info up because I'm too shy to use it myself, but I really want to see a Slashdot interview! Honestly, I don't have anything to offer her but US citizenship, but I still wish I had the guts to write to her!

      Seriously, if she gets a thousand e-mails from horny Slashotters, how do you think she would respond? My guess is that after reading the first few with growing disgust, she would delete the rest without opening them (like Tom Hanks in Sleepless in Seattle), unless for some reason one of them manages to forcefully hijack her attention. (Actually, it would be more likely that her e-mail server would be slashdotted, and she couldn't read any.)

      So, a word from the wise to any would-be Romeos: Unless you honestly think you can impress this woman, don't bother her. Let Cowboy Neal, or one of the other editors, represent Slashdot in the interview. I'm sure then we'd find out if she's at all interested in meeting American men....

      One last thought: OTOH, if she is so interested, her chances of success are much better than those girls you see on the "Russian Mail-Order Brides" websites. Even if that is her eventual object, (which I highly doubt), she still deserves kudos for her intelligence in concocting such a scheme. I, for one, would still want to see if I could make an American lady out of her!

      --
      Frodo Lives!!
  13. Re:Is she single? Looking? by weeboo0104 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Tell me about it! I'm still looking for the picture of her in leather and a shotgun strapped to her bike, riding down the road.

    --
    It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
  14. Re:Not yet. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    You do realize that Three Mile Island was the single lamest nuclear "disaster" in history, right? Standing with my hand on the reactor, I would get the same amount of radiation from said reactor in one second as I get from the rest of the environment in one second. Compare to smoking, which (on average) quadrouples your radiation dose.

  15. Soviet calendar? by klui · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Looks like they only show 6 days/week. Why is this?? http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/imag e21.3.JPG

    1. Re:Soviet calendar? by dead_penguin · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Look at the numbers. Every seventh one is missing. They were probably printed in a different colour which has now faded away -- maybe red for Sundays?

      It's interesting though how the weeks run top to bottom instead of left to right like they do on "our" calendars.

      --

      It's only software!
    2. Re:Soviet calendar? by boomka · · Score: 4, Informative

      On the left there are abbreviated weekdays written, and they go from Monday to Saturday. Traditionally in Soviet Union everyone worked 6 day per week, and this calendar only shows the working days.

      --
      Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
      H.G. Wells, "The Outline of History"
  16. She's doing fine. by douglips · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Roentgens, the unit used in her journal, measure ionization of the air. The general conversion is that 1 Roentgen = 1 REM, the unit we use for human radiation exposure in the US.

    In one transcontinental roundtrip flight, you get 6 millirem, which is equal to 6000 microroentgen. Her little counter is reading microroentgen per hour, so she can go somewhere where her counter is reading 500 and it's just like she's sitting on an airliner at 35000 feet.

    Your yearly dose is about 300 millirem, so in order for her to soak that up in hours, as you claim, she'd have to sit somewhere that her counter reads 100000 or more. She's being very smart. If she were walking around without the dosimeter, she could get in trouble.

    This is what she means when she says people fear what they don't understand. Once you understand the risks involved, you see her radiation exposure is much less risky than, say, smoking, or even riding motorcycles at all.

  17. how ironic by boomka · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In the last picture in chapter 9, there is this big slogan across the room. In Ukrainian, it reads:
    "Long live communism - the bright future for the whole mankind!"

    Truly, you may never know how the words you say today will be _seen_ tomorrow.

    --
    Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
    H.G. Wells, "The Outline of History"
    1. Re:how ironic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It is no different than "War on Terrorism", "Axis of Evil", "They hate our freedom", and the other recent absurdities. Trust me, the USA is becoming just as much a socialist state as the USSR was.

  18. Temporary mirror for when angelfire quota runs out by frostyboy · · Score: 3, Informative
    https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/benoc/mirrors/www.angelf ire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/

    Those pictures are just great at showing the sense of "creepiness" of those places. I can definitely understand why folks are afraid of venturing into the dead zone, even though these aren't terribly large doses of radiation.

    Everyone should definitely take the time to look through ALL of the pages. Thanks to the author/photographer for a great photo-essay.



