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.
By WILIAM HUNTER-Dailymail.com
This deadly mystery is a 2m wide lump of solidified lava formed from the molten core of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor.
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.
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.