Windscale disaster

[fmck]

I watched a documentary on this on " you tube" previously a television documentary. It has a number of the original plant scientists on it discussing what happened. I found it shocking and it explains the reasons why its true extent was covered up by the government until recent times.

To think they had burst fuel cartridges burning in the reactor and they switched on air fans to vent the centre of the burning reactor out the chimneys into the air. Feck!

Poor buggers that had to look into the reactor to check it was on fire must of taken a colossal dose of radiation.

Watch it. It's whole story is just frightening.

 

[joe-90]

I read a book on it years ago. What did they change the name to? Slipped my memory.

 

[pred]

I read a book on it years ago. What did they change the name to? Slipped my memory.

Sellafield

http://youtu.be/vZ4vtUzG6sQ

 

[fmck]

I read a book on it years ago. What did they change the name to? Slipped my memory.

Still worth watching to hear the scientists story. Sellafield is the area that encompasses the reprocessing plant, redundant power station and of course the bomb factory of wind scale ( its still there)

 

[Spark123]

Poor b*****r that had to look into the reactor to check it was on fire must of taken a colossal dose of radiation.

I take it you are talking of Tom Tuohy, he passed away in 2008 aged 90.

 

[fmck]

Poor b*****r that had to look into the reactor to check it was on fire must of taken a colossal dose of radiation.

I take it you are talking of Tom Tuohy, he passed away in 2008 aged 90.

That really does make you wonder doesn't it. That someone can look into a burning reactor and come out ok. Possibly the huge dose coming out a small area just needed the shortest of observation and he wouldn't get too much to recover.

At the end of the day its not the dose we have to worry about its the alpha contam that must be over huge areas. Easily ingested and lethal and it doesn't go away for a long time.

 

[fmck]

Poor b*****r that had to look into the reactor to check it was on fire must of taken a colossal dose of radiation.

I take it you are talking of Tom Tuohy, he passed away in 2008 aged 90.

Apparently he looked in to see the colour of flames. The workers were trying to remove the burning fuel cartridges with a bit of steel rod prodding them but they wouldn't move because the heat expanded them. Heck!

I edited the just bit because what the guy did was way beyond what most folks would do. Thankfully there was the likes of him there at the time.

 

[Spark123]

I'm not sure looking into a burning reactor would be any worse than looking into a healthy reactor, either one isn't going to do you any good! I wonder if he used a mirror?
Time will come into it too.

The worst at the time would have been the the radioactive iodine release, this collects in the thyroid and hence the reason for pouring the local milk away.
I think any radioactive stuff spread over the area has got to be detrimental to health however at least in the digestive system a majority is passed out over time unlike where it is in the lungs.

 

[nickso]

Poor b*****r that had to look into the reactor to check it was on fire must of taken a colossal dose of radiation.

I take it you are talking of Tom Tuohy, he passed away in 2008 aged 90.

Plenty of the blokes that dealt with Chernobyl have lived to ripe old age too and they got a hell of dose on the roof, under the reactor and in the choppers. Plenty more died horrible deaths right enough.

Windscale was nasty, Chernobyl was truly frightening, if that reactor had sunk into the water table northern europe could have been a wasteland.

Makes for a good place to visit now though.

 

[Spark123]

Pripyat?

 

[nickso]

Pripyat?

Yeh, I went a couple of years ago.

 

[Spark123]

Have only seen photos of the place, looks a bit eerie.

 

[nickso]

Have only seen photos of the place, looks a bit eerie.

Yeh it is a bit but that's the point of going. It was me, a mate and our guide, another group of jerries and the two guards at the gate in the whole city for two days.

Here is a few pics. Last one is me on the roof of a block of flats with the Reactor complex in the distance.

 

[Spark123]

Was the gas mask pic taken in a school?

 

[nickso]

Was the gas mask pic taken in a school?

Yes one of the secondaries. It's a commonly taken pic by visitors probably only beaten by the gyno chair at the hospital and the fairground. The masks were not used by the kids though, the liquidators used them and dumped them there according to our guide.