Quote Originally Posted by Dr_Swizz View Post
Dropping water from the helicopter was only an experiment. They Russians used helicopters to drop water(?)/sand(?)/lead(?) on the Chernobyl reactor, but it did not work very will. It was also extremely dangerous as they are flying in the middle of the radioactive smoke. Most (all?) of the russian helicopter pilots died. :-(
Boron also. It worked very well. IN fact it was one of the key factors that brought it to a close. The limiting factor was the sheer weight of the material they had dropped as it would weaken the foundations of the reactor even more. The immediate deaths from Chernobyl are numbering about 50-60. The all time deaths are estimated by the UN to be *only* 4000.