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Description everybody and everything that has ever existed
Eventually dies death is ultimately just part of living on our planet
So it should come as no surprise to you that Earth is a dangerous place
But where on earth is the most dangerous place assuming that you could take all available precautions like clothing,
Gear. weapons, a handy toyota, or whatever else you can think of? And disregarding any laws relating to access
Where would be the most dangerous place that you could go to that you're allowed to be prepared for? The quick answer is a basement
Located here in Ukraine, but the longer answer is
ridiculously interesting and totally worth your time to listen through a little backstory the basement is
Located in a familiar town to many of you called pripyat and is nearby an even more familiar nuclear power plant called
Chernobyl over 30 years ago in
1986 the Chernobyl power plant
Experienced a catastrophic disaster never before seen in the world during a routine overnight test
reactor number four in the plant
experienced a power surge the nuclear cores temperature inside of this reactor grew rapidly and in the following
attempt to control this temperature an even greater power surge was caused
instead. Due to numerous design flaws inside of the reactor, two explosions followed from a buildup of steam caused by the core's
increasing temperature the temperature got so hot that the nuclear fuel inside of the core began to melt and this molten fuel began to seep
down to the bottom of the reactor vessel this nuclear lava
melted through this vessel and into the concrete and pipes below, where it eventually reached the
reactors basement the now molten mixture of nuclear fuel control rods sand glass and concrete
slowly cooled into an object that would later be called "the
elephant's foot". Back above the ground the Soviet Union engaged in the
largest civil engineering project in world history to contain the radiation
spewing out into the atmosphere from the reactor half a million workers were brought to construct
What became known as the sarcophagus, a gigantic concrete and steel fortress built around the destroyed reactor?
Inside, to this day are sealed two hundred tons of radioactive
Khorium, 30 tons of highly contaminated dust, and 16 tons of uranium and plutonium
Being on the roof of this sarcophagus is enough to expose you to a full year's worth of
radiation in just 12 minutes and the inside is so lethally radioactive that it could kill you within minutes.
The sarcophagus today is surrounded by an even larger
Structure meant to further contain all of this radiation inside, but back in 1986 this was far from the case.
Scientists were sent into the ruins to search for nuclear fuel that could cause another
explosion and after six months of searching a team encountered an
unbelievably radioactive mass in the basement around the corner from where they were standing.
Using a remote-controlled camera the team took the very first photographs of the elephant's foot located inside.
It's only two meters across, but it weighs as much as
100 tons and it was so dangerous at the time that it would expose you to ten thousand roentgen's (R) per hour
Which means that in just thirty seconds?
It would be enough to induce extreme dizziness and fatigue in you that would last up to two
weeks. After two minutes of being near it it would be enough to cause your cells to hemorrhage and after four minutes of being near
It it would cause vomiting,
diarrhea, and a fever. If you were near it for just
300 seconds it would be enough to guarantee your death within two days
But despite this we have several photographs that exist of people right next to it the grainy and almost
ghostly effect that you're seeing in this photograph is because of the radiation produced by the elephant's foot
interfering with the film of the camera. Nobody knows what happened to this worker or the photographer taking this picture,
but based on the time limits that I listed earlier it probably isn't very good
they may not have known just how dangerous the object was then, but over the
30-plus years since then the elephant's foot has grown weaker a study in 1996 ten years after the disaster
suggested that five minutes in the presence of the elephant's foot now would be enough to give you radiation
sickness and an hour next to it would be enough to kill you which is far better than the
300 seconds that it used to take however the elephant's foot is still extremely
hot and is still melting through the concrete floor of the basement. Should it melt all the way through and come into contact with
groundwater the results could be catastrophic.
Another explosion might be possible and the drinking water of nearby residents would certainly be
contaminated. The elephant's foot will continue existing for centuries, down in a dark basement, locked away inside of a giant sarcophagus,
where the radiation will continue existing for the next 100 thousand years.
So if you're looking for the most dangerous place to be on earth the inside of this building should definitely be near the top of
your list, and if you're looking for some privacy. Here's Mozilla's "privacy not included" buyer's guide. The holidays are right around the corner and a great gift is one that won't spy on you,
but the good news is that Mozilla has created a completely free and simple way to figure out how much different products respect people's privacy.
For example you can learn that the Xbox one shares data with third parties for
advertising while the Adidas smart soccer ball tracks your location among other things.
Instead of just wishing that companies would respect your privacy more or hoping that you'll be fine when the next big data breach happens, make
a difference now and only buy products that actually give you security so once again when you're buying gifts for this holiday season
don't forget to take a look at Mozilla's "privacy not included" buyer's guide with the link in the description