Interview With Chernobyl Engineer

An anonymous reader writes "New Scientist has posted an interview with a former Chernobyl engineer, Alexander Yuvchenko, who was not only there the night of the explosion, but is still alive today to tell about it. A fascinating recollection of some pretty heroic acts."

Great ... More Space Junk

[Bob(TM)]

but is still alive today to tell about it.

... and considers no longer requiring a lamp to read by at night a bonus.

Oh, I'm soooo sure!

[jqcoffey]

Where is the "Chernobyl Disaster Veterans for Truth" post? :-D

Re:But how many of them

[Shakrai]

Stood there and watched the blue ionized air as it poured out of the reactor?

"Is small fire comrade, under control now."

(Hey at least it's not an "In Soviet Russia..." joke)

Re:Treatment was prompt

[CmdrGravy]

I doubt he did that but if you read /. for a while you'll realise certain Americans have some weird idea that the quality of healthcare in countries is determined soley by dentistry and that everyone in all other countries has bad teeth and hygiene when compared to Americans.

There may be an element of truth in this since Americans need good teeth to consume the amount of food they do but I haven't actually studied this correlation.

I think this is some kind of reaction to the fact they have to pay directly for their Health Service.

Re:heroism in the face of bad design and decisions

[Performer Guy]

The nimrods running the plant deliberately disabled critical safety systems to conduct a test of another safety system. There's a key issue here, if you need to ask the question then you should not put it to the test without considering the very severe consequences and erroded safety margin left should the answer to the question be other than you expect.

It reminds me of a story of the F-16 pilot sitting on the ground who thought the aircraft would stop him raising the gear when on the ground. So he tried it and discovered that yes he could indeed raise the gear contrary to his expectation, now I ask you why would to do something so dumb?

I also ask, why would the plant engineers at Chernobyl disable safety systems to *test* another *backup* safety system? Utterly moronic, and there's not a lot a plant designer can do to avoid that kind of rank stupidity. A good old fashoned Soviet show trial followed by swift execution of the plant managers is the appropriate remedy.

The same thing happened to me...

[ave19]

From the article:

What happened?

The first thing I heard wasn't an explosion, it was a thud, a shaking. Then two or three seconds later came the explosion. The doors of my office were blown out. It was like when an old building is demolished, with clouds of dust, but combined with lots of steam. It was a very damp, dusty, powerful movement of air. There was a lot of shaking, a lot of things were falling. The lights went off. Our first thought was to find somewhere we could safely hide. We headed towards the transport corridor, where there was a small passage with a low ceiling. We were standing there and everything was falling around us.

Almost the same, but I was in the dorms, and my room mate had Taco Bell.

-ave

Poor guy

[Eudial]

Imagine getting a job with "Engineer, Chernobyl" on your CV.

Re:Unpatriotic

[Eccles]

Indeed. I take great comfort that the Bush administration compares favorably to the Soviet dictatorship.

I'd bet he'd win a head-to-head with Mussoulini too!

Re:heroism in the face of bad design and decisions

[Tackhead]

> Basic definitions:
>Subcritical reactor - fission reaction rate is declining over time
>Critical reactor - fission reaction rate is constant over time, self-sustaining chain reaction has been achieved
>Supercritical reactor - fission reaction rate is increasing over time

And the fourth:

Prompt critical reactor - Hey, did you just see the whole office turn blue for a second? Oh... shit.

Re:I just can't get over it...

[khrtt]

In Europe anyway they call them torches don't know about Russia. In Russia they call them in Russian:-). The word would be "fonarik", you insensitive clod!

Re:Treatment was prompt

[jafac]

radiation is like that, you don't feel it, until it is too late

I just got sunburned all to hell last weekend, and I know JUST what you're saying. . .

Re:But how many of them

[Guppy06]

"Stood there and watched the blue ionized air as it poured out of the reactor?"

You mean they got for free that "clean, healthy air" those Sharper Image hacks are trying to sell on TV for $400 each?

Re:Quite a few

[Anonymous Coward]

Like a blown open nuclear reactor?