File:Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant- Unit 3 Main Circulation Pumps.webm

English: Note: Video is available in up to 1440p resolution. Scroll down for timeline highlights. Still photos here: https://carlwillis.wordpress.com/2016/06/11/2015-photos-from-chernobyl/

This is a long clip showing the current state of the ChNPP Unit 3 Main Circulation Pump engine halls (Rooms 402/1 and 402/2). Everyone in my group has Geiger counters, so there is a constant auditory assault from the instrument noises! Radioactive highlights are discovered, particularly a floor drain in the north corridor, the Reactor 3 spent fuel pool stairwell, and various surfaces where radioactive dust has settled. Anton comments on the visible light coming from a crack in the wall separating the north MCP hall on the Unit 3 side from the Unit 4 "Sarcophagus". Lots of shaky footage, blathering, and Geiger counter noises to make your head spin.

0:05 I stop in the south MCP engine hall to take a few photos, attempting to hold the camera still in the poor light. This is 402/1, the south pump room, on the +12.5m elevation. In normal reactor operation, this would have been a very noisy place with three pumps turning and one on standby. Motor power requirement is about 5 MW per pump under normal load.

0:51 We head through the corridor (406/1) linking the south MCP hall and the north MCP hall in Unit 3. Every surface that dust can land on is contaminated with particulate emitters. The north hall is without lighting.

1:52 In the darkness of the north hall, Anton, the ChNPP employee guiding us, points out a faint light coming from gaps in the wall isolating the Unit 3 part of the hall from the destroyed Unit 4 side. Before the Unit 4 accident, the two units shared the same hall and overhead crane for their MCPs. Accident victim Valery Khodemchuk is presumed buried on the other side of that wall.

2:21 Anton points to a drain in the floor that is known to be nicely contaminated. The Ludlum pancake Geiger counter in my hand is saturated (100 kCPM). Other people play with their dosimeters in the drain.

4:08 We briefly step into the VSRO building (liquid radwaste handling) building shared between Units 3-4, where a bag of radioactive waste awaits disposal on the floor. The bag is a letdown as it is not particularly hot.

4:50 A brief glance down the corridor toward the west reveals the memorial to MCP engineer Valery Khodemchuk. I take some photos from this vantage point.

5:45 Back into the 406/1 corridor to examine the deliciously high levels of radiation in a stairwell. This stairwell runs behind the Unit 3 spent fuel storage pools, now empty, and allows workers access to the SKALA process control system instruments at the top of the reactor vault.

8:00 We walk into Room 419 in V Block toward the location where the destroyed Unit 4 north MCP engine hall is permanently walled off. Along the way, several hot spots are located with the handheld Geiger counter. One of these--dust atop a blue electrical panel--pegs the counter. We visit the memorial to Khodemchuk.