    Visit the oldest running human webcam on the internet:
    http://www.mitwebcam.com
    --
    Who is General Failure? And why is he reading my disk????
  19. Thank you, Slashdot by Dr.+Mu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is the most profound and disturbing story I've ever seen here. It underscores, where words alone are hopelessly inadequate, the depraved hubris in thinking we've "tamed the atom". My kudos to the editors for choosing to post it!

  20. Re:Is she single? Looking? by BossTree · · Score: 3, Insightful

    grammatical skills completely dwarfed by "dramatical" skills

  21. Re:Question for physics people by Kiryat+Malachi · · Score: 5, Informative

    Very different units.

    Roentgens measure ionizing radiation in air/free field. Rems (actually REM, an acronym for Roentgen-Equivalent Man) are a measure of how much biological damage a given amount of radiation does. Basically, one roentgen of gamma radiation is appx. equivalent to one rad absorbed is appx. equivalent to one rem. However, other types of radiation have different conversions - for instance, one rad of alpha radiation is appx. equivalent to 20 rems of exposure.

    The short version - "In summary, the roentgen is a unit of exposure, the rad is a unit of absorbed dose, and the rem is a unit of biological dose."

    (data from http://www.radford.edu/~fac-man/Safety/Radiation/c hp5.htm)

    --

    ---
    Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
    (I read with sigs off.)
  22. Re:Question for physics people by Jeremy+Erwin · · Score: 4, Informative

    Roentgen: radiation intensity required to produce and ionization charge of 0.000258 coulombs per kilogram of air.

    Rem: absorbed dose of 0.01 joules of energy per kilogram of tissue

    One roentgen of gamma radiation exposure results in about one rad of absorbed dose.

  23. Wow by Snarfvs+Maximvs · · Score: 5, Funny

    She's hot, she rides a motorcycle, and she has an accent.

    I think I'm in love.

    Of course, our kids will each have 9 heads. :-(

    --
    -----------------------

    To understand recursion, one must first understand recursion.

    1. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      She's hot...

      and the dosimeter confirms it.

  24. Re:Fitting Reminder by Dun+Malg · · Score: 3, Insightful
    This is very fitting timing, and a reminder, to the Three Mile Island accident which happened 25 years ago on March 28. We were extremely close to experiencing a total catsrophe, but avoided it narrowly mostly due to luck.

    Luck? TMI not being a catastrophe wasn't due to luck. It was Due to adequate containment vessel design. Whay do you call adequate engineering "luck"?

    --
    If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
  25. Exposure levels by earthforce_1 · · Score: 5, Informative

    From
    http://ldml.stanford.edu/cisac/pdf/Nuc_terr_ back.p df
    20,000 millirem will mutate DNA enough to produce noticeable health effects. Above 100,000 millirem, diseases manifest.

    10,000 millirem is enough to increase your cancer risk.
    5,000 millirem per year is the maximum allowable annual dosage.

    25,000-100.000 mrem - Temporary blood changes
    35,000 - Loss of appetite, nausea
    50,000 - Temporary sterility in males
    100,000 - 2x normal incidence of genetic defects
    100,000 - 300,000 - Vomiting, diarrhea
    300,000 - 500,000 - 50% chance of death if not treated
    300,000+ - Permanent sterility for females
    400,000-1,000,000 - Acute illnes, death within days if not treated.

    Her meter was showing over 800 millirem per hour, when she was standing a few hundred metres from the reactor.

    I am facinated by these pictures, I would love to (briefly) visit these places, but I fear she will do herself serious harm over time. The area is an incredible time capsule.

    --
    My rights don't need management.
    1. Re:Exposure levels by man_ls · · Score: 5, Informative

      Her meter was microretnogen/hour.

      (spelling is wrong)

      REM is retnogen enhanced modifier or something to that effect -- it's the dose * an absorbtion factor.

      not quite the same thing.

    2. Re:Exposure levels by Phanatic1a · · Score: 5, Informative

      Her meter was showing over 800 millirem per hour

      No, it wasn't. It was showing 800 microroentgen per hour.

      One of the things that confuses people about radioation are the different measurements.

      A roentgen is the amount of X or gamma radiation needed to deposit in dry air 2.58E-4 Coulombs per kilogram, or roughly 100 ergs per gram.

