Elephant's foot is one of the most dangerous object ever created by the mankind and it still exists.
So our story starts with the infamous 1986 sure noble nuclear plant accident and also explosion in Ukraine.
Everybody know that something huge happened but not many know the actual processes that occurred in the explosion and also the thing that we're going to talk about today skimming over what actually investigated the accident the plant witnessed a massive surge in power due to certain actions with regard to the reactor core and this energy and the heat ruptured many pressure fuel tubes these then exploded which threw off the roof of reactor number four and caused violent explosions meanwhile the core was experiencing what is known as a nuclear meltdown you may have heard this before but it was due to the energy and the heat from the surge. Now in an average meltdown the core is just damaged from the heat but this is a different story like the name suggests this power surge was so big that the meltdown actually melted the uranium inside the core and along with the molten graphite, concrete sand and also gases mixed in it started to leak out of the core, you don't need to be a nuclear technician to tell this isn't really supposed to happen. The deadly radioactive lava flow formed corium a mineral dubbed corium because it is formed from the molten reactor core get out core corium anyway immediately after the surge and explosion this lava flow was heated to an immense 2600 degree celsius, which is enough to turn the vast majority of periodic table to gasses and also quite a bit to liquid as well. This massive flow is super heated corium flow down and out of the core.If it even touch the pool of water used in reactors to cool things down then it would instantly turn to steam, violently expand and explode a nuclear material into the atmosphere luckily for the whole of Europe this didn't happen all thanks to a band of three brave men.To avert this possible second explosion someone had to drain the pool which can be done by opening some sort of sluice gates, unfortunately the valve controlling those gates were submerged under radioactive water and material.So Alexi Ananenko ,Boris Bananov and Valeri Bezpalov dived into the deadly pool and acted to save what they could.The only light source they had was a single battery powered torch which cut out before they reach their valves they felt their way through the darkness to drain the pool and they succeeded they resurfaced as soon as possible but you can't just do what they did with no consequences especially in a crippled nuclear reactor. By the time the surface they were already experiencing radiation poisoning which is horrendous on its own, but the heat reacted with the water into hydrogen peroxide a strong acid which acted like concentrated bleach on the exposed skin.All three died but the wind was blowing west that day over Europe in our timeline radiation and she did affect cattle here in UK but if there had been another explosion with even more material being thrown out I dread to think what actually could have happened instead of doing that this hugely dangerous material melted through floors,through walls pretty much everything and ended up in the lower layers of the reactor.These levels were mainly used for ventilation and steam distribution. It kept melting through obstacles until about eight days afterwards and then it's settled in rooms 304/305 and steam distribution corridor. The main formation on that level was a column of solidified and reactor core which was dubbed the elephant's foot because it kinda sort of looks like an elephant's foot. Soon after a brave expedition to the lower levels of the reactor stumbled upon this hugely radioactive formation. Well their guide counters went off the scale down the corridor so they didn't actually get close enough as the picture shows and they decided to go no further or risk horrible radition poisoning they pushed in the camera around the corner managed to get a shot of the column of the material but radiation massively interferes with film in electronics. so this is the best shot they managed to achieve.
So our story starts with the infamous 1986 sure noble nuclear plant accident and also explosion in Ukraine.
Everybody know that something huge happened but not many know the actual processes that occurred in the explosion and also the thing that we're going to talk about today skimming over what actually investigated the accident the plant witnessed a massive surge in power due to certain actions with regard to the reactor core and this energy and the heat ruptured many pressure fuel tubes these then exploded which threw off the roof of reactor number four and caused violent explosions meanwhile the core was experiencing what is known as a nuclear meltdown you may have heard this before but it was due to the energy and the heat from the surge. Now in an average meltdown the core is just damaged from the heat but this is a different story like the name suggests this power surge was so big that the meltdown actually melted the uranium inside the core and along with the molten graphite, concrete sand and also gases mixed in it started to leak out of the core, you don't need to be a nuclear technician to tell this isn't really supposed to happen. The deadly radioactive lava flow formed corium a mineral dubbed corium because it is formed from the molten reactor core get out core corium anyway immediately after the surge and explosion this lava flow was heated to an immense 2600 degree celsius, which is enough to turn the vast majority of periodic table to gasses and also quite a bit to liquid as well. This massive flow is super heated corium flow down and out of the core.If it even touch the pool of water used in reactors to cool things down then it would instantly turn to steam, violently expand and explode a nuclear material into the atmosphere luckily for the whole of Europe this didn't happen all thanks to a band of three brave men.To avert this possible second explosion someone had to drain the pool which can be done by opening some sort of sluice gates, unfortunately the valve controlling those gates were submerged under radioactive water and material.So Alexi Ananenko ,Boris Bananov and Valeri Bezpalov dived into the deadly pool and acted to save what they could.The only light source they had was a single battery powered torch which cut out before they reach their valves they felt their way through the darkness to drain the pool and they succeeded they resurfaced as soon as possible but you can't just do what they did with no consequences especially in a crippled nuclear reactor. By the time the surface they were already experiencing radiation poisoning which is horrendous on its own, but the heat reacted with the water into hydrogen peroxide a strong acid which acted like concentrated bleach on the exposed skin.All three died but the wind was blowing west that day over Europe in our timeline radiation and she did affect cattle here in UK but if there had been another explosion with even more material being thrown out I dread to think what actually could have happened instead of doing that this hugely dangerous material melted through floors,through walls pretty much everything and ended up in the lower layers of the reactor.These levels were mainly used for ventilation and steam distribution. It kept melting through obstacles until about eight days afterwards and then it's settled in rooms 304/305 and steam distribution corridor. The main formation on that level was a column of solidified and reactor core which was dubbed the elephant's foot because it kinda sort of looks like an elephant's foot. Soon after a brave expedition to the lower levels of the reactor stumbled upon this hugely radioactive formation. Well their guide counters went off the scale down the corridor so they didn't actually get close enough as the picture shows and they decided to go no further or risk horrible radition poisoning they pushed in the camera around the corner managed to get a shot of the column of the material but radiation massively interferes with film in electronics. so this is the best shot they managed to achieve.
