Just one available man knew the location of the release valve. His name was Alexei Ananenko, and he was one of the plant's engineers. He along with fellow engineer Valeri Bezpalov and shift supervisor Boris Baranov were asked to take on what amounted to a suicide mission.
Thanks. I came here just to check if they had died ahah. The suspense was killing me, couldn't wait.
shareActually apparently they are still alive (two of them)
https://www.ukrinform.ru/rubric-society/2449795-prezident-vrucil-nagrady-geroamlikvidatoram-i-rabotnikam-caes.html
No they didn’t survive.
By the time the men surfaced from under the reactor, all three were showing signs of severe radiation poisoning. Tragically, none of them survived for more than a few weeks.share
Like other victims of the Chernobyl disaster, the three men were buried in lead coffins.
Yes they did! According to the series, all three survived, and two are still alive today.
They, Valery Legasov, the miners, firefighters and the rest of the workers are heroes! And to think I (and probably most people) didn't even know they existed before this series.
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According to the series, you are correct, sir!
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Well now I'm confused. Your article says the three died within weeks. Others say they're still alive. So what is the truth here?
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The Soviet authorities hushed up as much as they could about the disaster, and as part of this, no-one at the time knew what happened to these men. It was reported then that they had died, and been buried in zinc-lined coffins. This was not true, but a perfectly plausible assumption.
Many years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, their stories were uncovered, and the remaining two survivors were awarded medals. The other was awarded his posthumously, having lived until 2005.
Secrecy is one of the essential elements of a totalitarian regime, like the Evil Empire. And this disaster helped end the Soviet Union, so that was one good thing about it.
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This is fiction..there is a definitive list with the names of firefighters and engineers who died within weeks of the explosion from Acute Radiation Sickness. One of the more bizarre ways a few engineers died in the turbine hall where they were unknowingly irradiated by piece of fuel that was lodged on a transformer nearby.
shareI think some of you are confused with the two engineers who did drain the valves, and the three men who were volunteers who had to drain the tanks that filled up with water from putting out the fire, if the core burned through the concrete floor, the steam would have created a explosion. Those three men were still alive for years after the disaster, two are still i think.
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Yes. You are correct, sir!
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So it sounds like the three men in the wetsuits survived. How were they able to survive, especially when everyone seems to already know it was a suicide mission? Did they overestimate the radiation in the water? Were they just lucky?
shareThis is purely conjecture on my part.
Water can act as a decent radiation shield, if there's enough of it. Also, people are weird. Biology is weird. Some humans demonstrate remarkable resilience to radiation, showing little or no effects from doses that would seriously impair or kill others.
A little from column A, a little from column B?
We'll never know for sure.