The outcome of this unfolding drama will depend on whether the levees hold up against the rising floodwaters. We can all remember what happened when the dam was breached at New Orleans.
As someone (Arnie Gundersen I think it was) rightly said: We shouldn't be hearing the words "sandbags" and "nuclear" in the same sentence.
Absolutely right about that last sentence Gwilym.
ReplyDeleteThere's a film on YouTube called "The Battle of Chernobyl" - it would be in everyone's interest to watch it. The film last about 1:36 I think - unlike plutonium which has a half-life of 245,000 years.
ReplyDeleteSince Chernobyl's radioactive fallout was more than 100 times the combined fallout at Nagasaki and Hiroshima we can only wonder what has been released (so far) into the environment from Fukushima where 4 reactors are in various stages of meltdown and (new word for the OED) meltthrough. We cannot depend on IAEA to be truthful as the film clearly demonstrates - the Russian scientist to gave them the full information on the instructions of Pres Gorbachev committed suicide after the IAEA manipulated his statistics - e.g. an early figure of 40,000 dead reduced to 4,000 dead.
At the time of the Chernobyl accident Russia had 2,700 SS18 missiles each with the power of 100 Chernobyls according to Mr Gorbachev.