It might sound supernatural, but there is one very real object so deadly that even looking at it could get you killed.
Just 300 seconds in the room with the so-called ‘Elephant’s Foot’ will leave you with just two days to live.
This deadly mystery is a 2m wide lump of solidified lava formed from the molten core of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor.
Due to the intense radiation, only a handful of photos of the Elephant’s foot have ever been taken.
Even now, almost 40 years since the meltdown, stepping into the room with this object could be deadly and the threat may persist for centuries to come.
The Elephant’s Foot is one of the most dangerous objects on Earth. It is a solid mass of melted core material from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine
In April 1986 the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine experienced an unexpected heat surge during a routine test. The resulting meltdown was one of the worst nuclear disasters in human history
On April 26, 1986 reactor Number 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine experienced an unexpected power surge.
When emergency shutdown procedures failed the temperatures in the core rose even higher.
By the time the control rods which slow the reaction were inserted, it was too late and the intense temperatures cracked the rods.
Soon the cooling water vapourised, building up pressure until the reactor itself exploded in the worst nuclear disaster in human history.
That Autumn, as emergency crews fought to contain the radiation they discovered a chamber beneath the reactor had become one of the most dangerous places on the planet.
In this photo, taken by the US Department of Energy a decade after the disaster, the Elephant’s Foot could still deliver a fatal dose of radiation in an hour
The reactor became so hot that the steel and concrete used to shield the core melted into radioactive lava.
Despite what the initial clean-up crews believed this material wasn’t actually nuclear fuel from the reactor.
As the core became critical it simply melted the materials used to house it which slowly fell through the floor of the reactor.
As it forced its way through the pipes and concrete of Reactor 4 the material picked up more components, changing and morphing into a complex mess of radioactive chemicals.
When this mixture of sand, concrete and nuclear fuel finally cooled down it solidified into a new material called corium.
One mass of corium, which fell through into the steam corridor beneath the reactor, became known as the Elephant’s Foot due to its distinctive shape.
After the disaster, the area around the power plant was declared an Exclusion Zone. Intense radiation forced thousands to leave their homes, creating ghost towns
In 1986, the elephant’s foot was putting out 10,000 roentgens (a measure of radiation) per hour – around 1,000 times the dose required to give you cancer.
For context, an hour of radiation at that level would be the equivalent of getting four and a half million chest X-rays.
In 30 seconds of exposure, you would be left with dizziness and fatigue within a week.
After two minutes in the room, your cells would begin to haemorrhage and at four minutes vomiting, diarrhoea, and fever would set in.
Finally, after just five minutes you would almost certainly die two days later.
As the clean-up crew, called ‘liquidators’, arrived they found that the Elephant’s Foot was still far too radioactive to approach.
When the Elephant’s Foot first formed, just five minutes in the room with it could cause fatal radiation poisoning. In this photo taken 10 years later, the radiation is still so high it has interfered with film in the camera
Radiation levels at Chernobyl (pictured) are gradually reducing, however the Elephant’s Foot may remain dangerous for decades more
Using a hastily assembled camera on wheels, the crew were able to get a photo of the foot.
Ten years later the US Department of Energy, which documented Chernobyl extensively, managed to obtain some pictures of the Elephant’s Foot.
In some of the photos of the Elephant’s Foot you can see a man in an orange coat, believed to be Artur Korneyev the deputy director of Shelter Object.
Artur took this picture of himself using a time delayed camera in order to limit his exposure to radiation.
By this time the corium blob was emitting about a tenth of the radiation it had been originally.
Artur actually survived the experience, making hundreds of trips to visit the site of the disaster and seeing more of the Elephant’s Foot than any other person.
In 2021 he was still living in Ukraine according to a local newspaper, but it is not known if he is still alive.
However, even 500 seconds of exposure would induce mild radiation sickness while an hour would be fatal.
The radiation levels near the Elephant’s Foot remained so high that it interfered with the film used to photograph it.
In 2016 a concrete and steel shelter called the New Safe Confinement was placed over the reactors to prevent any more leaks.
This was reinforced with a steel structure to ensure uranium dust was not dispersed in the case of another explosion.
Since corium is so rare, having only been produced five times in history, no one is quite sure how the Elephant’s foot will change over time.
While the nuclear material is slowly cooling down, it is likely to remain dangerous for many more years to come.
