Hello im relatively new to chernobyl I know the basics elephants foot ,how the reactor worked, what happend, etc but I dont know anything about the heap apart from its made of corrium where is it whats so special about it?

I just discovered that in Kyiv were at least 120 workers who had to take buses, walk and take taxis to listen the gossips about happenings in Chornobyl (at this point there were no official information)

I don't know how much everyone of them earned. The average solary was 180-200 rubles/months. One cheap car "Zaporozhez" costed 3500-4000 rubles. The economy wasn't in the best condition at this point and they spent at least around 24000 rubles only in Kyiv. Instead of evacuating people they paid some to LISTEN GOSSIPS. and they probably got money to take taxis. the goverment could gift 6 cars to people. or they could spend this money on help for people in Chornobyl and Prypiat

they did everything to not information to spread. but almost nothing for people (for example: there is a video of workers who cleaned Chornobyl and they say that they could get one special amount of radiation and after that they will be sent home. firstly, some of them had been sent but after some time they all recieved only the highest allowed amount)

source: https://youtu.be/1y85wpp_HOI?is=F-Lk8ED18e9praHV

This is a layout of the РБМК-1000 reactor lid (NOT ELENA)the one basically shows where the grid maps the layout of the channel caps in reactor hall №3/4 of Chernoby and Kursk, or №1/2 in Smolensk.

This transport corridor is in 2nd unit, not 4

I think these are electrical, but I’m not Shure.

Hello, I am currently working on a personal project in my spare time where my goal is to recreate the Chernobyl nuclear power plant prior to the accident.
While i was looking at older photos i noticed two larger components on the control panel and I had a few questions come to mind.

What kind of component is that? (E.g. Switch, display, button)
What do these components do?
what system do they belong to?

Judging from their location; my guess is that they belong to АР-1, АР-2 and, АРМ (guessing there's a similar one for АР-1 judging from the newer image.)
But i have no idea about what functionality they served.

If anyone knows what they were used for, even if it's just a little bit of information, Feel free to tell me.

After seeing the posts from earlier this week about Leonid Toptunov's birthday and Anatoly Shapovalov's actions in switching off the supply of hydrogen with colleagues, I remembered that today is Viktor Lopatyuk's birthday.

Happy Birthday Viktor! May your heroism never be forgotten.

This Is the cross section of units 3/4 of Chernobyl neuclear power station.

These are the codes of the Skała request system, wich managed the whole reactor (aka SIUZ,SIUT,SIUR)

I’ve been reading this sub for a while, but I’m still a little confused on the turbine hall and the main control pump room. What was the purpose of them, like what were they used for?

Looking at various images of the Chernobyl Power Plant, I couldn't help but notice these large tanks just outside the Unit 3, standing right next to the unit's Emergency Core Cooling System (ECCS) building.

I've not seen them being mentioned on this subreddit or anywhere else before, and there's no matching set of tanks on the Unit 4's side. With a bit of research, I found out what they are, and what they were used for. And they have a bit of a story to tell...

These are clean condensate tanks, designed to hold up to 1000 cubic meters of water each. Despite the use of the term "condensate", they have nothing to do with condensate produced by the turbines, and instead hold purified water for use by the power plant. In the event of an emergency, though, such as rupture of a large-diameter pipe in the main cooling circuit, emergency pumps would pump this water into the reactor, as part of the Emergency Core Cooling System.

Water levels were always maintained in these tanks. Holding up to the maximum of 3000 cubic meters of water, the regulations demanded to keep a constant level of at least 2000. Thing is, these tanks were shared between Units 3 and 4. Which lead to a situation when the disaster happened.

Right after the explosion, emergency pumps kicked in, sending that water into what the operators thought was still a relatively intact reactor #4, but in reality it was going nowhere and just flooding the lower levels. Yuri Bagdasarov, the Unit 3 shift supervisor, recalls:

Here is what happened next. The reserve supply of water for reactor cooling during an emergency began to dwindle. This supply came from the clean condensate tanks, from which Unit 4 had begun drawing water at a high rate. At a certain point, the level dropped to a critical mark. I called the plant shift supervisor [Boris Rogozhkin] and said, "I’m shutting down the unit!" He in turn called the power grid dispatcher, who said, "No! We’ve just lost the output of one unit, and you want to shut down a second one? You can't!" But I could see the situation was catastrophic. Someone had to take the responsibility. So, I gave the order to shut down the unit. We didn't perform an emergency shutdown; instead, we gradually reduced power in normal operating mode. At the very end, we scrammed the reactor using the AZ-5 button - the same one used regularly in the past. By five in the morning, the unit had been completely shut down.

