Here's Why Chernobyl is Still a Massive Problem Today

This video was made possible by skill share learn for free for two months with over 7 million other creators by signing up at SK LSH slash real-life floor 24 Just over 33 years ago in 1986 the worst nuclear accident in history took place at a nuclear power plant here in Chernobyl Located only about 60 miles north of Kiev a city of almost 3 million people during a late-night safety test a Combination of critical reactor design flaws and human error built up to cause a massive steam explosion in nuclear reactor four of the power plant which caused an open-air graphite fire over 400 times the amount of radiation Released by the Hiroshima bomb was unleashed into the atmosphere by the accident and a radioactive cloud spread over the entire European continent Contaminating places as far away as the United Kingdom but the vast majority of the radiation Affected the communities immediately surrounding the power plant at Chernobyl the radiation was so intense in certain parts of the reactor building following the explosion that an Unprotected worker could receive a fatal dose in less than a minute over the coming days and weeks 134 servicemen who responded to the fire heroic alia were hospitalized for acute radiation syndrome or ARS of whom 28 firemen and operators died within months The Soviet army then began establishing the Chernobyl exclusion zone Forbidding any civilians from entering within a 30 kilometer radius around the exposed reactor That was the most severely contaminated area and evacuating everybody inside this zone still exists in Ukraine today and is roughly the same size as Luxembourg, it was once home to 120,000 people across cities like Pripyat and Chernobyl, but it's been almost entirely uninhabited now for over 30 years today exactly 197 people still choose to live inside of the exclusion zone for whatever Reason, but it's not as dangerous today as it used to be the radiation levels are significantly less than what they could have been Thanks to the efforts of the Chernobyl Liquidators back in 1986 the Soviet government called up on 600,000 people to come in and work cleaning the zone up after the disaster It was no stretch to say that the reactor for building was the most dangerous place to be at in the entire world in 1986 but that didn't stop the liquidators from constructing the Sarcophagus a giant concrete and steel tomb to lock away the most dangerous place in the world forever the sarcophagus entombed over 200 tons of highly radioactive Corium lava 30 tons of highly contaminated dust and 16 tons of exposed uranium and plutonium By the time that the core was sealed away inside over 26 days worth of additional natural background radiation had already been unleashed onto the planet There was only one problem though. The sarcophagus wasn't designed to last forever. It was only designed to last for 30 years until 2016 the liquidators had constructed the Sarcophagus and as quickly a time as possible in order to minimize their own exposure and the world's exposure to the radioactive Poison inside and as a result, the building was pretty shoddy and this is partially why Chernobyl still poses a massive problem today repairing the sarcophagus from the inside is considered to be impossible because the radiation levels inside are still estimated to be as high as 10,000 roentgens per hour That is enough to kill you If you step inside for just three minutes and enough to fry any robots the deterioration of the sarcophagus over the years since its construction Threatened to release all of this poison back out into the world but that wasn't the only danger on the inside of the sarcophagus rests the upper biological shield or Ubs a concrete slab that was thrown upwards by the reactor explosion and now rests at a 15 degree angle Inside of the tomb it's only supported by debris, which means that it could likely collapse at some point Exacerbating the dust problem inside and possibly damaging the sarcophagus itself further which could result in radioactive dust Leaking onto the outside something had to be done before the sarcophagus fell apart and everybody knew it and so Work began on a new structure that would cover the entire sarcophagus inside of it which covered the entire Reactor building inside of it sort of like the deadliest and least pleasant nesting doll to ever exist The new structure became known as the new safe confinement building and unlike the sarcophagus It was designed to entombed everything inside and last for the next century until at least 2117 it took 1200 workers seven years and 2.15 billion euros to finish constructing equal to about 2% of Ukraine's entire GDP in 2017 if the United States spent 2 percent of their GDP on a single project it would cost about 388 billion dollars as the biggest movable structure ever built the new safe confinement was finished in 2016 and slowly Rolled into place over the old unstable sarcophagus and reactor building over a period of two weeks hopefully trapping the nightmare inside forever about 3,000 people currently work inside and around the building today as they work to dismantle the