How did the accident happen. Chernobyl victims - who are they? Residual heat and radiation safety

This accident is regarded as the largest in the history of nuclear energy, as well as the estimated number of people killed and affected by its consequences. During the first three months after the accident, 31 people died, the consequences of the accident over the next 15 years caused the death of 60 to 80 people. 134 people suffered from radiation sickness of varying severity, more than 115 thousand people from the 30-kilometer zone were evacuated. More than 600,000 people participated in the liquidation of the consequences of the disaster.

OPINION OF ACADEMICIAN

It never occurred to me then that we were moving towards an event of a planetary scale, an event that, apparently, will go down in the history of mankind as the eruption of famous volcanoes, the death of Pompeii, or something close to it.

Academician Valery Legasov

TASS MESSAGE

There was an accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. One of the reactors was damaged. Measures are being taken to eliminate the consequences of the incident. The victims received the necessary assistance. A government commission has been set up to investigate the incident.

CHRONICLE OF THE ACCIDENT AND ITS OVERCOMING

On the night of April 26, 1986, the mistakes of the personnel working at the 4th unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, multiplied by the mistakes of the designers of the RBMK reactor (high-power reactor, channel), namely, this type of reactor was used at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, led to the most serious accident in the history of the world nuclear energy. This accident became a major man-made and humanitarian disaster of the 20th century.

On April 25, 1986, the personnel of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant were preparing to shut down the fourth power unit for scheduled preventive maintenance, during which the experiment was supposed to be carried out. Due to dispatcher restrictions, the shutdown of the reactor was delayed several times, which caused difficulties in controlling the reactor's power.

On April 26 at 0124 there was an uncontrolled increase in power, which led to explosions and the destruction of a significant part of the reactor plant. As a result of the accident, a large amount of radioactive substances was released into the environment.

Despite the obvious scale of the accident, the possibility of serious radiation consequences near the nuclear power plant, as well as evidence of the transboundary transfer of radioactive substances to the territory of Western European countries, during the first few days the country's leadership did not take adequate actions in the field of informing the population of both the USSR and other countries .

Moreover, already in the first days after the accident, measures were taken to classify data on its real and predicted consequences.

As a result of the accident, the territory of 19 subjects with a population of about 30 million people was exposed to radioactive contamination in Russia alone. The area of territories contaminated with cesium-137 amounted to more than 56 thousand square kilometers, where about 3 million people lived.

In the first and most acute period, more than 100 thousand citizens of the USSR were involved in the elimination of the consequences of the accident in the Chernobyl zone. In total, in the first three years after the accident, 250,000 workers visited the 30-kilometer zone. These people did everything possible to minimize the consequences of the accident. In the subsequent period, all work to control the radiation situation, reduce radiation doses to the population, rehabilitate contaminated areas, provide medical care and social protection for the population of the affected areas were carried out within the framework of state targeted programs.

A day after the accident, the government commission decided on the need to evacuate residents of nearby settlements. In total, by the end of 1986, about 116 thousand people were resettled from 188 settlements (including the city of Pripyat).

In mid-May 1986, the government commission decided on the long-term conservation of Unit 4 in order to prevent the release of radionuclides into the environment and reduce the impact of penetrating radiation at the Chernobyl site.

The Ministry of Medium Machine Building of the USSR was entrusted with "work on the disposal of the 4th power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and related structures." The object was named "Shelter of the 4th unit of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant", it is known to the whole world as a "sarcophagus". On November 30, 1986, an act was signed on its acceptance for maintenance.

In autumn 1993, after a fire, the second power unit was shut down. On the night of November 30 to December 1, 1996, in accordance with the Memorandum signed in 1995 between Ukraine and the G7 states, the first power unit was shut down.

On December 6, 2000, due to malfunctions in the protection system, the last operating reactor, the third, was decommissioned. In March 2000, the government of Ukraine adopted a resolution to close the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. On December 14, 2000, the reactor was started up at 5% power for the December 15 shutdown ceremony. Chernobyl was stopped on December 15, 2000 at 13:17.