      Rads are the absorbed dose, the amount of energy actually absorbed in a material. 1 rad is equal to 100 ergs per gram.

      Rems are the equivalent dose, a relationship between the absorbed energy and actual biological damage. Take the rads, multiply by a quality factor which is based on the type of radiation under discussion, and you the get rems.

      A Curie is the unit of radioactivity, one Curie being equal to 37,000,000,000 radioactive decays per second.

      Flip over to SI, and you have Grays as the absorbed dose (1 Gy = 100 rads), Sieverts as the equivalent dose (1 Sv = 100 rem), and Becquerels as the radioactivty (3.7E10 Bq in one Ci).

      Her meter was showing 800 microroentgen per hour. That's gammas and x-rays, by the way. Those have a quality factor of 1; they're very penetrating, but also chargeless, massless, and very small, so they have a weak interaction cross-section. 800 microroentgen per hour translates to 800 microrads per hour, which when you multiply by the quality factor of 1 is, surprise, 800 microrem per hour.

      So to get "maximum allowable annual doseage" (allowable by whom, exactly?) of 5,000 millirem, she'd have to hang around the reactor for 260 days, which is about 2/3rds of a year to begin with. I don't think she's going to be doing herself serious harm.

      And the alphas and the betas? Lousy mean free path through air.

  26. An idea by DigiShaman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Has anyone thought of an idea to do P2P website hosting? I think it would be an interesting idea to have a slashdot client running on your computer. That way, ever website you visit gets cached to the client. And because it's cached, you also end up hosting the website for other slashdotters happen to have the same client program, yet arn't able to gain access to the original URL.

    --
    Life is not for the lazy.
    1. Re:An idea by RefriedBean · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Like Freenet?

  27. OT: Re:Soaking up the gamma by angst_ridden_hipster · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Hey, as a potter, you're probably getting a few handfuls more radiation than the general populace just by virtue of your glaze materials.

    But then, if you do exclusively anagama, that's not a problem.

    I had a high school physics prof bring in some happy yellow Fiestaware bowls that she bought in New Mexico when she was working on the bomb. That yellow was from the Uranium Oxide in the glaze. Those things got the Geiger counter screaming, I can tell you. "How'd you like to eat your Wheaties from that?" she'd ask.

    I often wonder what isotopes my cobalt carbonate or manganese have in 'em...

    --
    Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?
    www.fogbound.net
  28. They should make it a national park or such thing by haggar · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Maybe a place of historical heritage... Fact is, it's not really suitable for people to use it for living, and won't be, for the foreseable future. But even if it was, living there would almost be like desacrating a graveyard.

    Quite interesting that the author (the biker girl) confirmed what I thought all along: the place has become a heaven for wildlife. Animals don't care about shorter life expectancy, as long as they are freed from the intimidating human presence.

    --
    Sigged!
  29. And so it goes again by davmoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Since the powers that be at Slashdot have once again shown what inconsiderate boobs they are, as have some of the readers of Slashdot (I can't believe you bastards that reload the poor girl's page just to see how fast the hit counter goes up), I have set up a mirror at:

    http://www.myownlittleserver.us/chernobyl

    My bandwidth may not be free, but I have a hell of a lot more of it than she does.

    I have mirrored the whole site, as far as I can tell, except for the hit counter. The children among you have shown why its not good to have a public hit counter.

    You whould think that a group of people who like to preach "information should be free" would try to have a little more respect. Information may be free, but unlimited bandwidth and server space is not.

    --
    I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
  30. Don't forget your multipass by cgenman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Don't forget, she is cleared for nuclear wastelands. Because she didn't post personal information to the site I won't blow her cover, but with a little due dilligence you can find out that she didn't just buy one.

    And that probably is enough to keep the average people from doing what she is doing. In fact, the checkpoint is probably there exactly to stop average people from doing what she is doing. I won't want anyone going in there that didn't have a professional appreciation of the idea that where you are may be safe but four feet to your right may be death. Plus that keeps the ghost town a ghost town, and not one of those terrible run-down tourist traps.

    Besides, the concept of ecological armageddon tourism is just a little... Creepy.

  31. Re:Is she single? Looking? by Woy · · Score: 5, Funny
    I believe you mean "motorcycle riding photo-snapping Russian babe through nuclear wasteland" ;)

    In Capitalist America, the Russian Babe rides YOU!

