- 2 hours ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:10history is full of killer stories people places and events so downright shocking that we just
00:18can't forget them tonight it's the jewel of soviet engineering but a critical flaw puts millions in
00:28the amount of radiation that is being released is lethal the first responders start to die within
00:34hours a dream wedding that collapses into a nightmare 400 people instantly sucked down into
00:44this gaping maw of nothingness shortcuts taken while building an ancient arena lead to a bloodbath
00:54this edifice with all of these people in it collapses these are engineering disasters so
01:01devastating they can only be among history's deadliest
01:12in 1912 the titanic is built as unsinkable but that overconfidence dooms the luxury liner
01:24it's 1912 and the world is in the midst of great change the airplane is invented the automobile is
01:31becoming common and into this comes the titanic the epitome of technology of its day this celebrated
01:37ship can carry 2200 passengers at its unveiling the ship is billed as practically unsinkable
01:51the plan for this first voyage is to leave england and go to new york and the path takes it
01:58through an
01:58area of the north atlantic that's called iceberg alley the ship is designed with 16 watertight
02:07compartments at the very bottom of the ship that will stop the ship from sinking in the unlikely
02:14event titanic takes on water engineers say that the most amount of compartments that would take on
02:20water would probably be four but the engineering feature meant to save the ship hides a fatal flaw
02:27the bulkheads don't go all the way to the top of the ship so if the water gets to the
02:32top it's going to
02:32start slashing over into other compartments two days into the journey iceberg warnings trickle in
02:39throughout the day and the captain adjusts his course but not the ship's speed so you've got
02:46lookouts on top of a mast and they are looking out for these icebergs but in a very strange mistake
02:52of
02:52history david blair is the ship's second officer just before the ship sails he is reassigned to another
02:58ship and in the confusion he forgets to pass off the key to the cabinet that holds the binoculars
03:05and so the men are on top of their looking without the looking glasses
03:11at 11 40 p.m the titanic is sailing along at this high rate of speed and the lookout see
03:18this dark figure looming in front of them they start yelling and ringing a bell saying iceberg dead ahead
03:24but because the ship is going so fast titanic ends up scraping the side of this iceberg what ends up
03:31happening is the scenario that engineers swore up and down would never happen where there are joints and
03:38rivets those places are especially vulnerable so you have cracks all along the side that begin to let
03:45in water in a hole built to withstand the flooding of only four compartments six are now taking on water
03:53at over a hundred thousand gallons per minute suddenly titanic seems far from unsinkable because you
04:02have those six containers full of water that causes the bow of the ship to start dipping which means more
04:09of these supposedly watertight compartments start taking on even more water the titanic has 20 lifeboats
04:16on board this means that 1100 people can be accommodated by these lifeboats the problem is the titanic has
04:242200 people on board
04:29by about two in the morning the valve titanic has completely gone underwater and the back of the
04:34ship is now vertical with the ship sticking up into the air it just can't support its own weight and
04:41it
04:41cracks in half at this point it's over it's going down fast this water is so cold that if you
04:50go into
04:50the water you die from hypothermia in minutes when rescue ships finally arrive over two hours later more
04:59than 1500 people have died it takes almost 80 years to discover another engineering factor that explains the
05:09tragedy when the breakage is found in 1985 it is analyzed they discover that there is this high sulfur
05:17content in the steel when that type of steel is in a very cold environment like in the north atlantic
05:25it can become brittle and instead of bending and recovering the steel will break another thing that
05:32they see is that the quality of the rivets in the titanic varies there are about three million rivets
05:40that are holding titanic together many of them are very very good quality some of them slightly less
05:47those rivets combined with the fact that you have brittle steel in this colder water that causes those
05:53rivets to pop which causes those steel plates to tear away which causes that much more water to make its
05:59way
06:00into titanic the titanic is an engineering marvel but in the end it is its engineering that dooms it
06:07the iceberg might have been what broke the titanic but it was her engineering her steel her design her
06:13bulkheads that doom the ship the titanic is one of the 20th century's best known disasters but a dam project
06:24launched 40 years later in china results in a secret tragedy
06:33mao believes that he can transform china into a modern state and so the great leap forward is this
06:38series of programs that are intended to take them from the medieval peasant state to an industrialized
06:44superpower in a very brief period of time and the ban chao dam is central to china is one of
