so, for some reason i had this subject on my mind tonight and i ran across these pictures. its pretty sad what happened to these people. i don't know if the kids in these photos will ever survive and if they do, they seem to be suffering. thoughts?

http://todayspictures.slate.com/inmotion/essay_chernobyl/

1/21/2008 10:35:37 PM

1

1/21/2008 10:35:53 PM

2

1/21/2008 10:36:26 PM

1/21/2008 10:36:29 PM

Quote :

"i don't know if the kids in these photos will ever survive"

you realize it happened over 2 decades ago right?

1/21/2008 10:37:15 PM

gah that sucks. Reminds me of pics from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

1/21/2008 10:44:28 PM

^^yea, but most the kids in these pictures are offspring of what happened 2 decades ago.

1/21/2008 11:04:46 PM

it's sad as hell. apparently there are still completely unlivable areas in Eastern Europe because of it, and others risky.

1/21/2008 11:33:39 PM

i thought this thread was about the stock market right now

1/21/2008 11:42:43 PM

cher[no]byl

1/21/2008 11:59:27 PM

Just because it happened 2 decades ago, doesn't mean it's not relevant.

Nut Grass- I would guess that probably some of them will, but not in any meaningful sense.
I've seen these photos before, there's another set done by someone who rode through some of the areas that are unlivable (I would hope breifly for his sake) - it's pretty haunting too but in an obviously different way.

It's thing like this that make me wonder how anyone can believe in an all powerful all loving deity (and no i dont want to get into that debate here).

Somteimes I wonder whatever happened to the kids in the US who lived where it snowed pink (chemicals), or in the neighboorhoods where once someone dug the ground litterally seeped stuff* out (not radiation i know but another form of really really awful pollution that does some pretty horrific things to people). I'm sure they were treated better than this, but I still wonder whatever became of them.

Stuff in this case = chemical sludge of the nearly-glowing in color (not actually luminecent)


[Edited on January 22, 2008 at 12:28 AM. Reason : .]

1/22/2008 12:26:05 AM

Just watched/read the whole essay. That is terribly sad.

1/22/2008 12:40:08 AM

It really was a tragedy. The WHO made what was the most authoritative estimate of victims, which was about 4,000.

That said, the video from that link made a large number of questionable claims (though it avoided as much as it could saying anything about the accident itself and connections blah blah) which are made frequently. It's true that it's a bit strange for these 7 year old boys in 2008 to be suffering from effects of the older-than-that disaster, but that speaks for just how bad the disaster management was.

Very few of those 4,000 casualties would have happened had they evacuated the area properly. I've seen much more old publications with similar pictures of elephant-legged kids, which I think were kids who were being carried by their mothers at the time of the accident, which was when the worst exposure was, which makes sense. What you're seeing there is probably more an effect of long-term management of the consequences. Many years after it happened, people were STILL living in a place people probably shouldn't have been living.

As bad as they make it sound, the levels today are something like 1000 times lower than they were in the 80s, and minus the most inner radius, there is human activity going on around the site. Wildlife did move back in.

The Soviet Union did some really really fucked up stuff.

1/22/2008 12:51:00 AM

just watched the discovery channel doc

1/22/2008 12:56:54 AM

^^ Where did they get the 4k number? Everything else I've ever read it's much much higher than that.
There are VERY much more than four thousand!

And yes- radiation levels are lower now. I wouldn't call a lot of those areas however- "safe" by any stretch of imagination. But remember, a lot of those kids it may easily be "indirect" to them- their parents exposure is what may be at fault.

[Edited on January 22, 2008 at 1:04 AM. Reason : .]

Bit further looking into that- that's WHO's estimate for cancer deaths as a direct cause. Not total victims. And they've gotten some serious criticism over that number.

[Edited on January 22, 2008 at 1:07 AM. Reason : .]

1/22/2008 1:01:03 AM

I have searched ever so hard for a pic Cher's nipple, but there doesn't appear to be one

1/22/2008 1:05:03 AM

^ good.

1/22/2008 1:05:24 AM

haha...touche

1/22/2008 1:05:50 AM

1/22/2008 1:06:29 AM

sigh.


ha the image path: http://www.inmusic2000.de/POP_Queens/Kylie_Minogue-PICS/Dannii_Minogue_Pics/Bjoerk-Pics/Britney_Spears-Pics/Cher01.jpg

[Edited on January 22, 2008 at 1:07 AM. Reason : lol.]

1/22/2008 1:06:51 AM

^^ marvelous efficiency, sir

1/22/2008 1:07:09 AM

Quote :

"Bit further looking into that- that's WHO's estimate for cancer deaths as a direct cause. Not total victims. And they've gotten some serious criticism over that number."

I read blogs that insist the number wasn't higher than 50. I don't think that's believable, and I sure as fucking hell don't think Greenpeace is believable.

WHO is the most trustworthy source we have.

1/22/2008 1:15:21 AM

<---Wishing this thread had been made in the lounge.

1/22/2008 1:16:13 AM

jajaja

1/22/2008 1:23:36 AM

after i read more on chernobyl last night, its amazing that the ones that were in control of the safety test (which eventually caused reactor 4 to explode) had minimum experience with a nuclear power plant.

yea, those pics are pretty disturbing. i just wonder how many years these families will be affected. In any case, i don't believe that anyone that was involved with this disaster should be allowed to reproduce. its too risky and the kids don't deserve that.

1/22/2008 10:27:27 AM

Our so-called leaders prostituted us to the West

[Edited on January 22, 2008 at 10:29 AM. Reason : x]

1/22/2008 10:28:45 AM

1/22/2008 10:34:17 AM

Quote :

"after i read more on chernobyl last night, its amazing that the ones that were in control of the safety test (which eventually caused reactor 4 to explode) had minimum experience with a nuclear power plant."

