<![CDATA[40 years ago, 25/26 April 1986, reactor 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, contaminating huge swaths of land regionally and across Europe.]]>40 years ago, 25/26 April 1986, reactor 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, contaminating huge swaths of land regionally and across Europe.

I remember it well. I worked at an Institute for Nuclear Physics (working on space particles). We put instruments on the roof to check whether the gvmt told the truth.

I remember taking refuge in doorways when it started raining - we did not want to get touched by ... rain drops. It was terrible.

And don't give me "can't happen here".

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/topic/d29b58fc-8c6f-403f-93f4-2d0b9d5513e8/40-years-ago-25-26-april-1986-reactor-4-of-the-chernobyl-nuclear-power-plant-exploded-contaminating-huge-swaths-of-land-regionally-and-across-europe.RSS for NodeFri, 15 May 2026 08:26:53 GMTSat, 25 Apr 2026 15:13:29 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to 40 years ago, 25/26 April 1986, reactor 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, contaminating huge swaths of land regionally and across Europe. on Sat, 25 Apr 2026 21:20:58 GMT]]>@W_Lucht

In France my parents told me the news said it is alright the wind turned away from our country!
WHAT?
Anyway, lots of people afterwards getting thyroid cancer and people, oh no, going Bald!

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mstdn.social/users/violettejean/statuses/116467437320852788https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mstdn.social/users/violettejean/statuses/116467437320852788Sat, 25 Apr 2026 21:20:58 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to 40 years ago, 25/26 April 1986, reactor 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, contaminating huge swaths of land regionally and across Europe. on Sat, 25 Apr 2026 20:11:21 GMT]]>@peterluschny
Wow. Thanks for sharing!

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mstdn.social/users/W_Lucht/statuses/116467163589939012https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mstdn.social/users/W_Lucht/statuses/116467163589939012Sat, 25 Apr 2026 20:11:21 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to 40 years ago, 25/26 April 1986, reactor 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, contaminating huge swaths of land regionally and across Europe. on Sat, 25 Apr 2026 20:10:49 GMT]]>@peterp đź‘Ť

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mstdn.social/users/W_Lucht/statuses/116467161473752908https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mstdn.social/users/W_Lucht/statuses/116467161473752908Sat, 25 Apr 2026 20:10:49 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to 40 years ago, 25/26 April 1986, reactor 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, contaminating huge swaths of land regionally and across Europe. on Sat, 25 Apr 2026 19:29:09 GMT]]>@W_Lucht
It was 6 a.m., and my friend called me from Stockholm. He had just gone out to buy milk for his children’s breakfast, but they wouldn’t sell him any, without giving any explanation. He asked me if I knew why. Later that same morning, I realized what was going on. I studied the wind map and drove to Lisbon.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mathstodon.xyz/users/peterluschny/statuses/116466997652118833https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mathstodon.xyz/users/peterluschny/statuses/116466997652118833Sat, 25 Apr 2026 19:29:09 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to 40 years ago, 25/26 April 1986, reactor 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, contaminating huge swaths of land regionally and across Europe. on Sat, 25 Apr 2026 19:20:24 GMT]]>@W_Lucht
It’s Chornobyl in Ukrainian.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://masto.ai/users/peterp/statuses/116466963224662295https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://masto.ai/users/peterp/statuses/116466963224662295Sat, 25 Apr 2026 19:20:24 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to 40 years ago, 25/26 April 1986, reactor 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, contaminating huge swaths of land regionally and across Europe. on Sat, 25 Apr 2026 18:37:10 GMT]]>@rickf @akamran
So scary.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mstdn.social/users/W_Lucht/statuses/116466793227591817https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mstdn.social/users/W_Lucht/statuses/116466793227591817Sat, 25 Apr 2026 18:37:10 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to 40 years ago, 25/26 April 1986, reactor 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, contaminating huge swaths of land regionally and across Europe. on Sat, 25 Apr 2026 18:35:01 GMT]]>@anlomedad @precariousmind @dmacphee
And the Soviet Union publicity acknowledged what had happened only after three days.

The US were lucky with Three Mile Island in Harrisburg in 1979. That remained contained but the core did melt down.

So 1979 in the US, 1986 in the Soviet Union, 2011 in Fukushima, that's about the rate of major failure, three in 50 years. And that doesn't even count a lot of close calls.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mstdn.social/users/W_Lucht/statuses/116466784750713987https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mstdn.social/users/W_Lucht/statuses/116466784750713987Sat, 25 Apr 2026 18:35:01 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to 40 years ago, 25/26 April 1986, reactor 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, contaminating huge swaths of land regionally and across Europe. on Sat, 25 Apr 2026 17:53:21 GMT]]>@anlomedad @JensHannemann @W_Lucht . That is the place between and Moscow where decided to make the fallout go by seeding the radioactive clouds.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.circle.lt/users/dmitry/statuses/116466620898653732https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.circle.lt/users/dmitry/statuses/116466620898653732Sat, 25 Apr 2026 17:53:21 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to 40 years ago, 25/26 April 1986, reactor 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, contaminating huge swaths of land regionally and across Europe. on Sat, 25 Apr 2026 17:08:38 GMT]]>@W_Lucht @akamran