06:50those mao's great achievements during the great leap forward built in 1952 it's there to provide
06:57irrigation it's there to provide flood control it's there to provide energy it's supposedly a perfect dam
07:04a dam that cannot break the ban chao dam is designed to withstand the 1 000 year flood
07:12the idea is that we're going to try to calculate what's the worst storm we might get
07:16in a thousand years in this case calculations show that a thousand year storm should release about 12
07:24inches of rain in a day the dam's original design calls for 12 sluice gates to manage overflow these are
07:34huge barriers that are raised or lowered to control the flow of water but in a cost-cutting measure only
07:42five of the 12 sluice gates are built the engineers plan for once in a thousand year flood the thing
07:52that
07:52they don't plan for is typhoon nina in august of 1975 the typhoon brings a deluge of 40 inches of
08:03rain
08:03in just three days that's averaging 13 inches per day and now that decision to construct only five sluice
08:12gates turns out to be a massive design error when they finally go to open the sluice gates that they
08:19have they're largely blocked by silt and debris so that they're not flooding out as quickly as they can
08:24the dam simply can't hold back the pressure of all that 158 billion gallons of water
08:34on august 8 of 1975 the dam collapses
08:42it creates a wall of water that's 30 feet high that is running 40 miles an hour goes rushing down
08:50this valley there's 61 other dams beneath it and those are all quickly overwhelmed so it washes out
08:55not just the bang chow dam but it washes seven miles wide more than 50 miles long
09:04imagine 150 billion gallons of water barreling down a valley at 30 40 miles per hour nothing is going to
09:13stand in its way and survive
09:19it takes days for the flood waters to recede so the chinese government can only respond
09:25by air dropping supplies to the stranded survivors but this is nothing more than a band-aid on a
09:33truly fatal wound government sources report 26 000 dead but independent estimates suggest that as
09:42many as 230 000 perished from flooding from disease and from famine
09:52when civilians run from an approaching army it should help them survive but that's not the case
09:59in a key city in portugal during a terrible war
10:06in 1809 portugal portugal is a key strategic objective for napoleon and his french troops as
10:14they conquer their way through europe napoleon's forces are marching toward the city and the people
10:21of porto are in a frenzy the french are known to slaughter and terrorize the portuguese for seemingly no
10:29reason whatsoever so the people of porto it's more about the fear of what happens if we surrender they
10:35feel that escape is ultimately going to be the best option the french army is attacking from the north so
10:43thousands of locals try to flee to the south if they can cross the duro river they just might live
10:50they know the river will be a natural barrier that separates porto from the french troops the way to
10:58get across that river is by crossing this at the time pretty ingenious invention this pontoon bridge
11:05the bridge is a temporary marvel made from 20 boats tied together with steel cables with thousands fleeing
11:14napoleon's army the bridge faces an impossible test of its strength one vulnerability of the bridge from
11:22an engineering standpoint is its lack of redundancy redundancy refers to the multiple ways in which
11:29the weight or the load can be supported if there is a failure at a single point it just so
11:35happens that
11:36this bridge has a weak point because of its need to be able to open up at the center span
11:42to allow
11:43water traffic to pass through the problem though is that these bridges are not designed for the weight
11:51of thousands and thousands of people crossing simultaneously as thousands cram onto the bridge
11:59the structure built for orderly passage begins to groan under the weight of the masses the middle
12:06section of the bridge which is the weakest point gives way
12:14boats tethered on either side of the opening can no longer hold on to their positions and the entire
12:19bridge just unravels
12:24thousands of people are thrown into the doru river
12:30most people who fall in can't make it to the river banks and they just drown
12:38by the time napoleon's troops arrived at the river they end up encountering the largest bridge
12:45disaster in history 4 000 people end up dying trying to escape from napoleon's troops unsurprisingly napoleon's forces capture porto
12:57with almost no resistance
12:59but the human cost of victory is staggering
13:04war can expose engineering problems like it did in porto now let's turn to italy
13:10in a problem revealed in the tunnel
13:19by 1944 world war ii italy has taken the brunt of the allied rage and mussolini's fascist state
13:31has paid the price people are struggling just to get by and the amount of internal refugee and black market
13:39movement within italy is staggering under these conditions it's not easy to get around the train
13:46it's the primary method of transportation one particular freight train the 8017 is originating out of
13:56naples and heading through the hill country towards balvano the balvano train is essentially a bunch of
14:03different carriages that have been cobbled together to make one mediocre train the 8017 is being pulled by
