What an unbelievably tragic event, as well as a tremendously sad photo journey and commentary.

Energy Rater LA,
The link now goes to somethng that looks like an ad for Angelfire. Any ideas on finding the page you recommend?
Thanks, Nancy

new link for page

Here is a link that might be useful: kidd of speed

Wow, she sure must have felt confident in her dad's judgement to brave these rides. With no dead people left behind, I find myself wondering how many died of radiation exposure to make sure none were left laying there. And she (or someone) is inside some of the wooden buildings, taking these photos. I am not sure it is bravery, though. What do you all think? Bravery? Foolhardiness? A calculated risk? Idiocy?

I don't know....doesn't seem like any of those to me. I think it's an interesting and haunting expose of something none of us probably would have ever seen. Most of the radiation doesn't seem to be that she's recording (20-80 mR/hr), I think is pretty low (from what I remember from my classes)....you really need to be getting up to 25rems or so to make it a permanent (e.g., deadly), impact on yourself. Some of those readings beyond the checkpoints where she didn't go were stated as 500-3000 mR/hr....that's bad.

As for deaths, I remember she said 3500 people refused to leave the village, there are 400 still living. Unofficial estimates give the death tool at something like 10k-300K, probably a lot from the cleaners they sent in, construction workers, etc.

Yeah, we may never know, as she said. Very haunting, I found myself thinkng of it a lot last night, like seeing a movie whose mood sticks with you for a few days. In some photos we see her there with no hair covering. I keep thinking that the dust she does get exposed to is sticking in her hair and accumulating. I know they test her on her way out of the zone, but I guess I wish she took more precautions. Her account makes me want her to try looking up people who lived there during the accident and see how they are doing. It is tragic, but think of the research that could have been done on the effects. All lost now, unless someone can collect some stories from the survivors. I guess I fear there aren't any. I see the photo of the "volunteers" with their face masks going into the area and wonder how many would have volunteered if they had known the truth. Had folks balked, imagine the damage that fire could have caused, the spread of radiation if it had not been controlled. I think I remember a Frontline or other documentary about the people who went into the reactor to fight the fire and seal it off. I don't have a good memory of it, though.

I seem to remember that the original firefighters all pretty much died immediately, except for one who managed for some unknown reason to survive for several weeks. There were reports of the large helicopters used to dump concrete on it picking up a load or two, landing, and the pilots keeling over as they got out or within 24 hours...so, another crew would go up. Lots of that went on.