Thread: Ghost Town

Cliff,
I visited and took the full trip, very sobering. Quite a good photo essay, it should be required viewing for anybody in charge of safety at a reactor.

Mick

BTW, how did you find this site?

Mick, it's all over the place at the moment, very thought provoking though, clever young woman.

Thanks Cliff
I knew it was bad but that is staggering. Interesting to get an independent view as well. I don't think I would tavel as regularly as she does to the area. Only 400 left of 3,500 who were game enough to re-occupy the area should tell you something.

AND we are playing around with this stuff ,half life of 200 years,etc etc !!!
Used to handle radio active injectibles for nuclear diagnostics ,not pleasant stuff to handle!!

"This is incredible, people lived, had homes, country houses, garages, motorcyles, cars, money, friends and relatives, people had their life, each in own niche and then in a matter of hours this world fall in pieces and everything goes to dogs and after few hours trip with some army vehicle one stands under some shower, washing away radiation and then step in a new life, naked with no home, no friends, no money, no past and with very doubtful future."

It's pretty hard to imagine what that would be like, unless you've been through it yourself. Just goes to show how precarious life is. We certainly have it easy in this country...

Thank you most sincerly for sharing this. It must be the most facinating site I have ever seen, I had never thought about what the area must be like now, god save us from ourselves.

Interesting site ... I tried to do a search on the topic a few weeks ago after seeing some photos in the paper of a school in the area and how it had been left after so many years. It was difficult to find much information which was suprising. I recall watching a video at school where there forced men to climb onto the roof of the reactor and shovel the material off the roof .... they were exposed for 10-20 minutes each with the only protection being a leather apron. I don't think that they lived long after being put through that.

I have an old friend who was present during the atomic tests in the 50's in Central Australia.
He speaks of being given sunglsses for protection and turning their backs on the blast.
He also tells me that of all who were present, either died of cancer in their mid 30's to early 40's or are still alive (mid 80's now).
And unlike Hollywood, the explosion was not a massive shattering boom, but more of a loud crack like a large rifle discharging, and the initial effect he described as being like someone holding a two bar radiator about 6" from your neck for a second or so (they turned their backs on the blast).
The times they looked at the blast they shut their eyes and held hands over their eyes and he tells me that you could clearly see the skeletal structure of your hands.
If only they knew then.

Did he say what the point was for them to be standing out there watching it? If they turned their backs to it, they werent going to see much anyway. Or did they just assume they were going to be fine?


Back to the original post, was a very eerie and interesting read about a tragedy that is sadly forgotten by a lot of people. Would be interested to know if there is a similar website for Hiroshima.

..................

Union Carbide – Bhopal
Love Cannal – New York
Exxon Valdez - Prince William Sound
Minimata - Japan ......................

What next? – perhaps uranium contaminated water being released into Kakadu, also contaminating workers drinking water – no that’s already happened.

I think the cane toads are giving Kakadu enough of a problem

Originally posted by journeyman Mick
...
BTW, how did you find this site?

G'day.

I had it forwarded to me in one of those bulk-send e-mails.

I only pass them on if I thing they are worth it....
most of them aren't but I found this one completely unexplainable.