14:11two steam engines one a modern new model and the other older and less reliable the 8017 is a freight
14:21route it's a freight train yet at this time in the war people are desperate for opportunity so the 8017
14:28is loaded with refugees trying to shepherd their own goods in this new black market economy there are more
14:37than 600 storeways on this train they've climbed in cars they've climbed on top of cars so given the
14:44freight and all the people this train is way overload this point in the war all the high quality coal
14:51is
14:52going to support the war efforts so to operate this train they're really using the lowest quality coal
14:59called late night it doesn't produce as much energy when burned it also produces a lot of byproducts
15:05including carbon monoxide the train approaches the one mile long army tunnel but the combination of
15:13the weak engine poor quality cove overloaded compartments and hilly terrain make it a difficult climb
15:21so here you have these engines working extra hard they're in this confined space of a tunnel belching out
15:29deadly carbon monoxide it's a little after midnight and the train comes to a halt inside the army tunnel
15:39the engines haven't stopped they're still working hard trying to move this train in an attempt to try
15:46to get the train out of the tunnel one of the engines tries to move backwards however the problem is
15:52the two engine operators are not able to speak to each other so one engine is going forward and one
15:59engine is pulling backwards they're emitting vast amounts of carbon monoxide with zero ventilation carbon
16:06monoxide is absolutely odorless and absolutely deadly it kind of displaces oxygen in your blood and if you're
16:16breathing that for several minutes your body isn't getting the oxygen you need they just start falling
16:22unconscious and they start to die
16:26one break man realizing the severity of the situation uh attempts to make it to the tunnel
16:32entrance and eventually makes it to a station agent's office for support
16:37rescueers arrive around 5 a.m and what they find is pure horror there are 500 bodies on the ground
16:48outside the train inside the train on top the train just people slumped where they succumb to the carbon
16:55monoxide it's not like we can point to one thing for why this accident occurs there's the hill there's
17:01cobbled together train with two different types of steam engines there's the lignite coal it's all
17:08these different pieces that really show why engineering is important why safety regulations
17:13are important if we ignore any of those things we can have these catastrophic accidents
17:22when it opens the hyatt regency hotel in kansas city is considered a marvel its best feature is a huge
17:30huge atrium with hanging walkways a year later it becomes a site of a shocking disaster
17:39in july of 1980 the new hyatt regency hotel opens it is a grand building in the center of town
17:46and it's
17:47notable because it has these hanging walkways the walkways are stacked in the center of the atrium and
17:54they're made to look like they're suspended in mid-air it's a marvel of modern engineering
18:03on july 17th 1981 the regency is alive with the kansas city tea dance a local news crew is on
18:10hand
18:10that night covering the tea dance it's a kind of 19th century european get together with an american
18:17flair so of course once it's in full swing we want to go up on the walkways on the atrium
18:22and look down
18:23but when you're looking at the flash and the glamour you're not looking at the literal nuts and bolts
18:29that put this place together in the original design one rod was sustained from the ceiling with strength
18:35enough to carry the two walkways walkway one on the second floor and walkway two on the fourth floor
18:42but during construction the steel contractor suggests a design change to cut costs rather than using one
18:50continuous load bearing steel rod two separate rods were created one holding walkway one the second
18:59holding walkway two from walkway one imagine if you had a pull-up bar if you have two people hanging
19:07from
19:08it the pull-up bar could support their weight but if you have one person hanging off of the other
19:14one
19:14then the weak point isn't the rod itself but the wrists of the person on top it's just too much
19:21weight
19:22you found a cheaper carpet great go for it you found a cheaper shade of paint great go for it
19:28you found a
19:29cheaper way to hang two atrium walkways let's think about that one dancers and attendees crowd the walkways
19:38oblivious to the strain beneath their feet the walkways start to creak and groan but nobody can hear it
19:45over the music of the band and people talking the weight is simply too much for the hanger rods
19:54they break the fourth floor collapses as it collapses it falls onto the second floor the second floor
20:00collapses under the weight of that both of them fall onto the atrium full of people
20:1068 tons of metal steel glass collapse in tandem it's not just that you're falling 30 or 40 feet which
20:20is
20:21plenty enough to be a disaster but it's been tons of debris falling on top of you burying you beneath
20:27the rubble first responders arrived to find a horrific scene people who moments earlier were
20:34having the time of their lives are now crushed under rubble all in all the rescue effort takes over 14