Ukraine is seeking from international donors to start construction of the Shelter confinement, the construction of a spent nuclear fuel storage facility, which has been repeatedly postponed before, which should turn the Chernobyl nuclear power plant into a safe facility. The Shelter Object, designed to turn the Chernobyl plant into a safe system, will be an arch-shaped structure 105 meters high, 150 meters long and 260 meters wide. After erection, it will be “pushed” onto the fourth block of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, over which, after the accident on April 26, 1986, a sarcophagus was built. The donor assembly of the Chernobyl Shelter Fund includes 28 countries. It is managed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), which on May 15, 2008 decided to allocate 135 million euros to the Shelter Fund, and on July 15 of the same year, at a meeting of the council of donor countries, a decision was made to provide another 60 million euros . In April 2009, the United States allocated $250 million to Ukraine to ensure the safety of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

In April 2011, a donor conference was held in Kyiv, which managed to raise 550 million euros. Prior to this, the Ukrainian authorities stated that about 740 million euros were not enough to complete the Chernobyl projects.

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine approved the program for the decommissioning of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. According to the program, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant will be completely eliminated by 2065. At the first stage, from 2010 to 2013, nuclear fuel will be removed from nuclear power plants and transferred to long-term storage facilities.

From 2013 to 2022 the reactor installations will be mothballed. From 2022 to 2045, experts will expect a decrease in the radioactivity of reactor plants. For the period from 2045 to 2065. the installations are dismantled, and the place where the station was located will be cleaned.

It is planned that as a result of the implementation of the program, the Shelter object will become environmentally safe.

EYEWITNESS MEMORIES

1. Somewhere around 8 am, a neighbor called me and said that her neighbor had not returned from the station, there had been an accident. I immediately rushed to my neighbors, godfathers, and they have been sitting “on their bags” since the night: their godfather called them and told them about the accident. By eleven o'clock, our children ran home and said that all the windows and doors were blocked at school, and they were not allowed to go anywhere, and then they washed the territory and cars around the school, let them out into the street and told them to run home. Our dentist friend said that they were all alerted at night and called to the hospital, where people were taken from the station all night. The irradiated people were very sick: by morning the whole hospital was in vomit. It was creepy! By 12 o'clock, armored personnel carriers began to enter the station and the city. It was a terrible sight: these young guys went to their deaths, they were sitting there even without “petals” (respirators), they were not protected at all! The troops kept arriving, more and more militia became, helicopters flew. Television was turned off for us, so we did not know anything about the accident itself, what exactly happened and what the scale was.

The radio said that by 15.00 the entire population must be ready for evacuation. To do this, you need to collect the things and products you need for three days and go outside. We did just that.

We lived almost on the outskirts of the city, and it turned out that after we left, we stood on the street for more than an hour. In each yard there were 3-4 policemen who made door-to-door rounds, they went into every house and every apartment. Those who did not want to evacuate were taken out by force. Buses drove up, people loaded and left. That's how we left with 100 rubles in our pocket and things and food for three days.

We were taken to the village of Maryanovka, Polessky district, which is no longer on the map today either. We stayed there for three days. By the evening of the third day, it became known that the radiation background was also growing in Maryanovka. It became clear that we had nothing to wait for and we needed to decide something ourselves, because we had three children in our arms. On the same evening, on the last bus from Polessky, we left for Kyiv, and from there my husband took me with the children to my mother in the village.

I was in the sanitary squad for many years and clearly knew that the first thing to do upon arrival to my mother was to wash and wash. So we did. Mom and I dug a hole, threw everything in there and filled it with everything that was.

It was difficult, but there was no way out. I was also lucky that my mother was - there was where to go. For others who had nowhere to go, it was even more difficult. They were settled in hotels, boarding houses, sanatoriums. Children were sent to camps - their parents then searched for them all over Ukraine for months. And we survived thanks to neighbors and relatives. Sometimes I wake up, go outside, and on the threshold of the house there is already milk, bread, a piece of cheese, eggs, butter. So we lived there for six months. It was very difficult and scary, because we did not know what would happen to us. When some time had already passed, I began to understand that we would not return back, and I told my mother about this. And my mother (I will never forget) said: is there really no more of this fairy tale in the middle of the forest? I say: there will be no mother, there will be no more. After the accident, the radiation cloud stood over Pripyat for a long time, then dissipated and moved on. I was told that if it had rained then, there would have been no one to evacuate. We are very lucky! Nobody told us anything, what level of radiation, what dose we received, nothing! And we stayed in this zone for 38 hours before the evacuation. We were soaked through it all! And all this time no one gave us any help. Although we had a lot of sanruzhins in the city, and in each department there were boxes in the warehouse, for each member of the family, antidotes, potassium-iodine, respirators and clothing. All this was, only no one took advantage of it. They brought us iodine only on the second day, when it was already useless to drink it. So we carried radiation throughout Ukraine.