    --
    "If God created us in his own image we have more than reciprocated." - Voltaire
  32. Re:Not yet. by Aglassis · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You said: " You do realize that Three Mile Island was the single lamest nuclear "disaster" in history, right? Standing with my hand on the reactor, I would get the same amount of radiation from said reactor in one second as I get from the rest of the environment in one second. Compare to smoking, which (on average) quadrouples your radiation dose."

    No. This is not true.

    You could not do that for a small plant, and TMI-2 (anniversary is on the 28th btw), was a big plant (~3GW thermal). The Atomic Energy Act pretty much makes it impossible for me to give you any real numbers for the radiation levels outside the reactor pressure vessel shutdown or critical (though they may be published somewhere), I can tell you that it is not background. Civil nuclear plants typically start up, operate for 18 months at full power, shutdown to refuel and perform maintenance, and then repeat. Since TMI-2 was in the operating stage when its accident occured, there was a significant amount of fission products in the reactor core at the time of the accident. If you are standing next to the reactor core you do not have the full amount of radiation shielding that the general public has, so the radiation dose will be much higher. Also considering that some fission products escaped from the fuel and circulated through the coolant (of which some was released into the containment structure due to the pressure relief which set of the radiation alarms during the casuality), there will be alot of radiation in the general area not coming from the reactor vessel (which again will be significantly higher than background).

    --
    Suddenly, the hairy finger of a familiar monkey tapped me on the shoulder. It was time.--G. T.
  33. This was the best article... by Cranx · · Score: 4, Funny

    This was the best Slashdot article I've read to date. It's got a pretty young Russian girl riding around on a Ninja motorcycle through uninhabitable nuclear disaster areas taking pictures of everything, including herself. That pretty much does it for me.

  34. You people are making me paranoid. by CheeseTroll · · Score: 4, Funny

    Where's my lead suit?!?

    --
    A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
  35. thanks! by johnrpenner · · Score: 4, Insightful


    just wanted to say 'thanks elena -- for being our eyes into this fascinating wasteland'.
    your photo-journal is one of the most haunting things i've ever seen.
    safe speed be with you.

    john penner
    (toronto)

  36. Only 400 of them left out of 3,500 by craXORjack · · Score: 3, Interesting
    This old man lives in Chernobyl area, he is one of 3.500 people that either refused to leave or returned to their villages after 1986. I admire those people, each of them is a philosopher in own way. When you ask if they not afraid to die, they telling that at home they may die with radiation and in some other place they would definately die with home-sickness. They eat food from own gardens, drink milk of their caws and claim that they are healthy, but we can't get away from facts, only 400 of them left out of 3.500. It appears that stubborn people, those of fortitude- are first victims

    I wonder how old they were on average when they went back. After 18 years I wouldn't be too surprised that many had died if they were generally seniors in the first place so how much effect does the pollution actually have? Someone must be keeping track of them if she can say how many are still alive and how many went back in. I think this is a good thing because we can study the effects of radiation exposure over long periods on willing subjects. I hope someone is checking on each resident and recording radiation levels where they live and at different times of the year.

    --
    Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
  37. Safer? That's far from obvious.... by Mistlefoot · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm not so sure she's safer.

    The obvious potential hazard of the radiation aside, she has mentioned riding at high speeds as well as animals on the road slowing her down.

    One of the mostest important aspects of driving or riding safely is expectations. A bike racer can expect that if he follows the leader at 180mph, and is only separated from his rivals back tire by an inch or two, he is in most regards, safe. You cannot do that while riding in public.

    Elena's biggest safety risk may very well be "the unexpected".

  38. No cell phone coverage either by motown · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The girl in the article mentioned among other things not having any cellular coverage there.

    Since Chernobyl was permanently evacuated long before public cellular networks became prevalent in Easter Europe, no cellular towers were ever placed in that area.

    The parent has a point: she's alone, quite a distance away from civilization in a desolate region, with no means of communication with the outside world. Comtemplating all of this, it is a bit scary indeed.

    It might be a good idea to bring along a satellite phone next time, just in case.

    She's a very brave young lady to undertake such an adventure! She sure has my respect.

