The Chernobyl Disaster | Biggest Nuclear Meltdown In History | Documentary

The danger presented by the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown was bad enough, but it could have been much worse.  Two men died in the initial explosion.  Three more men, gave their lives.  There was a pool of water in the reactor form the fire fighting efforts.  Had this water met the heat from the reaction, there would have been a steam explosion with a steam cloud that would have distributed radioactivity for miles around, reaching much of Europe and up into the Baltic countries.  Many people would have died.  The three men know where the release valves were located to drain the water.  They had to swim through radioactive water to reach them.  They did and were able to release the water.  However they all three died shortly after of radioactive poison.  There was an attempt made to lower the heat by pump in liquid nitrogen.  It is unclear if this was accomplished, but 10,000 men did encase the reactor in concrete, now known as the sarcophagus.  Many of these have had long term effects form radiation.  It is thought 800,000 people risked their lives trying to clean up the radiation.  26 people died shortly after the clean up effort.