Lydia Romanchenko

2. On the evening of April 25, my son asked me to tell him a story before going to bed. I began to tell and did not notice how I fell asleep with the child. And we lived in Pripyat on the 9th floor, and the station was clearly visible from the kitchen window.

The wife was still awake and felt some kind of shock at home, like a slight earthquake. I went to the window in the kitchen and saw above the 4th block, first a black cloud, then a blue glow, then a white cloud that rose and covered the moon.

My wife woke me up. There was an overpass in front of our window. And along it, one after another - with the alarm turned on - fire engines and ambulances raced. But I could not think that something serious had happened. Reassured his wife and went to bed.

3. On April 25, we went to Kyiv to take professional exams. We returned to Pripyat late. I lay down, began to read, in my opinion, Bunin. Then she looked at her watch, it was late. Turned off the light. But did not sleep. Suddenly I felt a push at home, I heard a dull bang from the street, sort of like a “boom”. I was scared, I immediately thought about the nuclear power plant. I lay down for another ten minutes, and then I decided to open the window and take a look. And I lived on the 2nd floor, from where the nuclear power plant was not visible. Look, everything seems to be fine on the street. The sky is clear and warm. People are walking quietly. The bus has passed.

4. I felt the first blow. It was strong, but not the same as the one or two seconds later. He was already like one long blow or two, but following each other. Initially, I thought that something had happened to the deaerators above the control panel of Unit 4. Facing tiles fell from the false ceiling following the sound of the impact. I looked at the instruments. The picture was bad. It became clear that an accident of extreme severity had occurred. Then he jumped out into the corridor to go to the central hall. But there is dust and smoke in the corridor. I went back to turn on the smoke exhaust fans. Then he went to the engine room. The situation there is terrible. Hot water gushed out of broken pipes in all directions, it soared strongly. Flashes of short circuits of electric cables were visible. A significant part of the engine room was destroyed. A slab that fell from above interrupted the oil pipeline, oil flowed out, and there was up to 100 tons of it in special containers. Then he went outside, walked around the 4th unit, saw destruction, fires on the roof.

5. There was a blow. I thought that the turbine blades flew. Then another blow. Looked at the cover. It seemed to me that it should fall. We went to inspect the 4th block, saw destruction and glow in the reactor area. Then I noticed that my feet were slipping on some kind of suspension. I thought: is it not graphite? I also thought that this was the most terrible accident, the possibility of which no one described.

6. At the station's central control panel, we heard a thud, similar to the sound of a very heavy object falling. For 15-18 seconds we thought: what fell? And then the instruments on the console showed a system failure. Some lines of communication have been disconnected. Then the instruments showed failures in the operation of electric generators at the station. Emergency sirens went off, lights flickered. After some short time, the generators "calmed down". I called the Kyivenergo dispatcher and asked: "What do you have?" I thought that power outages come from the center. But the dispatcher replied: “You have something. Understand." The phone rang. I picked up the phone. A paramilitary guard asked: "What happened at the station?" I had to answer that I needed to figure it out. And immediately the head of the security guard calls. Reports that there is a fire on the 4th block. I told him to open the gate and call the firemen. He answered - the gates are open, the fire engines have already arrived.

Here I see that the alarm signal about the accident from the 4th block is turned on. I ran there. The guys met. They were very dirty and excited. Finally, the turbine hall. He interested me in the first place, since there are reserves of hydrogen and engine oil - all this is flammable. I see the roof has collapsed. Then he ran to the control panel of the 4th unit. He asked: "Do you pour water to cool the reactor?" I was told that they were pouring, but they themselves did not know where she was going.

A dosimetrist appeared and said that his device was weak and could not measure the full power of radiation. I see the guys are carrying a burnt man, it turned out to be V. Shashenok. He was dirty, in a state of shock, moaning. I helped carry the guy to the shield room of the 3rd block. From there I called Moscow, VPO Soyuzatomenergo, and said that the most serious accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Then he called the telephone operator to announce a general emergency for the station.

THE CATASTROPH AT THE NUCLEAR NPP: THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE EVENTS OF THE NUCLEAR NIGHT OF APRIL 26, 1986 2019-04-26 11:40 35252

33 years ago, on April 26, 1986, the world was shocked by the largest nuclear disaster in history - the fourth power unit exploded at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Many questions about the causes of the emergency and the details of what happened remain unanswered to this day. We propose to trace the chronology of events and try to understand at what point and why "something went wrong ..."