20:41hours by the next morning as the dust is settling the true extent of this disaster becomes clear 114 dead
20:50more than 200 injured is one of the deadliest structural collapses in american history
20:59in the 1980s builders in jerusalem also changed the design of a structure during construction and tragedy happens again
21:12in jerusalem israel the versailles wedding hall is a happening spot to throw an event
21:21and on may 24th 2001 karen and asaf dror are getting married this is a wedding hall you bring two
21:30or
21:30three hundred of your closest friends all of your drunk uncles people are dancing people are singing it's a
21:35celebration but the building's dance floor and its walls have been hiding engineering problems that date
21:43back 15 years the wedding hall is constructed via a method using these very very thin concrete slabs
21:52that's called pal count and the reason for doing this is because it's a much more cost effective way of
21:59building as a result of being thinner and lighter weight pal count does not have the load bearing
22:07capabilities of other forms of concrete another construction decision is even more concerning
22:14the original plan is that the building is going to be two stories and then just a portion of the
22:19building is going to have a third floor but during construction they decide they're going to cover the
22:24whole building with the third floor it's got the weight of a whole other story on top of it and
22:30they've got partitions holding the second floor ceiling up but a couple of weeks before the wedding the
22:37owners of the building decide they're going to take those partitions out so they can open up the space
22:42they don't realize those partitions are holding up the entire third floor when you look up and you see
22:50cracks in the ceiling above you and the floors inevitably begin to sag the owners decide to
22:59put a layer of grout over it to hide the cracks of course just hiding engineering mistakes doesn't make
23:08them disappear this is a big party this is a big wedding there's 700 people in this wedding and it
23:16is
23:16simply too much weight during the festivities the floor it buckles for about a microsecond everyone's
23:25like well what happened before anyone can react the ground beneath their feet gives in
23:41400 people instantly vanish into the void they're sucked down into this gaping maw of nothingness
23:51those lucky to be on the periphery just see emptiness where hundreds of people were just standing
23:59they don't just fall one story they fall through the next floor to the ground they fall three stories
24:06356 people are injured 23 die
24:12it's a series of bad choices that lead to progressive failure that lead to disaster
24:24engineering shortcuts are nothing new but in a roman arena that leads to death
24:32it's 27 80 and the thing to do is the gladiatorial games this is the academy awards this is football
24:41this is the big movie of the day we're talking 20 guys against 50 lions we're talking about
24:48flooding arenas and having naval battles i mean these are big shows
24:54but in the reign of tiberius there is a major restriction in the number and spectacle of gladiatorial
25:00games that can be helped tiberius is a stick in the mud and he has no time for roman politics
25:05or roman
25:06entertainments instead he basically retires to the island of capri outside the site of the roman elite
25:13with tiberius out of the picture the romans decide to quench their thirst for violent entertainment
25:21not far from rome there's a place called the danai and there's a man a freed man a former
25:26slave his name is atilius and he sees money he says i am going to hold the best gladiatorial games
25:33ever and i'm going to get rich so he builds an amphitheater about six miles outside of rome to
25:41the north when we think of arenas in the ancient world we think of these giant stone amphitheaters
25:46but that is not what atilius builds he builds a amphitheater of wood atilius is in this for the money
25:54so he cuts more than a few corners he doesn't properly prepare the foundation he doesn't properly
26:00put up the cross beams that would allow the stadium to keep from shifting remember this stadium is
26:06going to hold tens of thousands of people it's a massive amount of weight it is an unstable structure
26:13on opening day over 50 000 spectators jostled for the best view of the bloody contests below
26:23this gladiatorial arena it's swaying a little bit and then it's swaying more
26:28more and more and more and you start to feel unsteady on your feet imagine if you were at a
26:34baseball game and the whole thing started to tip over at once this edifice with all of these people
26:42in it collapses so you have people flying through the air screaming plummeting into the people below
26:51them and then you have panicked people who are attempting to escape clawing over each other
26:56imagine 50 000 people struggling under the weight of this structure that has fallen all around them
27:05ancient historians have a propensity to exaggerate but it is not unrealistic on the low end of the
27:11estimate to think that about 20 000 people were killed that day it is the greatest engineering disaster
27:17of its time engineering disasters often come from poor planning in 1947 at a port in texas that causes one
27:29of the most terrible accidents in american history in the post-world war ii world america is the only
