Details of a large piece of crane machinery dubbed ‘The Claw of Chernobyl’ is still dangerous 33 years after the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster, claims news.com.au Chernobyl expert Robert Maxwell.
In what has been dubbed the world’s worst nuclear disaster, the explosion which occurred in the then Soviet Union ignited an unprecedented environmental catastrophe and is still taking a devastating toll on people and the planet.
The claw was used to clean up radioactive graphite and other material left behind from the nuclear accident.
According to a news.com.au report workers were unsure of what to do with the piece of machinery, so they left it in the forest and off the beaten track – with the hope it would never be found.
The disaster began at 1.23am, when a power surge ruptured fuel rods in nuclear reactor No. 4 and an explosion blew its roof away. Firefighter Vasily Ignatenko was one of the first responders – he and his crew managed to put out all but the graphite fires in reactor 4, but tragically, Ignatenko and 27 other firemen died from the horrific effects of radiation exposure within weeks (more than 200 other first responders experienced lingering effects of radiation sickness and many went on to die of cancer). “Pieces of his lungs, of his liver, were coming out of his mouth,” recalled his wife Ludmila, of his final days, in the book, Voices from Chernobyl. “My love. They couldn’t get a single pair of shoes to fit him [due to swelling]. They buried him barefoot.”
Despite the firefighters’ heroic sacrifice, the graphite fires blazed for two weeks, blanketing neighbouring Pripyat in toxic plumes which travelled into Eastern Europe and Scandinavia – spreading radioactive effects reportedly 400 times more powerful than the bombing of Hiroshima.
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