    --
    "Oooh, does that mean we get to kick some puffy white mad zionist butt?"
    1. Re:No cell phone coverage either by qoa · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Not as alone as you would imagine. They give regular tours of the exclusion areas. The devlopers of the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R have travelled there twice taking pictures. They explain a lot about the processes of getting there and what is safe to go to. Pictures are here. I find how close they go to actual power plant to be a little unsettling.

      --
      Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
  39. Re:Exposure levels - negligible harm from gamma by Faeton · · Score: 5, Interesting
    800 millirem per hour might sound like a lot, but I don't think she's going to hang around there long. What I would be worried about is the radioactive particulate that still might be around. Once it gets into your lungs, that's bad news because both beta and alpha radiation can wreck havoc on your insides. Gamma isn't as big as a deal (since it just usually goes through stuff anyways).

    I work at a nuclear power plant, and there are fields in certain places that go upwards to 25 REM/h. So, what do you do? Don't stand near it and get your buddy to (unknowingly) shield you!

  40. Re:Not yet. by afidel · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yeah, sure. It's a non-event only if you realize how close they were to core meltdown which would have poisoned the water table across a large swatch of the east coast (lookup china syndrome), and ignore the fact that the reactor containment facility STILL (a quarter centyry later) has places too radioactivly hot to enter. And several years after the incident considerably more radiation was released:

    For 11 days, in June-July, 1980, Met Ed illegally vented 43,000 curies of radioactive Krypton-85 (beta and gamma; 10 year half life) and other radioactive gasses into the environment without having scrubbers in place. In November 1980, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the krypton venting was illegal.
    link

    --
    There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
  41. Re:Safer? That's far from obvious.... by shadowbearer · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Elena's biggest safety risk may very well be "the unexpected".

    On a bike (hell, anywhere in life, really) that is nearly always the demon factor that gets you... damned near got me once, twelve years ago, going into a series of S-turns that I'd been thru many times, and some dickhead had spilled pea gravel all over the low side of the bank - apparently spillover from shoulder maintenance.

    Trashed the bike, but I more or less walked away. I was goddamned fucking lucky, tho.

    SB

    --
    It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
  42. It blew the roof off man! by Chordonblue · · Score: 4, Informative

    It in fact blew the roof some 2,000 feet into the air spreading the worst of the worst particles far and wide.

    White-hot graphite rods were exposed to cold water - these exploded and that was what caused the explosion. The outside world first learned of it when some Norwegian folks at a nuclear plant picked up some off the scale readings.

    The majority of the reactor was buried under tons of concrete and steel (which is now in danger of cracking open). Many firefighters died attempting to contain nuclear fire and most of those had no idea what they were dealing with at the time.

    More info here:

    http://www.uic.com.au/nip22.htm

    --
    "...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
  43. Worried about surface contamination by snStarter · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I found myself worrying about surface contamination as she walked through the buildings and on the tires of her motorcycle. She wasn't wearing gloves as she walked through the buildings nor booties.

    She was very concerned about monitoring the direct radiation but what she might have stirred up is another issue. I hope she checked.

  44. poor command of the english language? by cbv · · Score: 5, Funny

    For the visual information that came out of her camera, I'll gladly forgive her occasionaly poor command of the english language.

    Very nice of you. But I figure her English is better than your Russian.

    1. Re:poor command of the english language? by Almost-Retired · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Touche` My knowledge of Russian is absolutely zip, and in fairness, I should never have mentioned it.

      The story was in the pictures, which really have no "native" language. Very humbling pictures.

      Cheers, Gene

    2. Re:poor command of the english language? by Permission+Denied · · Score: 3, Informative
      Very nice of you. But I figure her English is better than your Russian.

      And her Ukrainian may be even better than her Russian.

      They are separate languages. Russian was forced on the Ukrainians by the Soviets, just like in the rest of the USSR. I'm sure she does speak Russian, but you cannot assume which is her "native" language.

  45. Admit it.. by thellamaman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is fascinating, but admit it, folks, half the reason you enjoy this website is that the girl's cute and has just a touch of geekiness.

  46. Here's a neat picture by squarooticus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...of the Elephant's Foot below reactor number four.