Due to the fact that, on the orders of Bryukhanov and Fomin, they continued to pour water into the destroyed reactor until 9 am, all day on April 26, firefighters had to pump it out into the cooling pond. The radioactivity of this water did not differ from the radioactivity of the water in the main cooling circuit of the reactor during its operation.

The available instruments had a measurement limit of only 1000 microroentgens per second (that is, 3.6 roentgens per hour) and went off scale en masse, in connection with which there were suspicions of their serviceability.

Mikhail Lyutov, curator of the nuclear safety department, doubted for a long time that the black substance scattered everywhere was block graphite. Victor Smagin recalls: “Yes, I see ... But is it graphite? ..” Lyutov continued to doubt. This blindness in people has always driven me to madness. See only what is beneficial to you. Yes, this is death! “What is it?!” I started yelling at my boss. “How many of them are there?” Lyutov finally came to his senses.

From the rubble left after the explosions, people were fired with gamma rays with an intensity of about 15 thousand roentgens per hour. People burned their eyelids and throats, the skin of their faces tightened, and they took their breath away.

- Anna Ivanovna, dad said that there was an accident at the station ...

“Children, accidents happen quite often. If something serious had happened, the city authorities would have warned us. We have a topic: "The Communist Movement in Soviet Literature." Lenochka, come to the blackboard...

This is how the first lesson began on April 26 at the Pripyat school, Valentina Barabanova, a French teacher, recalls this in her book “On the Other Side of Chernobyl”.

The water, which continued to be supplied to the fourth block of the nuclear power plant, finally ran out.

Anatoly Sitnikov, deputy chief engineer for the operation of the first stage of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, received a deadly task from Viktor Bryukhanov: to climb onto the roof of Unit B and look down. Sitnikov obeyed the order, as a result of which he saw a completely destroyed reactor, twisted fittings, and the remains of concrete walls. In a couple of minutes, Sitnikov took on a huge dose of radiation. Later he was sent to a Moscow hospital, but the transplanted bone marrow did not take root, and the engineer died.

Sitnikov's message that nothing was left of the reactor only caused additional irritation to Viktor Bryukhanov and was not taken into account. Water continued to be poured into the reactor.

In further memoirs, Viktor Smagin describes that, walking along the corridor, he felt strong radiation with his whole body. A "spontaneous panic feeling" appeared in his chest, but Smagin tried to control himself.

“How much work, guys?” I asked, interrupting their skirmish. “The background is a thousand micro-roentgens per second, that is, 3.6 roentgens per hour. Work five hours at the rate of recruitment of twenty-five rem!” “All this is nonsense,” summed up Samoylenko. Krasnozhon was furious again. “Well, don’t you have any other radiometers?” I asked. - “There is in the supply room, but it was filled up with an explosion,” said Krasnozhon. - The authorities did not foresee such an accident ... "

"Aren't you bosses?" I thought and went on,” writes Smagin.

- I listened and realized that they were swearing because they could not determine the radiation situation. Samoilenko puts pressure on the fact that the radiation is huge, and Krasnozhon - that you can work five hours at the rate of 25 rem (the biological equivalent of a roentgen is an outdated non-systemic unit of measurement of radiation).

“I quickly changed my clothes, not yet knowing that I would return from the block to the medical unit with a strong nuclear tan and with a dose of 280 rads. But now I was in a hurry, put on a cotton suit, shoe covers, a cap, “petal-200” and ran along the long corridor of the deaerator shelf (common for all four units) towards the control room-4. There is a failure in the Skala computer room, water is pouring from the ceiling onto cabinets with equipment. At that time I did not know that water is highly radioactive. There is no one in the room. Yura Badaev, apparently, has already been taken away. Went further. In the room of the dosimetry shield, Krasnozhon, the deputy head of the service of the Republic of Belarus, was already in charge. There was no Gorbachenko. So, he was also taken away or is walking around the block somewhere. The head of the night shift of dosimetrists, Samoylenko, was also in the room. Krasnozhon and Samoylenko swore at each other,” Viktor Smagin recalls.