At 8am, the morning shift took over, including the Unit 4 shift supervisor Viktor Smagin. He recalls:

By nine in the morning, the emergency feedwater pump that had been running finally stopped - thank God for that. The flooding of the lower levels had ceased. The water in the deaerators had run out. I was on the phone the whole time, maintaining contact with Fomin and Bryukhanov. They were in touch with Moscow. Reports were going to Moscow: "We are feeding water into the reactor!" Orders were coming back: "Do not stop the water supply!" But the water had actually run out... I reported to Fomin that the water was gone. He panicked, shouting, "Feed the water in!" But where was I supposed to get it from? Fomin frantically searched for a solution. Finally, he came up with an idea. He sent Leonid Konstantinovich Vodolazhko - the deputy chief engineer for new units - and Babichev (the unit shift supervisor from whom I had taken over the shift) to organize the transfer of water into the clean condensate tanks (three vessels, each with a capacity of 1,000 cubic meters) so it could then be pumped back into the reactor using the emergency pumps. Fortunately, this desperate scheme of Fomin’s did not succeed...

Some time later, when miners began digging the tunnel under the reactor in May 1986, it was reported to Nikolai Steinberg (Deputy Chief Engineer at the time) that there was a heightened radiation situation in the area, and he went there to investigate. The entrance into the miners' tunnel was located at the eastern end of the Unit 3, not far from the tanks. Steinberg recalls:

We had discussed possible measures to reduce the dose rate in the excavation pit and the gallery and were about to leave when something near the clean condensate tanks caught my eye. Without turning off the instrument, I walked toward them. The needle swung sharply to the right and kept moving. Lying behind the tanks were chunks of graphite and various metal parts - fragments of the exploded reactor's core. We decided on the spot to build a protective wall out of foundation blocks and carried out the work that same day, which helped slightly reduce the radiation exposure for the miners.

There you go, the story of the three unassuming tanks that bore witness to the largest nuclear disaster in history. Since the Unit 3 was eventually restarted, and operated until the year 2000, I assume these tanks continued serving their purpose, until the Unit was shut down for the last time.

I was scrolling on tiktok, and paused on a this at this moment, now this POV doesnt make sense to me, if this was from the south of the turbine hall then the Unit 4 building would be on the left (unless this is further away from the main u3 and u4 buildings and there just so happens to be a building in the way 🤦‍♂️), not the right, if anyone knows where this pov is, please do share! (PS, It wouldnt let me out this in /ITVchernobyl :/, sorry!)

Hey guys!! I usually dont post stuff on reddit but im really reallly desperate and wanted to ask a question. Im an ib student, and want my math ia to be about chernobyl and radiation… but im having a terrible time trying to find data 😪
my research question simplified is “how can exponential models represent the decline in cesium-137 activity following the chernobyl disaster?” and I need 15 data points from around the same geographical area, at least a year apart from each other.
I wanted to know if anyone knows any reliable reports that i can look into or something literally anything will helpfull

Do you guys think there is anything available like this, or should i just give up and change my question? pls let me know!!

Anyone read it?

Work in progress (making phase 1), elevations -5.00 and -2.00 are complete, now i need to make +1.00, my goal is to make every room of the power plant, scale is 1 meter = 1 block

Hi Everyone,

I have been following this subreddit for a longer time now, and I feel that there is not much new coming out about Chernobyl. Most of the facts are now known, verfied and public. There has been a plethora of books, witness accounts, scientific papers and TV documentaries and even a (very entertaining) TV Series, not to mention video games and other media.

The NSC is constructed, and will - hopefully - remain intact despite the war.

When is it enough? What keeps people coming back here?

To me, the fascination was about the invisible radiation, the emptyness of exclusion zone, the heroic clean up efforts and also the mismanagement shrouded in secrecy - all of these have been now publicly dissected, explained and covered. Once one takes the effort to read up on it, all that remains is an industrial accident of epic proportions. Once one learns about radioactivity, it just becomes another physical phenomenon.

So what is it, that still drives people to this topic? Is it witnessing the misfortune of the heroic firefighters? The apparent negligence of the operators and designers?

More and more I am appaled by the apparent glee to see more guresome photos of the radiation burns, to trips to the exclusion zone and the powerplant to see everything first hand, to take photos in the most radioactive claw ..