    --
    [ home ]
  47. Wow by psyconaut · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That's one of the coolest, neatest, most awe inpsiring things I've ever seen on Slashdot. I'm not sure why exactly, but it is :-)

    -psy

  48. It's over there..... by rune2 · · Score: 5, Funny

    by your tinfoil hat ;-)

  49. Re:MOD PARENT +1 INSIGHTFUL by The+Analog+Kid · · Score: 3, Insightful

    More importantly, we should come together as a species and help one another, ofcourse it would only happen on a show like Star Trek, but it's wishful thinking for the better.

    I too agree that the USSR should be ashamed and we should be Proud Americans.


    Yes, when the world comes to an end, I too want everyone to remember the numerous toxic waste sites, polluted rivers, and massive deforestation of United States of America. I too want to stand proud of all the positive things my country has done for our enviroment.

    Come on, you can't blame the entire USSR for that accident, though their government did downplay the damage of the event in the typical Russian way. If anyone should be ashamed it's probably the idiots inside the plant that cause the disaster to take place. I'm sure they new full well what could happen if they did what they did, but they went ahead and did it anyway. Now all that's left is an area frozen in time.

  50. Re:still impresive by Tackhead · · Score: 3, Interesting
    > Nope, they really turned red. They were mostly Scotch pine and they died more or less instantly when the cloud blew over (the aspen and birch trees are more resistant). It's the subject of some research - search for Chernobyl and "Red Forest" to find some. Not just how they turned red, but what happens now with tons of radioactive wood buried and decomposing into the groundwater.

    Pictures of the Red Forest - trees vs. 60 Grays. Holy shit.

  51. News flash! by fm6 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The world is full of small risks. Deal with it. You can't escape radiation -- you need it to live! (Unless you're an abyssal sea-dweller, of course.) But you probably run less risk from every-day radiation then you do from driving 10 MPH over the speed limit on your way home from work!

  52. Thryroid Cancers in exposed residents by WindPwr · · Score: 5, Informative

    I recently worked on a project with a group of radiologists at the research university I'm employed by to develop an expert system to more quickly train operators of portable ultrasound imaging equipment. This group is part of a world wide organization of physicians dealing with the long term irradiation effects of hundreds of thousands of people exposed to Chernobyl's fallout. Specifically, detecting thyroid cancer with ultrasound requires much experience and there is great urgency to speed training to detect these cancers early before they become too advanced for successful treatment. This group began monitoring residents in the fallout area shortly after the accident was made public. Children exposed then are now beginning to show higher rates of thyroid cancers.

  53. Re:Exposure levels - negligible harm from gamma by t14m4t · · Score: 5, Informative
    heh. this is one of those few nuclear topics that I can actually comment on.

    those numbers that are being quoted are for a burst dose -- ie you get it all at once. the effects change if you get a continuous, lower dose to the same levels.

    I'm currently in the Navy's Nuclear Engineer school (2 more weeks and hopefully I'll be a certified nuclear engineer! hooray!). I don't have the numbers memorized, but this is along the lines of what they tell us (and yes, it's unclassified):

    1 Rem = 1 mRem (milliRem)

    The following are effects from burst doses

    • 1 Rem

    Prognossis: Excellent
    Effects: none
    Treatment: tell the guys he's a dumbass for thinking there's a problem

    • 25 Rem

    Prognossis: Excellent
    Effects: none
    Treatment: have him see a doctor just to make sure, but there's still really no problem. possible rise in chance to get cancer.

    • 100 Rem

    Prognossis: Good
    Effects: headache. 5% chance of vomitting within 4 hrs.
    Treatment: seek medical attention.

    • 500 Rem

    Prognossis: OK
    Effects: headache. 50% chance of vomitting within 2 hr. 5% chance of death within 4 months.
    Treatment: seek medical attention immediately.

    • 1000 Rem

    Prognossis: Guarded
    Effects: headache. 100% chance of vomiting within 1 hr. 50% chance of death within a short period (can't rememebr the time).
    Treatment: better get him to a doctor NOW!

    • 5000 Rem

    Prognossis: hopeless
    Effects: headache. 100% chance vomitting within 30 min. 100% chance of death within 48 hrs.
    Treatment: Give him sedatives. Call the morgue.

