Re: [Phys-l] Visit to Chernobyl

[Hugh Haskell <hhaskell@mindspring.com>]

At 14:24  -0800 2/12/07, Bernard Cleyet wrote:
> thanks, tho still an interesting site as Wiki admits.
>
> bc
>
> Price Daniel S. wrote:
>
> > Her blog has been largely debunked.
>  >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elena_Filatova

Largely debunked?

The issue, according to the Wikipedia article, seems to be did she 
actually ride her motorcycle through the region or did she go by some 
other means? Although, her implication that she did might cause one 
to question some of her other claims, it hardly amounts to "largely 
debunked."

I have looked at most of the videos on the original web page, and 
only one or two are relevant to how she made it through Chernobyl, 
and one of them clearly states that the vehicle was not her 
motorcycle, and the other states that she rode in a car as part of a 
tour.

So I think the issue is the accuracy of her claims about what 
happened at Chernobyl and not how she got into the exclusion area or 
what her mode of transportation was. The claims she makes have been 
made by others, and contradict official pronouncements. However, all 
governments have lied to the press, the public and their legislators 
about the effects of various nuclear matters over the years, so I 
don't think that the Soviet government or its successors in that area 
have much credibility to offer either. Most of the necessary data was 
either not gathered at all, or, where it was, has not been released, 
so assessing the truth of what happened at Chernobyl and its 
long-term effects is almost impossible.

Estimates of the deaths to date and of projected deaths from the 
Chernobyl radiation vary over several orders of magnitude, and 
without reliable information about the amount and types of radiation 
released and how it was distributed, it will be difficult to reduce 
those error bars.

My personal guess is that the toll is not likely to be quite as great 
as the highest estimates, it is more likely to be closer to those 
than to the low-ball estimates publicly made by various government 
agencies.

Elena Filatova is not making claims on her own. She is using those of 
others who have at least made a stab at the estimates, uncertain as 
those may be. As the Wikipedia article points out, it is difficult to 
stage the sights of the ghost town that once was Pripyat. those 
pictures pretty much speak for themselves.

Hugh
--

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Hugh Haskell
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