“First I went into Bryukhanov’s empty office. I saw complete carelessness. The windows are open. I found people already in Fomin's office (Nikolai Fomin is the chief engineer of the nuclear power plant). To the question "What happened?" I was again answered: "The rupture of the steam pipeline." But, looking at Fomin, I realized that everything was more serious. Now I understand that it was cowardice coupled with a crime. After all, they already had some real picture, but they didn’t tell us honestly about the danger. Maybe then some of our employees would not have ended up in the hospital, ”writes Berdov.

A new shift of doctors arrives at the Pripyat hospital. However, the most severely injured were sent to the capital's hospitals only in the evening.

“I will say right away that the Pripyat city department of internal affairs did everything possible to exclude radiation damage to people,” recalls Major General Berdov. The whole city was quickly cordoned off. But we have not yet fully orientated ourselves in the situation, since the police did not have their own dosimetric service. And from the Chernobyl station they reported that a steam-and-water release had occurred. This wording was considered the official point of view of the management of the nuclear power plant. I got there at eight o'clock in the morning."

In the "glass" (conference room), Viktor Smagin found overalls, shoe covers, "petals". Smagin realized that since he was asked to change clothes right in the conference room, it means that there was radiation at ABK-2. Through the glass, Smagin saw Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Berdov, who was walking to Viktor Bryukhanov's office.

The treated and dressed victims are being brought to the hospital.

“I ran outside to the bus stop. But the bus didn't come. Soon they filed a "rafiq", they said that they would not be taken to the second checkpoint, as usual, but to the first block. Everything there was already cordoned off by the police. The ensigns did not let through. Then I showed my round-the-clock pass to the leading operational personnel, and they reluctantly let me through. Near ABK-1 I met Bryukhanov's deputies Gundar and Tsarenko, who were heading to the bunker. They told me: “Go, Vitya, to control room-4, change Babichev. He changed Akimov at six in the morning, he probably already grabbed ... Don't forget to change into a "glass bag" ... ", writes Viktor Smagin.

“At the time of the accident, I was passing through Pripyat,” recalls Vladimir Bronnikov, in 1976-1985 he was the deputy chief engineer of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. — The first house on the outskirts of the city. I had a family with me, children - they had not yet managed to move to a new place of my work. I didn't see the explosion. At night, I realized that some kind of event had happened - too many cars were driving past the house, in the morning I saw that the roads were being washed. I understood the scale of what had happened only on the night of April 27, when some of the personnel arrived home from the station in the evening and told what had happened. I did not believe, I thought they were lying. And on the morning of April 27, I took up the duties of the chief engineer of the station. My task was to localize the accident. It took my group about five days to understand the scale of what had happened.”

“I had to change Alexander Akimov at eight in the morning on April 26, 1986. I slept soundly at night, I did not hear explosions. I woke up at seven in the morning and went out on the balcony to smoke, - recalls Viktor Smagin, shift supervisor of block No. 4. - From the fourteenth floor, I can clearly see the nuclear power plant. I looked in that direction and immediately realized that the central hall of my native fourth block was destroyed. Fire and smoke above the block. I realized that it's bullshit.

I rushed to the phone to call the control room, but the connection had already been cut off. To keep information from leaking. I was about to leave. He ordered his wife to close the windows and doors tightly. Don't let the kids out of the house. Don't go out on your own either. Stay at home until I return ... "

The staff of the Pripyat hospital was exhausted. Despite the fact that by morning all the doctors, including surgeons and traumatologists, had joined the reception of the victims, there was not enough strength. “I called the chief medical officer: “Why aren’t patients treated at the station? Why are they brought here "dirty"? After all, there, at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, is there a sanitary inspection room?”, Tatyana Marchulaite writes. This was followed by a half hour break.

A special group of the Civil Defense Headquarters arrives at the nuclear power plant to check the dosimetric situation. The chief of staff himself went to the other end of the region to conduct "responsible exercises."

Complete elimination of the fire.

From the explanatory note of the third guard fireman V. Prishchepa: “Upon arrival at the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, the second department put the autopumps on the hydrant and connected the sleeves to the dry pipes. Our car drove up from the engine room. We laid a main line that led to the roof. We saw - there is the main hearth. But it was necessary to establish the whole situation. Lieutenants Pravik and Kibenok went on reconnaissance ... The boiling bitumen of the roof burned boots, splashed on clothes, and ate into the skin. Lieutenant Kibenok was where it was more difficult, where it became unbearable for someone. Insuring the fighters, he fastened the ladders, intercepted one or the other trunk. Then, descending to the ground, he lost consciousness. After a while, having come to his senses, the first thing he asked was: “How is it?” They answered him: "Extinguished."

