Chernobyl Disaster - This is a song to celebrate the unsung heroes of the Chernobyl.
After the explosion it was determined that all the water that was being dumped into the reactor area to quench the fires was in fact pooling in rooms below the now molten reactor core. If the core melted into the chambers below the steam explosion would kill everyone on site, and render an area of hundreds of miles around completely uninhabitable from fallout. The radiation within the buildings was immense.
Three divers volunteered: Alexei Ananenko, Valeri Bezpalov, and, Boris Baranov, whose job was to hold a submersible light. Their light failed almost immediately, and they were forced to proceed underwater through the dark. The sluice gates opened some time later, and the water was drained. All of them returned to the surface and according to Ananenko, their colleagues jumped for joy when they heard they had managed to open the valves. Despite their good condition after completion of the task, all of them suffered from radiation sickness, and at least two—Ananenko and Bezpalov—later died. Some sources claim incorrectly they died immediately on site and were entombed inside the concrete sarcophagus.
Since March 11th I’ve been watching closely the events in Japan. The disastrous 9.0 earthquake and tsunami that struck the northwest coast of Sendai has been declared the worst disaster in Japan’s history since World War Two: So far, 7,653 dead, 12,000 missing, and over 500,000 people displaced from their homes. But what was most frightening to watch were the desperate attempts to control the fires and radiation leaks in the six damaged reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Fears of a catastrophic meltdown escalated each passing day as we watched on TV the explosions of smoke and steam from one reactor after another, and the evacuation of people in a 12 mile radius of the plant, while the US military in the area pulled back 50 miles. Then there was the daily confusion over whether the radiation levels in the environment were high, or not, and this alarmed the Japanese public, and foreigners living in Japan, and a mass exodus of Tokyo flooded the airports.
On the internet, some fool posted a bogus map showing a deadly plume of radiation from the Fukoshima nuclear plant heading to the west coast of the USA. This panic sparked a rush on potassium iodide pills (KI), and geiger counters. Amazon.com and other sites, pharmacies and health food stores, were clogged with orders and within hours manufacturers were sold out of the thyroid-protecting KI pills. There was even a seller on ebay who was selling the $5 a box of 24 pills for $300. It was crazy, like someone yelling fire in a crowded movie theater (FYI, there was no “plum” from the Fukushima reactors, plus there’s 5,478 miles of ocean between Japan & California, so even if there was radiation drifting eastbound by the time it reached the US the amount would be minuscule). NOTE: On March 18th, California reported a trace amount of radiation was detected in the environment.
But what has awed me the most are the 50 workers who stayed behind at the Fukushima nuclear plant. In Japan, they are being hailed as the “Nuclear Ninjas” or “Samurai Warriors.” The group, whose identities remain a mystery, stayed at the plant after 700 of their colleagues fled when radiation levels peaked at lethal levels. Of those who decided to stay, five are known to have already died. Two others are missing—possibly swept away in the tsunami, and at least 21 others have been injured. In addition, 180 firemen and Self-Defense Force personnel have used water drops from helicopters, and a “super-pump” to move seawater directly to an unmanned fire truck stationed in front of the reactor, allowing for an uninterrupted jet of water.
The bravery of these workers remind me of the three men who volunteered to swim to their deaths to save Russia during the Chernobyl disaster on April 26th 1986. Engineer Alexei Ananenko and soldiers Valeri Bezpalov and Boris Baranov suited up in scuba-gear and swam through the radioactive waters of the flooded chamber to release the gate valve and allow the trapped water to drain out. In addition, many firemen and rescue workers from Fire Station No. 2 also died from radioactive contamination after rushing to the scene to help. One of the survivors, fireman Anatoli Zakharov, said 20-years after the disaster, the firefighters from Fire Station No. 2 were aware of the risks. “Of course we knew! If we’d followed regulations, we would never have gone near the reactor. But it was a moral obligation—our duty. We were like kamikaze.”
When I watch the Fukushima-50, and the firemen in HazMat suits, risk their lives to save Japan, I wonder if I was in their shoes would I volunteer for a suicide mission like that…a mission that would save millions of lives? Many of us don’t really know what we’d do in an extreme emergency. Often times, it’s in a dangerous situation we learn for the first time what qualities of character we have that we didn’t know we possessed. But I have a feeling human altruism would kick in. A friend of mine, who is Chinese, told me a story that when he was in the Chinese army, heavy rains overflowed a river and flood waters were heading to a town. The soldiers were ordered to lock arms and use their bodies as a dam, and thus they saved the people from drowning.
Maybe this type of bravery isn’t so unusual. Maybe it’s logical the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few—or, the one.
On March 9th 2011, the space shuttle Discovery landed after the completion of its final mission in space. But I supposed after 30 years it was about time to retire the shuttle and move on to something more modern—whatever that’s going to be. I hear we’re going back to launching rockets up into orbit, no different than what NASA was doing back in the 1960s.
I remember the first time I saw the shuttle. No, it wasn’t taking off from a launch pad. I saw it sitting in a hangar in Huntsville, Alabama. It was a long time ago, and before the first shuttle take-off. In those days, I was a struggling photographer. I would get ideas for photo-shoots from reading the newspapers. One day I found a tiny blurb in a news article about women being included in NASA’s astronaut program. I thought this would make an interesting photo essay, so I immediately wrote a letter to NASA. A week later, I was invited down to the Johnson Space Center in Huntsville, Alabama to do a photo essay on the first women astronauts in training.
As part of the story I photographed the candidates at home with their family. I can’t remember the woman’s name in the photo, I know she was an engineer. There were four women in the Space Shuttle Astronaut Training Program. However, when the first shuttle flew—after several years of delay—these women were not part of the crew. I have more photos from NASA, and if I ever get my darkroom set up again, I’ll post those photos, too.
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You are currently browsing the Anthea Appel weblog archives for the month March, 2011.
