Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

moxie.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 264 posts

Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#41

Post by tptacek »

moxie wrote: post #19
dweekly wrote: post #5

The pictures are lovely and the reflections profound. But much of the cited data here appears wrong. For instance, the article states (italicized): "six hundred helicopter pilots were killed" and yet it was only 600 helicopter pilots who _flew_ liquidator missions[1], two of which were killed in an piloting accident and none were registered killed from immediate radiation exposure[2], though at least one eventually d…

I think there's a lot of uncertainty in talking about Chernobyl, since most of the information published by the Soviet authorities was intentionally incorrect or misleading, designed to downplay the significance of the accident. One thing I've found interesting in talking about Chernobyl is that advocates of nuclear power are often willing to accept the Soviet numbers as fact, since they confirm the idea that nuclear…

I see interviews with Antoshkin about the lack of precautions taken for the pilots, in stories citing the "600" number as the total number of pilots involved, but nothing establishing 600 fatalities.

I screened the Discovery documentary you're referring to and watched all the segments in which Antoshkin appears. It's the narrator of the special who claims 600 helicopter pilot fatalities, not Antoshkin himself, unless I've missed something. Can the 600 number be squared with the number of helicopters involved (the documentary claims 60, I think) and the number of missions the pilots fly (dozens per day), and with the fact that you can find some of those pilots giving interviews just a few years ago?

Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#42

Post by wiz21c »

the_af wrote: post #37
iooi wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to have cherry picked sources that have a lower estimate for all these figures, i.e., "propaganda numbers". I think the best source for these numbers is the Wikipedia article "Deaths due to the Chernobyl disaster" [1]. From the article, Russia claims "estimates ranging from 4,000" while scientific and environmental organizations claim "no fewer than 93,000". It's clear that Russia wants to downplay the enorm…

While later contested, it's not only "Russia" which estimated 4000 deaths. Wikipedia states the United Nations took part in the joint group, and > "[...] worked to establish international consensus on the effects of the accident via a series of reports that collated 20 years of research to make official previous UN, IAEA, and World Health Organization (WHO) estimates of a total of 4,000 deaths due to disaster-related…

anyway, it's much lower than death caused by burning coal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents

Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#43

Post by trhway »

iooi wrote: post #34
dweekly wrote: post #5

The pictures are lovely and the reflections profound. But much of the cited data here appears wrong. For instance, the article states (italicized): "six hundred helicopter pilots were killed" and yet it was only 600 helicopter pilots who _flew_ liquidator missions[1], two of which were killed in an piloting accident and none were registered killed from immediate radiation exposure[2], though at least one eventually d…

You seem to have cherry picked sources that have a lower estimate for all these figures, i.e., "propaganda numbers". I think the best source for these numbers is the Wikipedia article "Deaths due to the Chernobyl disaster" [1]. From the article, Russia claims "estimates ranging from 4,000" while scientific and environmental organizations claim "no fewer than 93,000". It's clear that Russia wants to downplay the enorm…

> while scientific and environmental organizations claim "no fewer than 93,000".

that is on the right scale. The Gomel and Mogilev regions of Belarus took the brunt of the fallout, and the cancer rates there is significantly higher. For example, the rate of the breast cancer (the most frequent cancer - normally more than 1 in 10 women would get it during lifetime) is 2x there (so with total 1M+ women living in those 2 regions more than 100K of them would get the breast cancer due to Chernobyl). In general, comparing Belarus cancer rates to Russia, Ukraine, Poland - the surrounding countries with a lot of similarities wrt. environment, ethnicity/DNA, lifestyle/unhealthy habits/etc. - Belarus gets about 10K extra cancer cases per year (with about 50% mortality).

Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#44

Post by crispyambulance »

SomeOldThrow wrote: post #17
randylahey wrote: post #4

I found it very distracting that none of the ostensibly Russian or Ukrainian characters have an even remotely slavic accent.

I wish they had gone with the actual language + used subtitles, it really destroys the immersion.

The main actors are definitely A-List and they "make it work" beautifully in English with whatever their native accents happen to be.

If it were a Russian language production with Russian actors, that could also be just fine, but it wouldn't get as much distribution.

Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#45

Post by hackermailman »

gk1 wrote: post #13

There's a YouTuber who's been traveling around Belarus and recording his daily adventures. Many of the videos are from inside the areas affected by Chernobyl. They're fun to watch: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqWdYjn21PdHRvHB7Nrwl...

The Belarus exclusion zone is huge, and sort of keeps growing whenever there is a forest fire and radioactive materials are redistributed.

Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#46

Post by atombender »

dweekly wrote: post #5

The pictures are lovely and the reflections profound. But much of the cited data here appears wrong. For instance, the article states (italicized): "six hundred helicopter pilots were killed" and yet it was only 600 helicopter pilots who _flew_ liquidator missions[1], two of which were killed in an piloting accident and none were registered killed from immediate radiation exposure[2], though at least one eventually d…

For a better-researched, well-sourced and grounded write-up of a visit to Chernobyl — with tons of background on the incident itself — see Andrew Leatherbarrow's Chernobyl 01:23:40, which is available as a blog as well as an e-book:

https://leatherbarrowa.exposure.co/chernobyl.

Edit: Posted to HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20033770.

Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#47

Post by the_af »

wiz21c wrote: post #42
the_af wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While later contested, it's not only "Russia" which estimated 4000 deaths. Wikipedia states the United Nations took part in the joint group, and > "[...] worked to establish international consensus on the effects of the accident via a series of reports that collated 20 years of research to make official previous UN, IAEA, and World Health Organization (WHO) estimates of a total of 4,000 deaths due to disaster-related…

anyway, it's much lower than death caused by burning coal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents

Yes.

I think it's important the keep the hyperbole to a minimum, if we're truly interested in safe energy and in understanding this accident and its impact. Speaking of millions of deaths, as if it were proven fact, or getting our knowledge from sensationalized miniseries, is doing a disservice to both the Chernobyl disaster and the topic of nuclear energy.

Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#48

Post by arcticbull »

moxie wrote: post #19
dweekly wrote: post #5

The pictures are lovely and the reflections profound. But much of the cited data here appears wrong. For instance, the article states (italicized): "six hundred helicopter pilots were killed" and yet it was only 600 helicopter pilots who _flew_ liquidator missions[1], two of which were killed in an piloting accident and none were registered killed from immediate radiation exposure[2], though at least one eventually d…

I think there's a lot of uncertainty in talking about Chernobyl, since most of the information published by the Soviet authorities was intentionally incorrect or misleading, designed to downplay the significance of the accident. One thing I've found interesting in talking about Chernobyl is that advocates of nuclear power are often willing to accept the Soviet numbers as fact, since they confirm the idea that nuclear…

> One thing I've found interesting in talking about Chernobyl is that advocates of nuclear power are often willing to accept the Soviet numbers as fact, since they confirm the idea that nuclear power is still relatively "safe" even in case of disaster.

I believe the IAEA report (which you can read yourself) put together by the United Nations and relevant affected governments in the mid-2000s. It shows that over the entire course of time 4,000 people will have died prematurely as a result of the accident at Chernobyl (including people who killed themselves because they feared they were "contaminated"), and between 31 and 54 people died between both the explosion itself and to acute radiation injuries in the immediate aftermath -- including the helicopter pilots you mention. [1]

I also believe that 7.3 million people die every year as a direct result of the burning of fossil fuels. [2]

Everything is trade-offs. The accident was bad, and it could have been an awful lot worse. On the other hand, it's important we not lose sight of the big picture. When humans get hurt, they learn why, and move forward - this should not be an exception.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_di...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents

Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#49

Post by tptacek »

trhway wrote: post #43
iooi wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to have cherry picked sources that have a lower estimate for all these figures, i.e., "propaganda numbers". I think the best source for these numbers is the Wikipedia article "Deaths due to the Chernobyl disaster" [1]. From the article, Russia claims "estimates ranging from 4,000" while scientific and environmental organizations claim "no fewer than 93,000". It's clear that Russia wants to downplay the enorm…

> while scientific and environmental organizations claim "no fewer than 93,000". that is on the right scale. The Gomel and Mogilev regions of Belarus took the brunt of the fallout, and the cancer rates there is significantly higher. For example, the rate of the breast cancer (the most frequent cancer - normally more than 1 in 10 women would get it during lifetime) is 2x there (so with total 1M+ women living in those…

Belarus is different from its neighbors in more significant ways than its proximity to Chernobyl; it's famously "the last dictatorship in Europe". Since the fall of the Soviet Union, it's economy has been weaker than its neighbors, as has its ties to the European Union.

Re: Scene report from the Chernobyl Zone

#50

Post by trhway »

tptacek wrote: post #49
trhway wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> while scientific and environmental organizations claim "no fewer than 93,000". that is on the right scale. The Gomel and Mogilev regions of Belarus took the brunt of the fallout, and the cancer rates there is significantly higher. For example, the rate of the breast cancer (the most frequent cancer - normally more than 1 in 10 women would get it during lifetime) is 2x there (so with total 1M+ women living in those…

Belarus is different from its neighbors in more significant ways than its proximity to Chernobyl; it's famously "the last dictatorship in Europe". Since the fall of the Soviet Union, it's economy has been weaker than its neighbors, as has its ties to the European Union.

That isnt a factor here for at least two reasons: 1. It doesn't have geographical distribution correlation that the Chernobyl fallout has with the cancer rates increase. 2. The Belarus per-capita GDP is more than 2x that of Ukraine.
Post reply on HN