    For those that are curious, the guys on K-19 probably got more than 5000 Rem.

    And what do these mean? here are some numbers to compare against:

    I work daily 15 feet from an operational reactor (I work on US submarines).
    my exposure last month: 4 mrem.
    my lifetime exposure: .106 (approx 1/10) Rem. (I've been doing this job for 2.5 yrs)
    The radiation levels in the Reactor Compartment 15 minutes after shutting down the reactor: ~50 mRem/hr (avg)

    a day at the beach: 10 mRem per day
    smoking for a year: 1 Rem
    standing next to a bag of fertilizer: 2 mRem / day
    eating a banana: 4 mRem each

    those numbers are mostly from betas and gammas. alphas only affect you if you get them inside you, which is why smokers get so much radiation, and neutron mostly is (a) really low-level and (b) passes right through you.

    so what's my point?

    1. I get less radiation from work that I do from living.
    2. those numbers that they got from Chyrnobl are HUGE, but they can't happen on US Naval Reactors. Even if we were to completely melt down and spray our stuff all over the place, we would still be relatively clean (we use tiny reactors; we only need to power a 300' boat to 25+ knots, we don;t need to power an entire metropolis). besides, the most likely time that would occur is if we get hit with a depth charge, at which point's we'll sit on the bottom of the ocean and get covered with a whole hell of a lot of water! :-)

    weylin
    --
    67.5% Slashdot Pure I guess I need to work on that.... :)
  54. and hey... by Doktor+Memory · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...it makes her hot in more ways than one.

    --

    News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.

  55. steekin badgers by Doktor+Memory · · Score: 4, Funny

    So you're suggesting trying to bluff your way past a Russian military checkpoint into a restricted area, using a fake ID you've assembled from scans on the net?

    You first.

    --

    News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.

  56. She didn't take THIS picture. by RayBender · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I will admit that along with every other geek on /. I'm madly in love with this hot, hot biker chick. I guess I'm glad she didn't take this picture. Yes, that's a chunk of the reactor fuel itself.

    --
    Human genome = 3 billion base pairs = 6 GBit. Windows + Office = 20 Gbit. Which is more impressive?
    1. Re:She didn't take THIS picture. by Bandman · · Score: 3, Funny

      I kinda figured they took it with the lens cap still on ;-)

  57. Re:Safer? That's far from obvious.... by wcdw · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As a long-time rider, I can assure you that any bike rider's biggest safety risk is _ALWAYS_ the unexpected. This is just as true in racing (what happens when the lead bike blows a gasket?) as it is in street riding.

    Although Elena's site focuses more on the result than the process, I get the impression that she is an experienced rider, and thus cannot fail to be aware of that.

    There ARE only two kinds of motorcycle riders, after all -- those that have had accidents, and those that will. (And the two are NOT mutually exclusive, what's worse. ;)

    But one doesn't ride a motorcycle because one is concerned about one's safety among all else, either....

    (I echo an earlier poster's sentiments about the appeal of women who ride!)

    --
    If you're not living on the edge, you're just taking up space!
  58. Deserted town in the USA by Sanat · · Score: 4, Informative

    Back in the early 80's a small town - Times Beach, Missouri was found to have dioxin sprayed on the dirt streets and caused the government to buy out the whole town and relocate everybody.

    It is eery to drive down I-44 just outside of St. Louis and see this town that is totally deserted. just sitting there...

    I've moved from the area since so have not seen it in a few years so don't know what it looks like today, but it was said that the streets contained 2,000,000 times the amount of dioxin considered to be a dangerous level.

    People living there would rake up dead birds and animals died at an alarming rate. over 50 horses died at a single stable from the spraying.

    Now it is just a ghost town frozen in time from the early 80's.

    A massive cleanup was to be put in place collecting the dirt, processing it and later putting back the cleaned dirt... but it may be a never ending project.

    Any locals from St. Louis area care to elaborate further and update what is going on and if the town is still there?

    --
    And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make
    1. Re:Deserted town in the USA by freshmkr · · Score: 4, Informative
      Back in the early 80's a small town - Times Beach, Missouri was found to have dioxin sprayed on the dirt streets and caused the government to buy out the whole town and relocate everybody.


