Chernobyl I didn’t know before

Alvina 2022-01-03 08:02:19

I watched Chernobyl diary today. In addition to feeling uncomfortable for the disaster more than 20 years ago, I also felt curious about the changes in the film’s heroes and heroines after they were exposed to radiation.
1. I am curious if people suffer under real circumstances What happens to radiation? What changes will happen to the human body during the process of being exposed to radiation.
2. In the film, I saw the male protagonist holding a small instrument that measures the amount of radiation. What is this kind of instrument, and how much radiation does it reach before it is harmful to the human body?
3. Will radiation cause biological mutation?
So I searched all kinds of information online.
Let's take a look at Chernobyl's situation at the time. Chernobyl is located in Pripyat, Ukraine, 18 kilometers northwest of Chernobyl city, 110 kilometers north of the Ukrainian capital Kiev, and 16 kilometers away from the border of Ukraine and Belarus. Chernobyl means chernobog, which represents darkness, death, and disease in Slavic mythology. The abode of the gods (this name is hard to not think of bad meanings). Chernobyl is the first nuclear power plant built by the former Soviet Union in Ukraine. It was once considered the safest and most reliable nuclear power plant in the world. It seems that there is no absolute thing in the world. What I fear is the illusion that the word "most" brings to people. Nothing can be done once and for all, especially for this kind of gun-destructive substance, negligence will bring immeasurable consequences, regardless of whether the negligence is small or large.
The nuclear power plant consists of 4 reactors, each of which can generate 1 gigawatt of electricity, equivalent to 3,200 megawatts of thermal power. The 4 reactors provided 10% of Ukraine’s electricity when the nuclear accident occurred.
The cause of the accident:
In the film, I heard "Extreme Tour", the Russian big man uri (uri served as a soldier, reminds me of the burly Putin) that the nuclear accident was caused by a failed system test.

According to the information found on the Internet, the cause of the accident released in 1991 was due to the design defects of the pressure tube graphite slowed boiling water reactor, especially the design of the control rods. Another important factor that led to the accident was the fact that the staff did not receive the reactor problem report. According to a staff member (Anatoli•Dyatlov), the designer knew that the reactor was dangerous under certain circumstances, but concealed this fact.
The specific cause of the accident is described as follows: On April 25, 1986, the No. 4 reactor was scheduled to be shut down for regular maintenance. And decided to use this occasion to test the capability of the reactor's turbine generators, and in the event of a power loss, generate sufficient electricity to power the reactor's safety system (especially the water pump). Like Chernobyl, the reactor has a pair of diesel generators that can be used as standby, but they cannot be started instantly-the reactor will therefore be used to turn the turbine, and the turbine will separate from the reactor and rotate under its own inertia. The goal of the test is to determine whether the turbine can adequately supply pump power during the reduction phase when the generator is started. The test was previously performed successfully in other units (all safe supply starts) and the result was a failure (that is, the turbine produced insufficient power to supply the pump power during the reduction phase), but other improvements prompted the need for other tests.
The disaster caused by the accident: At
1:24 on April 26, 1986, a serious leak and explosion occurred in the No. 4 reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Republic of Ukraine in the former Soviet Union. Approximately 1,650 square kilometers of land were irradiated. Subsequent explosions caused a fire and emitted a large amount of highly radioactive materials into the atmosphere. The radiation surface covered a large area. The amount of radiation released by this disaster is more than 400 times that of the Hiroshima atomic bomb (what is this concept?). The accident resulted in the death of 30 people on the spot, and tens of thousands of people were fatal or seriously ill due to the long-term effects of radioactive materials. To this day, there are still births of deformed fetuses that have been affected by radiation.
According to the information on the Internet, the radiation dust from this radiation leak covers a wide area, and the western regions of the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and Scandinavia in Northern Europe have all been affected. Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia are the most polluted. Due to the wind direction, it is estimated that 60% of the radioactive material falls in Belarus.
This accident aroused public concern about the safety of nuclear power plants in the former Soviet Union, and the accident indirectly led to the collapse of the former Soviet Union.
The nuclear spill at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is defined as the 7 most serious. On April 26 of that year, the No. 4 reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in what is now Ukraine exploded and more than 8 tons of strong radiation leaked.
The accident resulted in the death of 31 firefighters, thousands of people were exposed to strong nuclear radiation, and tens of thousands of people were evacuated. It is conservatively estimated that the Soviet Union spent a total of 18 billion U.S. dollars and 500,000 soldiers and civilians to deal with this incident, but now it seems that the negative impact of the accident on the environment is immeasurable!
Follow-up report in the dead zone: After the
accident, in order to prevent the nuclear material and radioactive materials from the nuclear power plant from leaking again, the government closed the reinforced concrete bunker (commonly known as "sarcophagus") of Unit 4 where the explosion occurred, and completed it in December 2000. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant was shut down. Twenty years after the accident, ecologists were surprised to find that the "dead zone" around the "sarcophagus" has become a "paradise" for plants and animals. There are more than 270 kinds of birds living here, and the luxuriant vegetation provides shelter for wild boars, deer and other animals. [1]
Every year, some people who cannot afford to leave their homeland voluntarily return to live in the quarantine area. There are 500-800 residents in the quarantine area, most of whom are retirees. The houses where the old people live have electricity, and some have phones. They grow vegetables, raise poultry, fish and hunt in the quarantine area, and lead a self-sufficient life.