27:40country left standing with big manufacturing capacity and that translates to a lot of business
27:48in the port of texas city south of houston the port of texas city is meant to put in place
27:53new safety
27:54protocols because of the growth the problem with that though is that these safety protocols are never
28:00actually put in place on april 16 1947 the ss grand camp is docked at texas city with a cargo
28:09of 2300 tons of ammonium nitrate ammonium nitrate as a material is very useful it's a great fertilizer
28:18as long as it's stored in the proper conditions this means that engineers will have to design storage
28:25protocols to maintain safety the ss grand camps hold are set up in the worst way possible they have twine
28:33next to ammonium nitrate something that is extraordinarily flammable should not be
28:38ever set next to something that is extraordinarily explosive especially under hot conditions it is
28:45literally a what not to do in the bottom of a ship engineers often enlist the aid of frontline workers
28:52to sound the alarm if something seems off that doesn't happen in texas city the longshoremen who pack the
29:00ammonium nitrate say that it was hot to the touch and this is especially problematic when we're talking
29:05about ammonium nitrate because it can go through rapid decomposition and break apart into nitrogen gas
29:11oxygen gas and water and when that happens it's essentially a bomb when a fire starts in one of
29:19the grand camps holds the cargo begins to smolder once the fire gets going the crew tries to do what
29:25they can to extinguish it but they're not having success so the idea they come up with is let's close
29:32the
29:32hatch and starve it of oxygen once again an engineering solution should have protocols in place for
29:40hazardous materials fires if this was a traditional fire sealing the hold off would eventually extinguish
29:48the fire because there's a finite amount of oxygen in the hole except in the case of ammonium nitrate
29:54it's creating its own oxygen as it's burning and so the well-known strategy of basically smothering a
30:01fire won't work in this instance by 9 a.m the fire is burning out of control and people start
30:09coming
30:09out to watch it and someone calls the fire department to come put it out but of course they've never
30:15dealt
30:15with anything like this either at 9 12 the pressure gets to a tipping point where it just can't be
30:21contained anymore and it just explodes
30:30the explosion of the grand camp is so massive that it registers on seismographs in denver colorado
30:38that's 800 miles away
30:43as the blast wave travels through the port it is causing destruction toppling buildings knocking over
30:50vehicles and the ship's two-ton anchor it's thrown a mile and a half inland it's at this point that
30:58engineering failures in the layout of the port make this disaster even worse there are other fuel tanks
31:07in the port there are other ships in the port also holding ammonium nitrate in its cargo hold so that
31:13catches fire that causes a secondary explosion when all is said and done you have over 500 people
31:23that end up losing their lives at the port of texas city including pretty much every single person on
31:29the volunteer fire brigade a big part of engineering is engineering safety so if you look at all of the
31:37levels of failure that lead to this incident store materials improperly once they get burning seal them
31:44off and then attract the crowd to come and watch the show it is one engineering failure after another
31:55chemical plants can be dangerous and if they're not well maintained they can turn deadly that's just what
32:03happened in bhopal india it's december 2nd 1984 and the city of bhopal india winds down for the night
32:15but in the heart of the city a pesticide plant is a ticking time bomb
32:23in the 1970s the bhopal plant manufactured an immense amount of a pesticide called seven
32:29in order to make seven the bhopal factory makes something called methyl isocyanate methyl isocyanate
32:36is a flammable toxic liquid if it gets into the vapor form it has a very strong smell but if
32:44you're
32:44smelling it it's probably too late methyl isocyanate or mic has to be stored in extremely precise
32:54conditions it must be under pressure it must be in a cool temperature and it cannot be exposed to
33:00any sort of moisture not a single one of these precautions are met
33:0740 tons of toxic mic is sitting in a pressurized storage tank called e610 but e610 is over pressurized
33:19and it's beginning to leak despite these maintenance issues there should still be a layer of safety
33:27precautions in place the plant's design includes a critical safeguard a jumper line meant to prevent
33:34water from mixing with the chemical but the line has been replaced recently and cheaply
33:42the jumper line becomes through its poor engineering the worst enemy of mic rather than aiding in its
33:52cleaning and maintenance it's actually injecting water into the system when water reacts with
33:59methyl isocyanate it produces carbon dioxide gas the carbon dioxide gas builds up and the pressure
34:05starts to go up around 12 15 a.m workers reported the presence of a leak to their managers but
34:13the
34:13managers were just about to start their evening tea break and so they decided to wait until after their
34:19break before investigating the cause of the leak that tea break is a death warrant for the residents of
