Chernobyl's Forgotten Unit Three Accident: The Untold Story

Every reactor at Chernobyl suffered some sort of unique accident. Unit One had its partial meltdown in 1982. Unit Two had the turbine fire and subsequent explosion in 1991, and the crown jewel of them all, the reactor explosion inside Unit Four in 1986. You may have notice I’ve neglected Unit Three here, and that’s because it’s the subject of today’s video.

This accident is so misunderstood, that the Wikipedia page only refers to it as the 1984 Reactor Three and Four accident, and while it is true it impacted Reactor Four, the effects there were minor and caught in time. For Unit Three, the consequences were almost catastrophic, and had lasting impacts on the building to this day. This is the story of that accident.

Timestamps:
00:00: Introduction.
01:02: A Man Named Yuri.
01:32: Heavy Objects.
02:37: Reporting.
03:55 Can They Fix It?
05:12: What's going on?
07:18: They Can't Fix It.
07:48: They Fix It.
08:43: The Untold Stories.
10:01: Sources.

[pavelslama]

Chernobyl being SNAFU is one of the classical soviet stories that never gets old...

[langdons]

The whole Chernobyl plant really was cursed. It's truly amazing that the 1986 disaster was only as bad as it got.

[swokatsamsiyu]

And this right here is exactly why I look forward to every Saturday evening. While I had read these very few lines about this particular mishap, and knew it has something to do with the integrity of the building itself, it was never quite clear just how bad it actually is. I have that KGB Dossier book in pdf, but haven't got around to translating any of it yet. And here you are, putting out another gem of a video with exactly that info. I think we can safely say that it is a small miracle they "only" lost one reactor unit at Chernobyl NPP. With these kind of major construction flaws, it might easily have been more. It does not bear thinking about if one of those steam drum separators had come loose, and deprived Unit 3 of coolant....😱

[rhodesc]

I didn’t know about the Unit 3 accident at all until now

[gregoryoakley]

It's a great day when you post Chernobyl videos. Please continue to make content, I love your presentations. 😌

[BitTwisted]

Concrete overheating is a well understood problem for all power station designs, from coal stations to nuclear.
If you overheat the concrete either when it is first poured or later in use, the crystal structure changes and it expands breaking the concrete away from the reinforcing bars and permanently weakening it. If the concrete is a beam it will get significantly longer, potentially jacking the whole building apart, perhaps resulting in upper floors no longer being supported on their associated columns etc..
Generally there is some provision for this in the design because this is a progressive problem which occurs more slowly at lower temperatures. From what I understand (I'm not concrete expert) this is quite dependant on the exact concrete mix, water content when poured, ambient temperature when poured etc. Having spoken to western professionals who visited Chernobyl before the R4 accident it was obvious that some of the concrete construction was of dubious quality, and an example of what they considered poor construction quality control.

[RuSrsbro]

I'm so frustrated by those who lift up the Soviet Union as anything other than a dire warning about the danger citizens face when governments refuse to tell the truth.

[Yazovheimer]

When i see the iceberg video for the first time, I was very interested in this incident, but I couldn't find any info about it, so I'm very happy for this video, Saturday is always better when you release a video.

[kevinamundsen]

Another great installment! I'd like to know if the RBMK creates a rumbling vibration from the 3GW of thermal boiling. I've worked on giant magnetrons and the water boiling shakes the concrete floor enough to make other building occupants complain, and you can feel it with your feet. If so, some of the RBMK vibrational energy might have been transmitted into the concrete, disturbing the joints over time. Has anyone worked at a plant of this colossal size? Can you feel any vibration when it's operating? In the case of Chernobyl, thermal expansion and overtemperature of the concrete would have certainly been a factor, but considering the constant uptime of the RBMK, the total number of thermal cycles may have been a lot smaller that a plant that cycles once per day, such as a peaker plant. Chernobyl was a base load plant, and so it was always on, except for maintenance. Thanks for another great video!

[apollomoon]

Always the most informative and well presented videos on Chernobyl. Thanks for sharing

[shakaliha]

omg thanks you for this video, always wanted to know more about other accidents!

[Jan_von_Gratschoff]

Considering these are RBMK reactors, it's a miracle that more of them haven't blown up.

[sekhyhybrid]

This can even be seen as the OG tofu dreg building before it even became a thing.

[davidbaca]

More great content, another great video. Thank You !

[lada_niva_.i]

Hey, can you make a video on the ISU-152 that was used as a bulldozer in the disaster? It actually is still near the plant today.

[thegamingducky]

I'm surprised more people didn't know about the other things that happened to the other reactors. They are so important and no one seems to know

[saschakrause]

Great Work Sir. Thanks a lot for the new video. The Mic is great. Go on doing what you do. 💪
Greetings from Germany 🇩🇪

[kitt]

This makes me wonder. How big were other failures of nuclear reactors in soviet union

[Radiointeractive]

Just a little video error:

The text for the Unit 2 Turbine Hall Fire at the beginning says "1982" under it, instead of "1991", even though you still mentioned the correct year.

I'm just being nitpicky. Love your videos!

[garethjohnstone]

C(hernobyl)3PO back with another great video. Keep them coming mate.