After introducing the basic situation of Chernobyl, now I want to see how to answer my own questions:
1. I am curious about what happens if a person is exposed to radiation in a real situation, and what happens to the body when a person is exposed to radiation. Variety.
What happens to a person's body after being exposed to radiation?
In the film, after a certain amount of strong radiation, the exposed skin of the hero and heroine suffered burns, breathing difficulties, vomiting, and blindness. I believe this is also the result of searching a lot of information by the director and screenwriter. But it is difficult to determine whether the effect in the film is the human body's reaction after the real nuclear radiation, whether it is exaggerated or underestimated. It is impossible to verify. In order to learn more, it is better to look up relevant information by yourself. .
According to the information found on the Internet, when exposed to nuclear radiation, you will feel nausea within a few hours, followed by symptoms such as diarrhea, headache, or fever. After the initial symptoms have passed, you may experience a A short asymptomatic period, but new and more severe symptoms will appear after a few weeks.
With higher radiation doses, these symptoms will appear faster and more obvious. Nuclear radiation can cause widespread and fatal damage to the internal organs of the human body. The average healthy adult cannot bear the radiation dose of 4 Gorays (what is this concept).
The harmfulness of radiation generally has a great relationship with the dose. Generally speaking, the acute initial symptoms of radiation are nausea, vomiting, fever and diarrhea. If the radiation is more severe, that is, the dose is relatively large, infection, bleeding and gastrointestinal symptoms will develop to the extreme stage, the most serious Symptoms appear in the brain and the nervous system is affected.
Here we are going to involve a safe dose range:
the amount of radiation (unit: microsieverts) 100,000 microsieverts/year: the upper limit allowed for emergency operations is 50,000 microsieverts/year: radiation business workers and firefighting, The upper limit allowed by the police is 10,000 microsieverts/year: Brazil and Bali are exposed to 6900 microsieverts of radiation per year on the land: chest X-ray tomography, CT examinations. On average, a person in the world in one year Natural radiation received: 0.39 microsieverts from the universe, 0.29 microsieverts from food, 0.48 microsieverts from the earth, and 1.26 microsieverts from breathing air.
1000 microsieverts/year: the general public's annual radiation limit (excluding medical treatment)
2400 microsieverts/year-400 microsieverts/year: the difference in the amount of radiation received in a year in different regions of Japan (prefectural average maximum )
600 microsieverts/time: stomach X-ray examination
200 microsieverts/time: airplane to and from Tokyo and New York one time
50 microsieverts/time: chest X-ray examination 50 microsieverts/year: nuclear power station (light water The target amount of radiation around the reactor (actually much lower than this target value)
10 microsieverts/year: the radiation level when the nuclear power station is not working
According to data, the radiation exposure dose of air, food, and water ingested by people every year is 0.25 mSv.
Wearing a luminous watch has 0.02 millisieverts per year and
travels 2000 kilometers by air, about 0.01 millisieverts
smokes 20 cigarettes a day, and there are 0.5 to 1 millisieverts
a year, and an X-ray examination has 0.1 millisieverts.
When the radiation dose is less than 100 mSv, the deterministic effect on the human body cannot be observed in medicine, that is, obvious tissue damage; when the dose exceeds 4000 mSv, 50% without medical supervision The mortality rate of the disease, and when the dose exceeds 6000 mSv, it may be fatal.
The following content is taken from Zhongshan Net:
In radiology and human radiation protection, there are multiple measurement modes and measurement units for the unit of radiation dose. A more complete measurement model is "equivalent dose", which is the amount of radiation that reflects the strength of the biological effects caused by the absorption of various rays or particles. The international standard unit is sievert, denoted as Sv. It is defined as the absorption of 1 joule (J) per kilogram (kilogram, kg) of human tissue, which is 1 sievert.
Sievert is a very large unit, so millisievert (mSv) is usually used, 1mSv=0.001Sv. There is also micro Sv (μSv), 1μSv=0.001mSv.
For the average person, the annual normal environmental background radiation (mainly radon in the air) intake is 1 to 2 mSv per year. Anyone whose annual intake of radiation material exceeds 6 mSv should be classified as a radioactive material worker. Their working environment should be monitored regularly, and the personnel themselves need to undergo regular medical examinations.
2. Will radiation cause biological mutation?
After the nuclear leak at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, Japanese nuclear safety officials said in an interview with American media that the level of nuclear radiation in Japanese seawater samples was the highest level detected so far. According to related reports, for the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident, radiation in seawater can threaten the survival of marine animals in a series of ways. Radioactive materials can directly cause the death of marine animals, genetic mutations in offspring, or pollution of their food chain.
According to the plot in the film, the fish in the lake should have undergone some genetic mutations after being exposed to nuclear radiation, but whether the mutation after nuclear radiation will cause the animals to become very terrible and cruel, I don’t know if there is any correlation. The research shows. If relevant information is found, it will continue to be presented in subsequent articles.
Reference website:
Baidu Encyclopedia
China Knowledge Network
Zhongshan Net

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Extended Reading
  • Meaghan 2022-03-21 09:02:28

    I don't understand that a few dogs can scare the protagonists like this

  • Cyril 2022-04-20 09:02:01

    It's not as ugly as I imagined, but there's no surprise, it's a bit of a waste for this theme. In addition, the mutants come wearing flesh-colored hoods, and those who are dangling around don't see a face. Director, are you willing to pay for makeup?

Chernobyl Diaries quotes

  • Paul: Have you heard of extreme tourism?

  • Chris: I swear to God, Paul, it's a fucking hazard having you as a brother.