unstable Sarcophagus and eventually remove the tons of dangerous radioactive material inside of it for a safe burial somewhere else There is no time estimate for how long this process is going to take But it likely will last for at least a decade or more It's still potentially highly dangerous and workers are required to carry dosimeter x' to keep track of their radiation exposure at all times if a workers Annual limit is ever reached their site access is canceled and they're banned from returning the annual limit can be reached by spending just 12 minutes above the roof of the 1986 sarcophagus or a few hours around its chimney the exclusion zone gives off a Feeling that the disaster was contained to that area But that's not really true dangerous levels of radiation were dumped all across Belarus Ukraine and parts of Russia and not to everybody who died as a result did so immediately many victims and liquidators came down with dangerous cancers later on in their lives and the UN estimates that at least 4,000 people have actually died from cancer directly related to the accident other studies claim that the number is actually somewhere closer to 93 thousand cancer related deaths some health officials estimate that over the next 70 years. There will be a 28% increase in cancer rates across the heavily exposed areas of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia So the nightmare is far from over the Ukrainian government alone is currently paying out survivors benefits over 35,000 families and the economic impact in Belarus alone where most of the radiation landed has been estimated to sit at 301 billion dollars more than five times the annual GDP of Belarus the total cost of the disaster has been estimated to be at least 350 five billion dollars, but that was back in 2009 so that doesn't factor in any additional costs in the decades since Considering for a moment that the 2011 Japan earthquake and tsunami and subsequent nuclear Disaster at Fukushima is the most expensive disaster that's been properly calculated at a staggering 411 billion dollars. It's likely that if the ongoing costs of Chernobyl were properly calculated up to today It would probably steal that number1 spots. Despite a weird tourism Boom to the area around the disaster in recent years the long lasting effects of cancer in the ongoing Confinement and demolition work at the reactor itself Means that Chernobyl is still a global problem in it isn't over yet it will still be anywhere between 20 and several hundred years depending on the source you take until the area around Chernobyl is Completely safe to live around a permanent again If you came to watch this video after watching the Chernobyl miniseries on HBO, you were probably not alone I was specifically inspired after watching the series myself to create this video and do more research into what's going on there now One of the most common questions that I get asked all of the time though is how I got started making videos like this on YouTube I'm sure many of you watching this right now want to make a video about something that you're passionate about But you may be where I was about three years ago and not really know where to begin learning how to do all of that Thankfully though this is one of tens of thousands of skills that Skillshare can teach you their animation for illustration course is taught by Abby lossing a Former staff illustrator from BuzzFeed and vice news that will teach you how to make animations using Photoshop and After Effects which are the exact Programs that I use for my videos if you want to learn these skills or really almost any other skill Skillshare is the place for you and best of all it's also incredibly affordable at less than $10 a month for an annual subscription But you can learn for free for two entire months right now by checking out the link in the description at SK LSH slash real life floor 24 go ahead and check out Skillshare if they've been a great supporter of real life floor now for years and thank you for watching You

Channel: RealLifeLore

Views: 2,163,389

Rating: 4.8502779 out of 5

Keywords: real life lore, real life lore maps, real life lore geography, real life maps, world map, world map is wrong, world map with countries, world map real size, map of the world, world geography, geography, geography (field of study), facts you didn’t know, chernobyl, chernobyl disaster, pripyat, chernobyl today, massive problem, fallout, nuclear disaster, chernobyl tv show

Id: SPZOf8R-d4U

Length: 9min 40sec (580 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 12 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/mord1000]

Certainly a problem, but not a MASSIVE problem.

Bit clickbaity.

[u/ActualCunt]

If you guys haven't seen exploring with josh before he has a pretty decent look around the exclusion zone including the hospital basement with all its firefighting gear.

Here's a link to the playlist:

​

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojSIrED1xEk&list=PLrQ_Pm77mn_trbnVDgFqXAvJYSmuIAdkC

[u/winkiel82]

Interesting material.

[u/attomsk]

The new Sarcophagus actually is only meant to last ~100 years, not forever.