      Any locals from St. Louis area care to elaborate further and update what is going on and if the town is still there?


      Contaminated soil and other debris from Times Beach was completely incinerated by 1997. The buildings and houses were leveled years before that. Know what you mean, though--when I was a kid, I used to hold my breath when we drove by on 44.


      Googling for "times beach cleanup" turns up this PDF summary. A quote:


      The Times Beach cleanup has been completed. All residents and businesses were permanently relocated, the purchase of the remaining parcels by FEMA has been completed, and the ownership of the parcels of land has been conveyed to the State of Missouri. The demolition and disposal of the structures at Times Beach has been completed. Excavation of dioxin-contaminated soils, interim placement in temporary on-site storage, and final destruction of site contaminants by incineration has been completed. Thermal treatment of dioxin-contaminated soils from Times Beach and other sites was completed in June 1997, and the site has been restored to a state park.


      --Tom

  59. Shielding by wagnerer · · Score: 3, Informative

    Best shielding for:
    Gammas: DU or lead
    Betas: Plastic, water (avoid metal at all costs, especially heavy metals)
    Alpha: Basically anything
    Neutron: Parafin to slow them down and lithium to absorb them

    An x-ray is made by slamming an electron into a heavy, dense metal, usually tungsten in machines. A beta is a very fast electron so shield them with metal and you have an x-ray source.

  60. Chernobyl body count by infolib · · Score: 3, Informative

    Quoting chapter 6:

    Some tell that 400.000 dead, soyuzchernobyl report of 300.000 people that died since 1986 and this is not over, in 30 years people will still die

    These numbers are WILDLY inflated! The number of deaths from radiation are probably rather in the dozens. Check here, or here

    --
    Any sufficiently advanced libertarian utopia is indistinguishable from government.
  61. In the words of Governor Schwarznegger by runlvl0 · · Score: 5, Funny

    "who are those slashdot people? they swept over like Mongol-Tartars."


    "...what is best in life?"

    "To slashdot your enemies, see their hit counters roll over before you, and to hear the lamentation of their servers!"

    --

    Carthago delenda est!
  62. Somebody should make a movie with her by Simon+Brooke · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Subject says it all, really. She would make a great subject for a short documentary movie, taking a ride through the dead zone and talking about it. I would pay to watch it. I might even invest in it. It wouldn't cost very much to make.

    --
    I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
  63. Elena has requested that people not duplicate site by 0x0d0a · · Score: 5, Informative

    Elena has started posting on sport-touring.net.

    When someone put up a mirror, worried about bandwidth, Elena asked him to take it down because she was concerned that her updates wouldn't get propagated, and that people would only see an old version.

    elena

    I asked to remove copied site, because need to update and need to make some corrections.


    Original Elena post here.

    While I realize that folks just want to help out, I think that, given that this is Elena's work (and one that she had to venture into hazardous environments to produce and is giving away freely), her wishes should be respected WRT mirrors. (That doesn't mean that I'm not going to make a personal wget -rk --no-parent'ed copy just in case the site ever goes away permanently, though.)

  64. Elena also feeling harassed by 0x0d0a · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If you read a bit further in the thread I linked to in my parent post, you'll also notice that Elena removed her facial portrait and email address (leaving only the postal address) from her original pages -- the body of her documentary work is still present, without some of the personal information. She originally deliberately took her site down for a short period after it first "hit the Web awareness". As folks have noticed, there has been a lot of online commenting on her sex appeal, etc, and a good guess is that she's been uncomfortable with the email that she's been getting since her original site was put up.

    Seriously -- appreciate the work for what it is -- a unique, honest set of images and insights into the most horrific nuclear disaster the world has ever seen. However, please try and avoid creeping the author out. I'd like to continue to see more of this material.

    Thanks.

    1. Re:Elena also feeling harassed by jupitercore · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I found Elena's site (the first time round) 2 days before it hit Slashdot on another popular website. If there's another group out there that can cause mass slashdotting of sites, and bring some of the worst minds I've seen on the net, it's them.

      That's not to say we're not creeping her out, but there are other mass communities as well.

  65. Published in a book by hey · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Would be nice to see this published in a book.
    Maybe Oreilly would want to publish their first
    coffee table book.