Andrew Leatherbarrow > Quotes

“Those whose bodies were recovered are buried in welded zinc coffins, to prevent their radioactive remains from contaminating the soil. Even”
― Andrew Leatherbarrow, Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster

“Doctors and nurses were also irradiated because the patients they treated were so contaminated that their own bodies had become radioactive. Initially,”
― Andrew Leatherbarrow, Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster

“Watch and clock faces, fingernails, military instrument panels, gun sights and even children’s toys glowed with radium, hand-painted in factories by young women working for the United States Radium Corporation. The unsuspecting artisans would lick their brushes - ingesting radium particles each time - to keep the tips pointed during the precision work, but years later their teeth and skulls began to disintegrate.”
― Andrew Leatherbarrow, Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster

“For those first months, futile attempts to avoid a mass panic took precedent over people’s lives. As”
― Andrew Leatherbarrow, Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster

“I am sure that at the end of the world, in the last millisecond of the Earth’s existence, the last man will see what we have just seen.”
― Andrew Leatherbarrow, Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster

“The principal concern of a nuclear reactor - particularly an RBMK reactor, because of its graphite moderator - is that cooling water continuously flows into the core. Without it there could be an explosion or meltdown. Even if the reactor is shut down, the fuel within will still be generating decay heat, which would damage the core without further cooling. Pumps driving the flow of water rely on electricity generated by the plant’s own turbines, but in the event of a blackout the electrical supply can be switched to the national grid. If that fails, diesel generators on site will automatically start up to power the water pumps, but these take about 50 seconds to gather enough energy to operate the massive pumps. There are six emergency tanks containing a combined 250 tons of pressurised water which can be injected into the core within 3.5 seconds, but an RBMK reactor needs around 37,000 tons of water per hour - 10 tons-per-second - so 250 tons does not cover the 50 second gap.92”
― Andrew Leatherbarrow, Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster

“Soldiers handling reactor graphite by hand shows how uninformed people were in the early days of the clean-up operation.”
― Andrew Leatherbarrow, Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster

“Radiation’s most well-known pioneering researcher, Marie Curie, died in 1934 from aplastic anaemia brought on by her decades of unprotected exposure to the faint, glowing substances in her pockets and desk drawers.”
― Andrew Leatherbarrow, Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster

“NASA scientists calculated in 2013 that nuclear power has actually prevented an average of 1.84 million air pollution-related deaths and 64 gigatonnes of CO2-equivalent greenhouse gas emissions that would have resulted from fossil fuel burning between 1971 and 2009.68”
― Andrew Leatherbarrow, Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster

“Radiation had made any ordinary course of action impossible, pushing them to acknowledge that the use of even one nuclear bomb - let alone the 65,000 in existence in 1986 - was unconscionable. Five”
― Andrew Leatherbarrow, Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster

“During the first few minutes of the accident, more than 100 alarms went off, and there was no system for suppressing the unimportant signals so that operators could concentrate on the significant alarms.”
― Andrew Leatherbarrow, Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster

“The explosion tore away water pipes used to supply coolant into the bottom of the core, preventing the reactor from being fed with water by the mangled pumps. Unfortunately, the operators did not realise this - or were in denial, given the horrifying consequences a reactor explosion would entail - and their lack of understanding lead them down the wrong course of action which served only to exacerbate the situation and throw lives away. Instead, Deputy-Chief Engineer Dyatlov became convinced the explosions had been caused by hydrogen in the Safety Control System’s emergency water tank, and that the reactor must still be intact. Even though he had no real basis for this explanation - and if he had looked out of a window he would have seen that he was wrong - he acted on this belief for hours after.”
― Andrew Leatherbarrow, Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster

“During construction, the plant’s massive roof was supposed to be sealed with a non-combustible material, for obvious reasons. None was readily available in the required quantities, so to proceed on schedule he sourced bitumen instead, of which there was enough in storage.147 Bitumen is a highly flammable substance, banned from industrial use in the Soviet Union for over a decade (which is perhaps why there was so much of it lying around).148 The bitumen melted in the intense heat, sticking to the firemen’s boots, hindering their mobility and filling their lungs with toxic smoke.”
― Andrew Leatherbarrow, Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster

“Having resisted repeated requests to evacuate Pripyat and the surrounding area by Legasov since his arrival, Scherbina relinquished on the evening of the 26th, and agreed that the population within 10km of the plant should be moved to a safe distance. However, even this decision was tainted. While the scientists favoured immediate compulsory evacuation, Scherbina decided not to inform the city’s residents until late the following morning, leaving them unaware of the perils faced by venturing outside for another night and almost no time to prepare for the evacuation. 1,100 buses in a convoy drove overnight from Kiev to transport the evacuees out of the area. Officials forbade residents from leaving in their personal cars out of concern that they would cause traffic jams and prevent a steady departure.”
― Andrew Leatherbarrow, Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster

“Helicopter pilots were withdrawn from the war in Afghanistan and set to work flying constant sorties over Unit 4, dropping sandbags into the molten crater. At first, only three men filled the bags with sand - two Deputy Ministers and Major General Antoshkin of the Air Force. “We were soon in a sweat,” recalled Gennadi Shasharin, Deputy Minister of Power and Electrification. “We worked just the way we were: Meshkov and I in Moscow suits and street shoes, and the General in his dress uniform. All without respirators and dosimeters.”190”
― Andrew Leatherbarrow, Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster

“At 01:23:04, turbine 8 was disconnected and began to coast down.114 The operators still had no idea what was about to happen and began a calm discussion, remarking that the reactor’s task was complete and they could start to shut it down.115 Exactly what happened next is not 100% clear. Dyatlov claimed afterwards that the test proceeded as normal with no problems and that Akimov pressed the EPS-5 emergency safety button simply to shut down the reactor at the test’s conclusion as planned. Others said there were shouts and that Akimov pressed it after Toptunov saw readings on his control board that indicated a serious problem. Though reactivity increased slightly as the turbine speed dropped, some reports and simulations have concluded that no strange phenomena occurred prior to pressing the button and that all readings, under the circumstances, were normal.”
― Andrew Leatherbarrow, Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster

“Within 4 seconds, the reactor’s energy output had soared to several times its intended capacity. Runaway heat and pressure deep inside the core ruptured fuel channels, then water pipes, causing the pumps’ automatic safety valves to close. This stopped the flow of coolant, increasing the rate at which steam was forming from the core’s diminishing water supply. The reactor’s own safety valves attempted to vent the steam, but the pressure was too great and they, too, ruptured.”
― Andrew Leatherbarrow, Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster

“To avoid corrosion of the steel structure, the designers have implemented a clever air-conditioning system that circles 45,000m³ of warm air per-hour within the vicinity of the shelter’s cladding. “There are steel structures that have lasted 100 years, such as the Eiffel Tower, but they last because they’re continually repainted,” said Dr Eric Schmieman, a senior technical advisor from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in the US, to Wired magazine in 2013. “We’re not able to do that once we slide this into place - the radiation levels are so high we can’t send people in. So what are we going to do? We are going to condition the air that goes into that space. We’re going to keep the relative humidity in there at less than 40 percent.”278”
― Andrew Leatherbarrow, Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster

“By 01:00, after around half an hour, the pair had succeeded in increasing the power to 200MWt by retracting about half of the control rods, but that was as high as it would go - nowhere near the intended 700MWt. Xenon poisoning had already taken its toll, seriously reducing the fuel’s reactivity. Russian safety regulations have since changed to require that an RBMK reactor be kept at a minimum of 700MWt during normal operation because of thermal-hydraulic instability at reduced power. Knowing 200MWt was still far too low to perform the test, they overrode additional automatic systems and manually raised still more control rods to compensate for the poisoning effect.108 At the same time, they connected all 8 main circulating pumps and increased the flow of coolant into the core, up to around 60,000 tons per hour.109 This volume of water was another violation of safety regulations, since very high water flow could lead to cavitation in the pipes. Increased coolant levels meant less steam, which soon caused the turbine speeds to drop. To counteract negative reactivity from all the extra coolant water, the operators withdrew most of the few control rods still inside the reactor, until the equivalent of only 8 fully inserted rods remained.110 The normal absolute minimum allowed at the time was 15, which increased to 30 after the accident.111”
― Andrew Leatherbarrow, Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster

“Fifty tons of vaporised nuclear fuel were thrown into the atmosphere, destined to be carried away in a poisonous cloud that would spread across most of Europe. The mighty explosion ejected a further 700 tons of radioactive material - mostly graphite - from the periphery of the core, scattering it across an area of a few square kilometers. This included the roofs of the turbine hall, Unit 3, and the ventilation stack it shared with Unit 4, all of which erupted into flames. The reactor fuel’s extreme temperature, combined with air rushing into the gaping hole, ignited the core’s remaining graphite and generated an inferno that burned for weeks. Most lights, windows and electrical systems throughout the severely damaged Unit 4 were blown out, leaving only a smattering of emergency lighting to provide illumination.124”
― Andrew Leatherbarrow, Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster

“Russia’s biggest transport helicopters flew around the clock dropping a special polymer resin to seal radioactive dust to the ground. This prevented the dust from being kicked up by vehicles and inhaled, giving troops time to dig up the topsoil for extraction and burial. Construction workers laid new roads throughout the zone, allowing vehicles to move around without spreading radioactive particles.218 At certain distance limits, decontamination points, manned by police, intersected these roads. They came armed with dosimeters and a special cleaning spray to hose down any passing trucks, cars or armoured vehicles. Among the more drastic clean-up measures was bulldozing and burying the most contaminated villages, some of which had to be reburied two or three times.219 The thousands of buildings that were spared this fate - including the entire city of Pripyat - were painstakingly sprayed clean with chemicals, while new asphalt was laid on the streets. At Chernobyl itself, all the topsoil and roads were replaced. In total, 300,000m³ of earth was dug up and buried in pits, which were then covered over with concrete. The work took months. To make matters worse, each time it rained within 100km of the plant, new spots of heavy contamination appeared, brought down from the radioactive clouds above.”
― Andrew Leatherbarrow, Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster

“The volume and intensity of radioactive particles thrown into the atmosphere on that night was equal to 10 Hiroshima bombs,”
― Andrew Leatherbarrow, Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster

“In an improvised courtroom, the deserted town of Chernobyl’s own Palace of Culture played host to the last of the USSR’s show-trials. Soviet law required that the trial take place near the scene of the crime, and radiation provided a convenient excuse to limit the number of attendees, since access to the zone required special papers. Ostensibly an open trial with journalists and victims’ families invited to the opening and closing days, the bulk of the three-week proceedings took place in secret, behind closed doors. Charges brought against the defendants went back to the earliest days of the plant, when the test was supposed to have been conducted during commissioning, but also spanned routine disregard of safety regulations and failure to provide proper on-site training.”
― Andrew Leatherbarrow, Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster

“Valeriy Perevozchenko, the 38-year-old who witnessed the reactor valve-caps jumping up and down, was the first person of any authority to realise and accept what had really happened. He grabbed a radiometer rated for 1000 microroentgens - far higher than any normal reading. It went off the scale. Unbelievably, apart from one buried under rubble and another locked in a safe, there weren’t any devices for measuring anything higher at the plant, as the explosion had burnt out the powerful sensors around the building.132 Even standard safety equipment was locked up and inaccessible.133”
― Andrew Leatherbarrow, Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster

“Two things were needed to minimise the risk. First, the pool had to be drained, but its two valves in the basement - which could only be turned by hand - were now submerged under radioactive water from the firemen’s failed attempt to extinguish the reactor fire. Second, the commission decided that the earth beneath the reactor building should be frozen with liquid nitrogen to harden the ground, support the foundations and help to cool the superheated core.”
― Andrew Leatherbarrow, Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster

“As for why those three men were chosen, it just so happened that the firemen drained the basement as Ananenko and his two colleagues came on shift. Baranov was the most senior shift manager, so it was he who decided that Ananenko and Bezpalov should turn the valves, and he would accompany them as their observer/rescuer. The men entered the basement in wetsuits, radioactive water up to their knees in places, in a corridor stuffed with myriad pipes and valves. Each man carried two dosimeters: one strapped to the chest, the other near the ankle. When they entered the main basement corridor, Baranov remained near the entrance while Ananenko followed the pipe he believed to be for the pool. He was correct. His fears that he would not find the correct valve in a darkened maze of concrete and metal proved unfounded, so too was his concern that the valves would be jammed. The water drained away and the men returned to the light.”
― Andrew Leatherbarrow, Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster

“Of the 17 RBMK reactors commissioned, 11 remain in operation today. Since the Chernobyl disaster, the Russian Government has exclusively built VVER reactors - the same type that competed against the RBMK to begin with.”
― Andrew Leatherbarrow, Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster

“Even before the Chernobyl incident of 1982, there was another serious accident involving the RBMK design at the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant in November 1975, when its Unit 1 suffered a partial meltdown”
― Andrew Leatherbarrow, Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster

“In late 1983, Lithuania’s brand new Ignalina Power Station began commission testing its first RBMK reactor and soon encountered a problem: control rods entering the reactor together caused a power surge. This is basically what caused the Chernobyl disaster a few years later. At Ignalina, the fuel was brand new, the reactor was stable, and the rods travelled down the entire height of the core, allowing boron to be introduced and the reaction to be brought back under control. This critical discovery was passed around the relevant nuclear Ministries and Institutes, but again nothing changed.”
― Andrew Leatherbarrow, Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster

“Decades of information control proved difficult to cast off in such a short time, however, and while the report was made available in the West, it was classified in the Soviet Union. This meant those most affected by the disaster knew less than everyone else.”
― Andrew Leatherbarrow, Chernobyl 01:23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster