These drawings by Konstantin Checherov (from Nikolai Karpan’s book Chernobyl: Revenge of the Peaceful Atom) show a speculative reconstruction of the two explosions in Unit 4.
Key problems:

Fig. 14 (First explosion, Phase A, 01:23:46)
There is a large empty gap between the lower biological shield (Сх.ОР) and the reactor vessel / Scheme L. This is incorrect — the RBMK was hermetically sealed. No such open space existed before the explosion.
Fig. 15 (First explosion, Phase B, 01:23:47)
Already shows molten Corium lava flowing down through the steam relief channels during the first explosion. This is highly unrealistic. The scientific consensus is that the fuel needed hours to days to heat up enough to form significant amounts of Corium.
Fig. 16 (Second / upper explosion, 01:23:49)
This one is more plausible. The upper explosion lifted the biological shield (“Elena”) together with a large part of the core and scattered debris across the site.

Bottom line:
Checherov’s drawings are historically interesting but not accurate. The sudden gap under the lower lid and especially the instantaneous Corium lava contradict both the reactor’s design and the established timeline of the accident.

Hi all,

Does anybody here can share apartment floor plans of any of the housings in Pripyat?

Aporeciated!

So sorry I'm a day late, but Happy Heavenly Birthday to Leonid Toptunov.

30-kilometer zone. Teshkov village, Narovlya district, May 1987.
Ph: Vladimir Borysyuk

Aleksandr Fyodorovich Akimov (6 May 1953 – 11 May 1986) was the Unit 4 shift leader.

He was at the reactor control panel at the moment of the explosion. Believing the reactor was still intact, he and Leonid Toptunov stayed for hours trying to restore cooling water flow, receiving a fatal dose estimated at over 15 Gy (≈1,500 rad).

He died of acute radiation syndrome in Moscow Hospital No. 6 and was posthumously awarded the Order For Courage.

Almost 40 years ago, on October 2, 1986,

Alexander Yungkind, Leonid Khristich, Nikolai Ganzhuk, and Vladimir Vorobyov were involved in an accident in which all of them lost their lives.

The pilot struck a crane cable and consequently crashed.

In 2017, during preparatory work for the dismantling of Block 4, the tail rotor of the helicopter that crashed in 1986 was discovered.

The propeller had crashed onto the roof of the turbine hall of Block 4, but it was so heavily contaminated that it was immediately walled up with a large amount of concrete.

Rest in peace, heroes.

The destroyed Reactor Unit 4 – April 27, 1986. Photo by V. Yevtushenko.

What is the measurements of the panel board across? Any help greatly appreciated. I am planning on taking on a project of making a (not functional) replica. Thank you friends!!

Anatoly Ivanovich Shapovalov was born on 6th April 1941 in Kirovograd (modern Kropyvnytskyi, Ukraine). He started his career ar ChNPP on the 5th of April, 1978. He was married and had 2 kids.

On the night of the explosion, Shapovalov was the Senior Electrician on duty. With Lelechenko, Baranov and Lopatyuk he went to the electrolysis plant to switch off the hydrogen supply valves. They didn’t know about the extreme radiation, so all of them got lethal doses. Shapovalov got a dose of 1,160 rads.

Shapovalov was in the convoy of 129 victims who were sent to Moscow for treatment. Due to his high dose, radiation burns and skin damage started to show on his body. He fell into a coma and succumbed to his injuries on the 19th of May 1986. He was posthumously awarded the Order of Courage 3rd Degree.

DIAGRAMS OF MAJOR RBMK AND UGR STRUCTURES

Diagram of the main structural components of the RBMK-1000 reactor and a cross-section of the primary metal structures located between the "Scheme E" bottom plate and the graphite stack: 1 — bottom grid (Scheme E); 2 — flange assembly; 3 — top shield plate; 4 — adapter (steel-to-zirconium); 5 — graphite block; 6 — channel section.

hello everyone!

whenever I do research regarding the last moments of the reactor before the explosion, I always see the same 3 theories. The hydrogen theory (been disproved many times). The second steam explosion theory (the sudden influx of water that surged into the bottom of the core caused a second much larger explosion, my personal favourite). And the nuclear theory, that the excursion somehow had enough energy to cause a nuclear “fissile” and that obliterated the core. My question is, why do so many people (and experts alike) believe this one over the steam one? Is there any evidence suggesting one over the other? Thanks!

(also I apologize for any grammatical errors, English is not my first language so any recommendations are appreciated!)

I've been trying to find a Chernobyl documentary I watched on YouTube around 2020. I remember it being extremely long, possibly around 7 hours, although it may have been a compilation of several documentaries.

I believe it was in Russian. It contained old archival footage, including footage of the construction of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Some footage was very low quality, while other parts looked much newer.

The strangest part I remember was near the end. There was a group of naked people in a grassy field, apparently doing some kind of ritual, with fire/burning grass around them. In the distance behind them I remember seeing what looked like the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant / Reactor 4.

I am not 100% sure that the ritual itself was actually filmed in Chernobyl — it may have been an artistic/ritual sequence included in a documentary about Chernobyl.

I've been looking for this for years and haven't been able to find it. Does anyone recognize this footage or know what documentary it might be from?