They didn't have the minimum experience. Problem was that one, institutionalized safety was insufficient, but most importantly, people practically burned the manual and did whatever the fuck they felt like. That crew had no experience operating a nuclear plant, didn't know the most basic details, and if there had been ANY responsible oversight the entire fatal test would have been scrapped in no time flat.

Quote :

"yea, those pics are pretty disturbing. i just wonder how many years these families will be affected. In any case, i don't believe that anyone that was involved with this disaster should be allowed to reproduce. its too risky and the kids don't deserve that."

The workers who caused the accident, or the communist leaders who were ultimate responsible? I agree with the latter.

1/22/2008 10:36:52 AM

[fail]

1/22/2008 10:39:32 AM

i want sooooooooo badly to go there and take pictures...

...i blame the "life after people" special on history channel last night

1/22/2008 10:50:50 AM

^^i was just saying that the ones that came in contact with the radiation shouldn't be allowed to reproduce. i know these people were innocent, but to look at the kids that are the offspring of this is disturbing.

^yea, thats where i got this subject from. 'life after people'

[Edited on January 22, 2008 at 11:01 AM. Reason : .]

1/22/2008 11:01:14 AM

Chernobyl didn't happen, and neither did the Holocaust

1/22/2008 11:21:07 AM

Anybody remember from a few years ago. There was some Russian girl who's dad was a government official. She was allowed into the restricted zone. She went on a motorcycle and took a camera and radiation meter.

The pictures she took were fucking awesome, in a really eerie sort of way. Everything was just literally abandoned. It was like a ghost town, but everything had been perfectly preserved. One of the most memorable images was all these little kid sized gas masks all lined up in a row in a classroom.

Anybody got a link? or remember what I'm talking about?

1/22/2008 12:55:28 PM

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/

1/22/2008 2:39:15 PM

Chernobyl is still operational. Thousands of people work there every day. I think anyone can visit.

As for deaths, cancer is not the only cause. There are also increased cases of things like heart disease that can likely be attributed to the accident. I think it's safe to say that anyone who works there during or after the accident will likely die early.

They recently announced plans to build a new cocoon over the accident site(since the current one has giant holes and is collapsing) but that won't be built for years.

1/22/2008 3:15:08 PM

^^ thanks

1/25/2008 2:37:25 PM

wow, unbelievable photo essay... unbelievable...

1/25/2008 2:59:40 PM

Quote :

"i was just saying that the ones that came in contact with the radiation shouldn't be allowed to reproduce. i know these people were innocent, but to look at the kids that are the offspring of this is disturbing."

Contrary to popular belief, radiation does NOT turn people into mutants. Most radiation effects are somatic (not inheritable). Many studies have been performed on children of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bomb survivors, Chernobyl victims, and radiation therapy patients to determine the hereditary effects of radiation. Simply put, there is no significant difference in either case.

The grotesque images you see are typically the result of the lack of appropriate treatment for tumors and cancer. Similar images can be found from regions where medical care is lacking that weren't affected by radiation.

Very high doses of radiation are known to kill. Non-lethal doses can cause damage to cells, affecting mitotic frequency (cells reproduce to slowly or quickly) or causing cancer. Radiation does not cause any genetic effects that are not seen otherwise in nature. The same random mutations are produced by free radicals in the body, which are produced by natural chemical processes. Radiation will produce free radicals in the body and therefore increase the frequency of mutation.

http://hss.energy.gov/healthsafety/ohre/roadmap/achre/intro_9_5.html

If nothing else, read the next-to-last paragraph.

Quote :

"Attempts have been made to estimate the contribution of ionizing radiation to human mutation rates by studying offspring of both exposed and nonexposed Japanese atomic bomb survivors. These estimates are based on comparisons of the rate of various congenital defects and cancer between exposed and nonexposed survivors, as well as on direct counting of mutations at a small number of genes. For all these endpoints, no excess has been observed among descendants of the exposed survivors."

1/25/2008 3:10:18 PM

bump because radiation-induced mutants is a myth.

1/26/2008 4:46:26 PM

Begs to differ

1/26/2008 4:56:34 PM

Quote :

"Chernobyl is still operational. Thousands of people work there every day. I think anyone can visit."

The last operating reactor was shut down in 2000.

1/26/2008 4:59:09 PM

^^^from your own cut and paste job...

Quote :

"Radiation will produce free radicals in the body and therefore increase the frequency of mutation."

[Edited on January 26, 2008 at 5:00 PM. Reason : w]

1/26/2008 4:59:42 PM

if you actually READ, genetic mutations are a natural process, but they don't result in MUTANTS.

1/26/2008 5:01:52 PM

sure

1/26/2008 5:06:25 PM

Quote :

"wow, unbelievable photo essay... unbelievable... "

All of her writings are fantastic/

1/27/2008 1:54:51 AM

funny though, the people are moving back into the area because they want to be home

1/27/2008 2:50:45 AM

1/28/2008 12:48:13 PM

natural selection would weed them out if people would just leave them alone

im sorry, im a bad person i know
i just dont see what is wrong with large numbers of people dying

[Edited on January 28, 2008 at 1:54 PM. Reason : i knew that]

1/28/2008 1:47:00 PM

natural selection would weed them out if people would just leave them alone

i'm sorry, i'm a bad person i know
i just dont see what is wrong with large numbers of people dying

1/28/2008 1:50:39 PM

someone set them up the bomb        >

1/28/2008 1:58:23 PM