34:26bopal the carbon dioxide vents on its own it is so highly pressurized that the emergency vent with the
34:34concrete underneath it cracks deadly methyl isocyanate gas escapes and the plant's alarms remain silent
34:44they are turned off weeks before to save money there are several engineering factors attached to tank e610
34:53basically sprinkler system is supposed to shoot up and over the tanks to take the gas down but the
35:00engineering of the sprinkler system has a critical design flaw it's built too low the curtain of water
35:07created by the sprinklers isn't high enough to contain the gas with no safety apparatus in operation
35:16the toxic plume of mic blankets bopal and it's midnight the town is asleep around 1 a.m citizens
35:25of the city start realizing something's going on they wake up they're having a hard time breathing
35:30they're choking some of them are even experiencing pulmonary edema so essentially their lungs are filling
35:36up with water and they're suffocating mic is called the silent killer for a reason it's light you can't
35:42see it and it just floats around responders don't know that this deadly gas is the cause so initially
35:50doctors and nurses misdiagnose what is happening to these people this wastes valuable time as victims
35:58continue to flood into emergency rooms within 72 hours upwards of 5 000 people are dead many of them
36:07elderly or children but that's just the beginning in the coming weeks upwards of 20 000 people will die
36:14from secondary effects of the union carbide plants absolute negligence and it started with bad engineering
36:27when it's built in the 1970s the shinobu nuclear power plant
36:32is celebrated as the pinnacle in soviet engineering but the events of 1986 will put an entire continent at risk
36:45chernobyl is touted by the soviets as being an engineering marvel that will provide energy to the
36:51masses it powers much of ukraine but underneath its imposing facade lies an uncomfortable truth
37:00its reactor design is deeply flawed the reactor's graphite tipped control rods they are designed to
37:11slow the reactions during a shutdown but when they are first inserted into the court they can temporarily
37:18lead to an increase in reactions and this can trigger instability not safety
37:25on april 26th a routine safety test begins the workers shut down half of the power plant's
37:33generators then as they attempt to restart them they discover they don't have the backup power to get them
37:40back online they realize that they're in trouble they decide they have to shut the reactor down and they
37:46drop the graphite rods the rods cause the reaction to go unstable and this coolant inside immediately turns to
37:53steam and there's a huge release of radioactive steam so much force that it blows the 1 000 ton cap
38:02off of the top of the reactor
38:06fires erupt across the plant as radioactive materials are ejected into the atmosphere
38:15the amount of radiation gamma radiation that is being released is lethal it's deadly it will cause
38:21burns burns and eventually it will cause organ failure which means that the first responders they start
38:28to die within hours radioactive materials are still burning through the core of the reactor
38:36if workers don't drain the water below the reactor more radioactive steam will be produced
38:43that could trigger an even bigger explosion but the tunnels are full of lethal doses of radiation so they
38:51have to ask for three volunteers who are going to go down into those tunnels and they call them the
38:57suicide squad
39:00they give them wetsuits and very little protection they send them down presumably to die
39:11so they wait through radioactive waters they open valves and drain the water
39:22and in doing so they save thousands of lives
39:30everybody assumes that they died the thing is they didn't meanwhile a much larger problem is unfolding the
39:39radioactive cloud is spreading quickly and blanketing the nearby city of pripyat they don't start to give
39:47orders for evacuation until 36 hours after the accident and of course when they do no one's prepared there is
39:56chaos the residents fight to get on buses that are leaving town they are frantic to get out of this
40:03radiation zone
40:04but by then it's almost too late they're starting to show symptoms of radiation poisoning
40:10they have nausea and vomiting clumps of their hair falling out their arms are starting to feel like pins
40:16and needles it's bad situation the damage isn't confined to prip yet radioactive particles
40:23spread across europe they contaminate soil water and air there's a lot of controversy over how many
40:32people died as a result of the chernobyl explosion but if you look at things like early death cancer rates
40:38across a wide swath into europe the disaster might kill as many as 200 000 people
40:45it takes three decades to bring some semblance of control back to the site in 2016 a massive steel
40:55sarcophagus called the new safe containment is slid over reactor number four safely sealing it once and for
41:05all the new safe confinement is essentially a good engineering solution for a bad engineering
41:12problem that happened more than 30 years ago
41:19some engineering failures begin with a single mistake others are caused by years of neglect
41:26but a few cause such shocking destruction they rank among history's deadliest
41:32so
41:33so
41:33You
Comments