Humbling Website

[Barakka]

Not sure if this has been posted before or even if it's in the right section (moderators please feel free to move if this is the case ) but one of the most powerful pages i've seen on the web for a long time.
http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/
Site about a Ukranian woman who rides her motorbike through the "Dead Zone" at Chernobyl. Lots of thought provoking pictures and comments. I'm too young to remember the actual event but remember the years after and the cloaked way it was always talked about

[Moby-Dick]

I saw this sitea while back - its amazing how its been "frozen" in time.


I guess the USSR is big enough to sweep an entire town under the rug :/


its not the only abandoned town in the world though. If you read "walk in the woods" by Bill Bryson, you hear about a couple.

I guess the Dead zone was that much bigger.....

[Punky]

i read through all of it, and its a really powerful thing to see. all those people dying in such a short period of time. could happen anywhere with a nuclear power station, which is the worrying thing. you'd think that lessons would have been learnt and non-ecologically damaging and fully renewable energy sources would have been developed. spose there's no money for oil companies there tho, so not much chance of it happening.

[Knoxville]

Thats really humbling to think just how many people lost everything in such a short space of time, that one human error or mechanical malfunction costing hundreds of thousands of lives. Just makes you wonder if something like that could happen again and what could've happened in the u.s with 3 mile island

[steve threlfall]

Thats an amaizingly poignant website. I have read it through several times now. The storys behind chernobyl are so sad and this terrible accident was all down to human error. Unlike most accidents this one was so difficult to contain. The aftermath of the disaster is still being felt now.

The death toll is thought tobe over 400,000 over such a long period of time. Hundreds of army troops went to their deaths trying to contain this disaster- those men who constructed the sacrcophagus around the reactor pring to mind and those who evacuated the town of chernobyl and the surrounding area, now know as the dead zone. She actually says that due to the hasty construction of the sarcophagus its now decaying. Eventually it will need to be rebuilt,if not the dead zone will be exposed to even more radiation.

So many people were exposed to the radiation, so many dead and all this from one reactor! Imagine if nuclear weapons were used today

Aside from the initial reach of the radiation emmitted from the reactor that wiped out everything in the dead zone and drove people from their homes, the radioactive fallout hit thousands of miles away.

The photos on the site say what words cant express . She must be brave to ride through that area.

[Atomic]

The weirdist thing are the pictures of the nursery with the mini gasmasks.

[Knoxville]

She actually says that due to the hasty construction of the sarcophagus its now decaying. Eventually it will need to be rebuilt,if not the dead zone will be exposed to even more radiation.

Was on the news ages ago about that apparently america have offered to pay for it if the russians don't.

[iMc]

thats nice of them!

on a more serious note that is one of the best websites ive had the pleasure of sitting through and reading in quite some time. Especially good seeing as ive never really understood the Chernobyl events in full detail (too young ) and this fills in a few gaps.

[kemosabe]

There are many other theories suggested by people that the disaster wasn't an accident and things like sabotage and or the weather conditions had a part to play in the events, at least thats what this guy had to say.

V. Podsvirov,
Former Chief Of Staff Deputy For Special Zone Forces
in Chernobyl nuclear power plant area
retired colonel

Different facts and evidence show it was a full-scale sabotage against the former USSR, which resulted in collapse of the world superpower.

"The Chernobyl power plant was blown up by a foreign agent! Department of Nuclear Energy, Science Academy with its research and design institutes were not ready for such an unexpected disaster. Chernobyl nuclear holocaust was not an accident. Nuclear reactors have high level of reliability proved by a number of tests. Water pumps of primary and back-up cooling systems could not have been simultaneously disabled. The picture of blown up reactor was taken too opportunely by the U.S. satellite that was "accidentally" on the proper orbit above the 4th block at that very time. Logically analyzed facts and developments of "cold war" in 50th show Chernobyl catastrophe was not an accident. That was a full-scale sabotage of the century, which resulted in breakdown of the USSR economic basis and "soviet" socialist system in general. The adversaries of the USSR made an effective use of the negligence and incompetence of the government headed by Gorbachev along with the lack of sufficient control of restricted areas."

[G4Z]

sounds a bit far fetched to me, I couldnt even imagine Bush doing somthing like that and killing 400,000 people in one go.

[spikegifted]

That's a very good link! I've seen it before, nevertheless, it is still a very scary read, no matter how many times I go through it...

For those who doubt the consequences of a non-military atomic/nuclear disasters: STOP SHOWING OFF YOUR IGNORANCE!! GO AND DO SOME READING/RESEARCH OF YOUR OWN!!! May be if you paid attention in your physics or chemistry class, you'd know something about the harmful effects of radiation.

[CrimsonAvenger]

[Rave]

The really scary thing is that the rest of the Chernobyl station carried on operating after the disaster, and AFAIK is still operating today. I have no idea how the people working there avoid being irradiated, or if they even do...

I met a German girl on Holiday last year who lost both her legs to bone cancer as a baby, because of Chernobyl. Nice girl though, likes a game of cards.

Rich :¬)

[marc_ellis]

The really scary thing is that the rest of the Chernobyl station carried on operating after the disaster, and AFAIK is still operating today. I have no idea how the people working there avoid being irradiated, or if they even do...

I met a German girl on Holiday last year who lost both her legs to bone cancer as a baby, because of Chernobyl. Nice girl though, likes a game of cards.

Rich :¬)

Na it was closed down on december 15 2000, But still it was running for 14 years after the accident

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1071344.stm