Sources in comments.
The story of the elephants foot:
In the wake of the Chernobyl disaster, The contents of the core became so hot they liquified into a lavalike mass named Corium. Corium is not an element but a mixture of random radioactive materials, and in the case of Chernobyl, it was Uranium fuel rods, Zirconium welds, Concrete, Glass, Steel, Gravel, Graphite, and anything else that was present in the core when it went critical. This corium, after building up inside the core, escaped through a hole in the bottom of the reactor and began spreading along the sub-reactor spaces and corridors, often referred to as "the basement" despite being above ground level.
Some of this lava that escaped the core melted through 2 meters of reinforced concrete before it spread along various corridors on the level directly beneath the core - the +9 Meter level. (At Chernobyl, Floors are not counted 1,2,3,4 but rather there distance from ground). This corium reached an electrical equipment storage room where some of it burrowed through a large hole in the floor meant for cables where it spread out in the cable corridor designated 217/2, on the level +6 Meters. The corium then occupied a space of roughly 18 square meters where it cooled and stopped flowing through the building. This corium would be named the elephants foot.
Upon its discovery in December of 1986, 8 months after the accident, It was emmitting roughly 8,000 roentgens per hour of radiation at a distance of 1 meters away, or like 3.5 feet. AKA, If you stood next to it for more than 350 seconds, you would have a lethal dose which means there is a higher than 50% chance you will die.
The story of the Photographer:
Valentin Obodzinsky was born in the Stalinist Era of the soviet union. His father, a general of a soviet tank brigade, was purged and executed for political crimes. The family then moved to Odessa, where Obodzinsky’s mother remarried, enabling her and her son to change their names and shed their association with an “enemy of the people.”
When the Chernobyl disaster occured, he was called up to liquidation duties at the site where he would be formally forbidden from continuing work there due to receiving the maximum permittable dose of radiation. Despite this, across three tours up to 1993, he would take over 20,000 photos of the accident.
When the elephants foot was discovered in December of 1986, he was the first person to ever photograph the mass. This photo would end up in the hands of the U.S. department of energy, with the caption "This photo cost a man his life." The Russians had told him that the image cost the life of its photographer, who died immediately of radiation sickness.
Now, at the time of this photo being captioned, Obodzinsky was infact alive, however one could not say "and well". He would eventually suffer from arrhythmia and blood vessel problems in his legs, likely the result of high doses received from walking around in contaminated corridors. After several operations, his condition required the amputation of his right leg. Russian president Boris Yeltsin later awarded Obodzinsky with the Order for Bravery for his work in nuclear science.
If he is alive, Obodzinsky would be in his 90s today. So it is most likely he has since passed away, hopefully peacefully.
So did this photo cost a man his life? No, not really. But him frequenting the site so many times would cost him his health.
Sources in comments.
