The Most Radioactive Mop in the World

If you've been on the internet for long, you may have stumbled upon a photo of what is called the "Elephant's Foot", and when you look up the Chernobyl Nuclear accident, it will likely be the very first thing that pops up in a Google search.

Image Source: Reddit (Image of the Elephant's Foot, taken in the mid-2000s)

The Elephant's Foot is a large (roughly eleven tons) mass of corium lava that was formed during the meltdown of Chernobyl's Reactor 4. During the accident, this superheated mass of steel and graphite melted through the reactor's containment chamber and right through the floor until it reached the basement, where it's been resting ever since 1986.

What is corium, Anyway?

Corium is a big, sludgy mess of nuclear fuel and control rods, melted together by very, very high temperatures. It is only formed from the meltdown of a nuclear reactor, something that has only happened a handful of times. (A more recent example of this happening is during the nuclear accident in Fukushima, Japan, in 2011.)

Article: Chernobyl's Elephant's Foot is a Toxic Mass of Corium | HowStuffWorks

However, I'm not here to talk about the Chernobyl accident (yet), but something rather smaller and a bit less significant.

Take a good look at this photo.

Photo Source: US Department of Energy

In 1986, this was perhaps the most radioactive place in the world, and that mop (to the left of the Elephant's Foot) was--and probably still is--the most radioactive mop in the world.

I haven't found information on who put it there, or if it was there before the accident. (And, how is it even standing like that?) I've also seen detractors of the "Mop Theory" say that it wasn't a mop, but a steel pipe.

It may be a mop or it may be a pipe, but the one thing that people can agree on is that it had to have been placed there by human hands. But, who and why?After all, simply being in the vicinity of the Elephant's Foot meant certain death via acute radiation sickness. In fact, the spot was so irradiated, the people who took the photo had to send in the camera via remote controlled trolley.

In later photos of the Elephant's Foot, the mop was mysteriously missing, leading to speculation that it either decayed from being exposed to such high amounts of radiation, or it was moved.

According to this video (timestamp: 11:44-12:52), it was likely that someone did move the mop, showing a later photo of the mop propped up against a nearby concrete pillar.

Still, the mystery of how and why it was there is still a really interesting mystery to me, and to these redditors:

Someone forgot to tell old janitor Dmitri there was a catastrophic meltdown and he didn't need to show up at work the next day. He probably nearly had a heart attack when he saw the mess. Some say the radiation killed him mid-mop.

Someone I bet thought "Yes, I believe a mop will efficiently clean up this substance called corium which I believe is a heavily irradiated lava like material".

It has become sentient and is trying to clean up.

According to Wikipedia, someone once shot the elephants foot with an AK-47. Do with that information what you will.

(That last one had nothing to do with the mop itself. I just thought it was funny.)

I might write about Chernobyl in more depth later, but until then, take a look at this randomly placed chair, also near the remains of Chernobyl Unit 4:

Chair

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https://imgur.com/a/chair-3Se9Q1M

Yet another unexplained mystery.