79 - The Chernobyl Disaster: What, Why, and How Bad Was it?

On Friday, April 25th, 1986, the Soviet city of Pripyat, built to support the local nuclear power plant Chernobyl, had 13,414 apartments, a hospital, a movie theater, an art school, a central park with a giant ferris wheel, and over 50,000 residents. And then, at 1:23AM on Saturday, April 26th, 1986, the number 4 reactor heated up to more than 100 times its usual operating power. Which is very, very bad. After a few explosions and a lot of radiation kicked out to the atmosphere, by April 30th, the population would be zero. More than 50 reactor and emergency workers died in the following days and weeks. And in the years since, many more have died. How many? How disastrous was this nuclear disaster? What led to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster? Will I say, nuclear, correctly? So much explored, examined, and evaluated in this atom bomb edition of Timesuck!

Timesuck is brought to you today by by the socially conscious and fantastic on-line mattress store LEESA! Go to www.leesa.com/timesuck to get $125 off AND a free pillow!!

Timesuck is brought to you by Timesuck is brought to us by Melissa Surroca Hair and Make up Studio in Maitland Florida. The Melissa Surroca Hair and Make up Studio is conveniently Located in Maitland Florida next to the Publix shopping center. - 525 Sybelia Parkway, Maitland Fl Suite 202 Melissa specializes in vivid color but also does hair styles for the whole family and is available for hair and makeup for weddings and family photos. And... she has limited edition Danger Brain, Timesuck magnets! You can find more info at http://melissasurroca.com and check out her photos when you follow her on Instagram at instagram.com/melissasurrocahair/

Merch - https://badmagicmerch.com/

Want to try out Discord!?! https://discord.gg/tqzH89v

Want to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever current page hasn't been put in FB Jail :)

For all merch related questions: https://badmagicmerch.com/pages/contact

Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG, @timesuckpodcast on Twitter, and www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcast

Wanna be a Space Lizard"? Go here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast Sign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits.

And, thank you for supporting the show by doing your Amazon shopping after clicking on my Amazon link at www.timesuckpodcast.com

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.