This is a one-minute clip taken via a helicopter flying over the still-burning fourth reactor of Chernobyl power plant, showing some of the initial damage done by the explosion. Note the intense graininess of the video – one may (erroneously) presume it to be a result of 1980s technical limitations producing low-definition images, but the noise and distortion is actually caused by the high levels of radiation leaking from the plant.
This is a photo of post-explosion Chernobyl taken by photographer Igor Kostin:
Recognize it? It’s the background photo to this blog! This photo is also grainy as a result of intense background radiation. These two visual artifacts help us put into context the effects of radioactivity on the material world around us, and subsequently a better understanding of its dangers to our environment and our bodies.
Human ability to perceive immediate exposure to radioactivity without the outward stimuli such as the explosion of a nuclear bomb à la Hiroshima is essentially non-existent. Radiation is largely imperceptible to humans, even in substantial doses.¹ That we cannot immediately feel radiation’s effect on our bodies is ironic, considering how dangerous and harmful it is.
Igor Kostin snapped his picture from a lead-lined helicopter where he unscrewed a single porthole to take photographs. As a result, the radioactivity leaking from the plant ruined both his camera and much of the film inside of it, leaving him with only a small number of usable photos.² The porthole is visible in the shot, framing the destroyed reactor, showing that although not entirely shielded from the radiation, Kostin’s exposure (at least at this particular moment) was somewhat minimized.
The video, although appearing to be shot from a similar vantage point in what one could assume to be a similarly-armoured helicopter, is much more fuzzed by radioactivity than Kostin’s photo, which, although grainy, still holds a fair amount of detail.
The distortion in these two images, while showing the frightening power of radioactivity, also in a way exhibits the simultaneous strength and fragility of the human body; if immediate exposure to high levels of radiation quickly destroys machinery like film equipment, imagine what it is doing to the humans behind them.
It is a well-documented fact that radioactivity can kill, but it does not do so instantaneously. It took one of Chernobyl’s first responders fourteen days to die of radiation poisoning, the last two of which he spent spitting up pieces of his internal organs.³ Doubtless, this is an agonizing and prolonged way to die, yet he still lived for two weeks post-exposure, compared to the same-day destruction of machinery upon exposure to radioactivity.
These images are particularly important as they are some of the rare ones that show the actual flash-point of the disaster in progress. With the growing popularity of disaster tourism in the present-day, there is an overabundance of Chernobyl “ruin porn”, album upon album of the crumbling façades of abandoned buildings rotting into the landscape. As aesthetically pleasing as it all may be, this plethora of information makes Chernobyl as it is in the present seem more inviting and less dangerous. Make no mistake: Chernobyl is still very much radioactive and hazardous.
Primary sources, visual, literary and otherwise, provide a human context to the disaster along with its immediate and prolonged effects. Through these distorted images we can see a glimpse of the future awaiting relief workers, residents of the exclusion zone, and soon-to-be victims of radioactivity all over Eastern Europe, particularly Belarus.
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