<story><title>Famous Photo of Chernobyl&apos;s Most Radioactive Material Was a Selfie</title><url>http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-famous-photo-of-chernobyls-most-dangerous-radioactive-material-was-a-selfie</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>owyn</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s an amazing documentary about this that contains a lot of footage of the actual incident and cleanup called the &amp;quot;Battle of Chernobyl&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;topdocumentaryfilms.com&amp;#x2F;the-battle-of-chernobyl&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;topdocumentaryfilms.com&amp;#x2F;the-battle-of-chernobyl&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Things that still haunt me: the helicopter pilots who put the initial fires out flew in 120-180C temperatures and pretty much all died of radiation.  And the sequence that starts about here:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;ezohqY-vg4s?t=3430&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;ezohqY-vg4s?t=3430&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Where they are picking up radioactive materials by hand and throwing it off the roof next to the reactor because the robots they were trying to use all break down.  Even 1 hour of exposure was deadly so they rotated through shifts, and the guys who did it were called &amp;quot;Bio Robots&amp;quot;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pdkl95</author><text>One of the most impressive documentaries I&amp;#x27;ve ever seen is &amp;quot;Chernobyl 3828&amp;quot;[1]. It is about the 3828 &amp;quot;liquidators&amp;quot; (cleanup crew) - euphemistically called the &amp;quot;bio robots&amp;quot; - that had to clean up the worst section of roof above the reactor. Maximum allowed dose was two minutes exposure to that section the roof.&lt;p&gt;It has some of the same footage as the sequence in your link to t=3430, but there is a key difference: Chernobyl 3828 is about &lt;i&gt;the people&lt;/i&gt;. The psychology of the cleanup was complicated. Some people ran while others faced the danger and accepted a &amp;quot;red badge of courage&amp;quot; because if they didn&amp;#x27;t, &lt;i&gt;someone else would have to go in their place&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=FfDa8tR25dk&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=FfDa8tR25dk&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Famous Photo of Chernobyl&apos;s Most Radioactive Material Was a Selfie</title><url>http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-famous-photo-of-chernobyls-most-dangerous-radioactive-material-was-a-selfie</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>owyn</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s an amazing documentary about this that contains a lot of footage of the actual incident and cleanup called the &amp;quot;Battle of Chernobyl&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;topdocumentaryfilms.com&amp;#x2F;the-battle-of-chernobyl&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;topdocumentaryfilms.com&amp;#x2F;the-battle-of-chernobyl&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Things that still haunt me: the helicopter pilots who put the initial fires out flew in 120-180C temperatures and pretty much all died of radiation.  And the sequence that starts about here:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;ezohqY-vg4s?t=3430&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;ezohqY-vg4s?t=3430&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Where they are picking up radioactive materials by hand and throwing it off the roof next to the reactor because the robots they were trying to use all break down.  Even 1 hour of exposure was deadly so they rotated through shifts, and the guys who did it were called &amp;quot;Bio Robots&amp;quot;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rdtsc</author><text>That&amp;#x27;s a good documentary. Haven&amp;#x27;t seen it before.&lt;p&gt;I remembered distinctly when it happened, well when it was anounced on TV on evening news. It was really mentioned in passing -- oh by the way, there was incident at Chernobyl, a quick flash or some white smoke coming out in the distance and then ... sports.&lt;p&gt;My dad knew it was something more than that and said something like &amp;quot;Oh shit, this could be really bad&amp;quot;. People have learned when they published something as small in the news, they would multiply by some factor to get an idea how bad it really was.&lt;p&gt;Then something really bizare happened. Refuges had started to stream into different cities. And for some strange reason, they were shunned. Others somehow  thought these survivors were contaminated, cursed, builty or what have you. So instead of being embraced and helped, they found themselves trying to hide who they are and where they came from.</text></comment>