I was in eighth grade and I remember being at a friend’s house, looking up at the sky and wondering when the radioactive cloud would arrive.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://indieweb.social/users/rickf/statuses/116466445088876497https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://indieweb.social/users/rickf/statuses/116466445088876497Sat, 25 Apr 2026 17:08:38 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to 40 years ago, 25/26 April 1986, reactor 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, contaminating huge swaths of land regionally and across Europe. on Sat, 25 Apr 2026 16:53:10 GMT]]>@W_Lucht

Watchtower. Mayday in Kiev.
https://youtu.be/WwoJEKf5-G0

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mstdn.plus/users/GGMcBG/statuses/116466384290857912https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mstdn.plus/users/GGMcBG/statuses/116466384290857912Sat, 25 Apr 2026 16:53:10 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to 40 years ago, 25/26 April 1986, reactor 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, contaminating huge swaths of land regionally and across Europe. on Sat, 25 Apr 2026 16:44:26 GMT]]>@W_Lucht and in the UK, sheep in the northwest of England couldn't be eaten due to radioactive contamination. Obviously this had nothing to do with the nearby nuclear powerstations, even though it didn't seem to affect sheep in parts of the UK nearer Chernobyl.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mstdn.social/users/jonpsp/statuses/116466349952707743https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mstdn.social/users/jonpsp/statuses/116466349952707743Sat, 25 Apr 2026 16:44:26 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to 40 years ago, 25/26 April 1986, reactor 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, contaminating huge swaths of land regionally and across Europe. on Sat, 25 Apr 2026 16:41:03 GMT]]>@precariousmind @dmacphee @W_Lucht

Ja, staff of a Swedish nuclear reactor set off radiation alarms arriving to their shift. Not when leaving their shift, but arriving at work. That got the ball rolling.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://fedifreu.de/users/anlomedad/statuses/116466336599267067https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://fedifreu.de/users/anlomedad/statuses/116466336599267067Sat, 25 Apr 2026 16:41:03 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to 40 years ago, 25/26 April 1986, reactor 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, contaminating huge swaths of land regionally and across Europe. on Sat, 25 Apr 2026 16:37:16 GMT]]>@JensHannemann @W_Lucht

Something, just this one thing, could not happen here: that a central government orders the May festivities to take place in Ukraine as planned, all the while they secretly inject cloud seeding aerosols between Chernobyl and Moscow to make the fallout fall out of the sky far before Moscow.

A second thing could not happen here: that experts fear Gulag for speaking out or for acting according to expert best knowledge, against orders.
The fear component doesn't apply in most "western" societies. As long - how long? - the rule of law is working.
And from memory, it was this culture of fear that caused several moments in the chain of events leading up to the Chernobyl explosion. Had fear not existed, the total disaster would have been preventable.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://fedifreu.de/users/anlomedad/statuses/116466321728126279https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://fedifreu.de/users/anlomedad/statuses/116466321728126279Sat, 25 Apr 2026 16:37:16 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to 40 years ago, 25/26 April 1986, reactor 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, contaminating huge swaths of land regionally and across Europe. on Sat, 25 Apr 2026 16:29:28 GMT]]>@dmacphee @W_Lucht yes, I believe a Swedish station detected it first outside the URRS (it's in Wikipedia, too lazy to check now).

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://neopaquita.es/users/precariousmind/statuses/116466291070491766https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://neopaquita.es/users/precariousmind/statuses/116466291070491766Sat, 25 Apr 2026 16:29:28 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to 40 years ago, 25/26 April 1986, reactor 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, contaminating huge swaths of land regionally and across Europe. on Sat, 25 Apr 2026 16:22:13 GMT]]>@W_Lucht and because Russia hid it, wasn’t it only detected because countries such as Sweden, Germany?, etc detected radioactivity in the atmosphere?

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mas.to/users/dmacphee/statuses/116466262591811994https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mas.to/users/dmacphee/statuses/116466262591811994Sat, 25 Apr 2026 16:22:13 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to 40 years ago, 25/26 April 1986, reactor 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, contaminating huge swaths of land regionally and across Europe. on Sat, 25 Apr 2026 16:17:07 GMT]]>@W_Lucht I remember. We did the same thing in our AP physics class. We lived close to the thorium reactor in Hamm, and they used the fallout to cover up an incident in the THTR. That’s when we learned that you can’t trust the nuclear industry even if it would be possible to safely operate nuclear plants. The temptation to cut corners is just too strong.

Link Preview Image
THTR-300 - Wikipedia

favicon

(en.wikipedia.org)

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.online/users/JensHannemann/statuses/116466242500967909https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.online/users/JensHannemann/statuses/116466242500967909Sat, 25 Apr 2026 16:17:07 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to 40 years ago, 25/26 April 1986, reactor 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, contaminating huge swaths of land regionally and across Europe. on Sat, 25 Apr 2026 16:02:32 GMT]]>@W_Lucht One can never overestimate the stupidity of individuals.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.world/users/Mayor_of_Smartarse/statuses/116466185202324125https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.world/users/Mayor_of_Smartarse/statuses/116466185202324125Sat, 25 Apr 2026 16:02:32 GMT