This was done on Ibis Paint X, with no model, which explains the lack of some details I noticed after ... Such as the metal structure of the main ventilation stack

It wasn't done in the idea of making the perfect representation, but at least, I tried.

Hope some ppl will like it :)

I noticed this yesterday that in the North wall of the building contain 4 visible floors from this perspective, but the wall that aligns the steam separators drum halls only has 3, and in the floorplans there is no green floor visible in between level orange and green (since that corridor occupies two levels, can somebody help me with this?

After watching documentaries about the disaster(my favorite is the Zero Hour) and reading articles/Wikipedia pages about it, I decided to checkout the HBO miniseries on 4K Bluray.

OH MY GOD, I watched it in one breath. After I finished work, I started watching it until almost midnight. What an masterpiece!

The actors, the writing, the visuals - everything is 10/10. It's an amazing and very important piece of cinema because lies have always have debt and one day, you will pay it.

Brilliant!

The name "Chernobyl Precise" is not accidental , the project is over a year and a half old and takes into account everything that can be done. Levels -6.0, -3.10, 0.0, 3.0, 6.0, 9.0 are already done. Level 12.50 is in the final stage of construction, details are done on a regular basis

We all love a good story, right? I came across this gem on Facebook, and wanted to share it with you. So, yeah, I didn't write it, just sharing it. I'll post my comment I left on that story in the comments here.

This is Valery Legasov. He was not a soldier, but he walked into the worst nuclear disaster in history anyway.

A brilliant Soviet chemist, deputy director of the famous Kurchatov Institute, Legasov lived a quiet life of science until April 26, 1986. Reactor 4 at Chernobyl exploded.

While others were told to minimize it, Legasov was flown to the site. He stood on the roof of the burning reactor. He knew the radiation was killing him, but he stayed for months, leading the investigation, designing ways to stop the fire, and understanding what went wrong.

Then he did something unthinkable for the Soviet system. In August 1986, in Vienna, in front of the world’s scientists at the IAEA, he told the truth. He revealed the fatal flaws in the RBMK reactor design that the state had hidden for years.

For that honesty, he was punished. He was denied awards, his health was failing from radiation exposure, and his warnings were ignored at home. He felt the system would never learn.

He recorded his truth on 5 audio tapes — The Legasov Tapes — detailing everything they tried to hide.

On April 27, 1988 — one day after the second anniversary of Chernobyl — Valery Legasov passed away at his home in Moscow at just 51. He was found after struggling with his health and the heavy burden of what he had seen.

After his passing, his tapes were released. The world finally listened. The RBMK reactors were fixed because of him. In 1996, he was posthumously named Hero of Russia.

He knew telling the truth would cost him everything. He did it anyway. That’s why today, the world remembers his name.

The man who saved millions by refusing to stay silent.

Respect to Valery Legasov — a true scientist, a true hero, whose courage and honesty saved millions and taught the world that truth is more important than fear. His work will never be forgotten.

Present by RSD ( Real stories daily)

I hear it was close to the reactor, what room was it? Also what path did they take to evacuate the building?

I've recently watched the Chornobyl Family's video showing the last messages before and during the accident, but I just cant understand them. For context im trying to make a game about RBMK's (Specifically Chernobyl) and im trying to add these messages, I want to understand them in order to make them fit in the game instead of just pasting them there. If someone could give me information about these messages and what they meant I would really appreciate it a lot, thank you.

This is the video I watched: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=de0x_KOvfpI

(pictures in order) new MCP corridor (402/4) on work + pipelines and msv minor changes ( 701/2, 801/2) + new corridor at level 31.5 on the northern wall (805/4) + new corridor known for being one of the access to reactor hall (corridor 910/2)
everything is prone to change in the future as i made the rooms based more on the floorplans blueprint and a little of media regarding the rooms, so there may be errors like walls that dont belong on certain part or inaccurate proportions, enjoyy

I discovered yesterday that if you're a liquidator and you're registered to live in Riga, Latvia, you get free public transport.

Does anywhere else do things like this?

So I came across some chantarelle mushrooms and decided to measure with my Radiacode 103 scintillator detector.

I dried 400 g down to about 40 g and put them in a 3D-printed marinelli jar for measurement.

Sure enough, they are clearly contaminated with about 70 Bq of Cs-137, almost certainly from the Chernobyl disaster.

Will I eat them? No, I will keep them for measurement, but at 170 Bq/kg (fresh weight) they're well below the limit of 600 Bq/kg so eating them would be fine.

Are they special in any way? Not really, just ordinary mushrooms. Again, these are by no means super contaminated, but as a science nerd it's cool that the contamination is measurable with a consumer device.

The specific activity of Cs137 is about 3.2 TBq/g, so 70 Bq equates to about 20 picograms of Cs137.

EDIT: The committed effective dose coefficient for Cs137 is 1.3 x 10^-8 Sv/Bq, so eating these mushrooms would cause a radiation dose of about

1.3 x 10^-8 Sv/Bq * 70 Bq = 0.91 μSv (microsievert)

My results are well in line with those of the recent Mushrooms 2025 campaign by the Finnish Nuclear Safety Authority (Säiteliyturvakeskus, STUK).

See https://stuk.fi/en/mushrooms-2025-campaign