“The burnt Shashenok remained in my memory. He was the husband of our nurse. The face is so pale. But when consciousness returned to him, he said: “Get away from me. I'm from the reactor room, step back." Surprisingly, he still cared about others in such a state. Volodya died in the morning in intensive care. But we haven't lost anyone else. Everyone was on droppers, everything that was possible was done, ”recalls one of the employees of the hospital in Pripyat.

Vladimir Shashenok, the adjuster, about whom Anatoly Dyatlov wrote, dies in the hospital. So far, 108 people have been hospitalized.

“On the morning of 26, the director of the timber industry calls, recalled the forester Ivan Nikolaevich. - He names himself and is silent ... After a while he says: “Listen, Ivan Nikolayevich ... There has been a disaster ...” And again he is silent ... I am also silent. And I think to myself: “Is it really war” ?! A minute later, the director finally squeezes out of himself: "There was an accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant." Well, I think it's nothing special... However, the director's anxiety was transmitted to me as well. After some time, the director says more decisively: “Urgently remove all equipment from this area. Just don't tell me why."

“An impressive view presented itself to us from the broken window of the deaerator shelf at the 14th mark in the area of the eighth turbine: reactor parts and elements of graphite masonry, its internal parts were randomly scattered throughout the surrounding area,” says Evgeny Ignatenko, member of the emergency commission of the Ministry of Energy, doctor of technical sciences. - During the inspection of the nuclear power plant yard, the readings of my dosimeter reached 10 roentgens for no more than 1 minute. Here for the first time I felt the impact of large fields of gamma radiation. It is expressed in some kind of pressure on the eyes and in the feeling of a slight whistle in the head, like a draft. These sensations, the dosimeter readings and what I saw in the yard finally convinced me of the reality of what had happened... In a number of places, the radiation level exceeded a thousand (!) X-rays.”

“There were many doctors among the victims that night of the accident. After all, it was they, who arrived at the station from all over the region, who took out firefighters, physicists, and everyone who was at the station. And their ambulances drove right up to the fourth block ... A few days later we saw these cars. They could not be used because they were heavily infected…,” recalls science journalist Vladimir Gubarev, who arrived at the scene of the accident a few hours after a series of explosions. Impressed by what he saw, he wrote the play "Sarcophagus", which was staged in 56 theaters around the world and was a huge success, especially in Japan. In the UK, the play was awarded the Laurence Olivier Theater Award.

Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR, Major-General of Militia GV Berdov arrives in Pripyat. He took over the leadership in the protection of public order and the organization of the service of the State traffic inspectorate. Additional forces were called in from the area.

Firefighters were able to contain the fire.

Only between 4 and 5 o'clock in the morning the leaders of the nuclear power plant gradually gathered their forces and called officials. Responsible leaders begin to arrive at the scene of the accident.

In the apartment of the deputy chief engineer of the station for science and the curator of the nuclear safety department, Mikhail Lyutov, a telephone rang. The call, however, was interrupted, and Lyutov himself found out about what happened at the station.

It has been established that radiation levels in the area adjacent to the destroyed reactor significantly exceed the permissible levels. Firefighters began to be placed five kilometers from the epicenter and brought into the danger zone in shifts.

An operational group of the Fire Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR arrived in the area of the accident under the leadership of Colonel of the Internal Service V. M. Gurin. He took charge of the next steps.

15 fire departments arrived at the scene of the accident with their special equipment from various districts of the Kyiv region. Everyone was involved in extinguishing the fire and cooling the structures that collapsed after the accident in the reactor room.

Checkpoints were created, the roads leading to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant were blocked, and additional squads of the patrol and search service were formed.

Senior paramedic Tatyana Marchulaite recalled: “I was surprised that many of those who entered were in the military. These were the firemen. The face of one was purple, the other, on the contrary, white as a wall, many had burnt faces and hands; some had chills. The sight was very difficult. But I had to work. I asked the arrivals to put their documents and valuables on the windowsill. There was no one to copy all this, as it should be ... A request was received from the therapeutic department that no one should take anything with them, even a watch - everything, it turns out, has already been subjected to radioactive contamination, as we say - “fonilo”.

An operational group of the Fire Department of the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Kyiv Regional Executive Committee arrived at the scene of the accident, headed by Major of the Internal Service V. P. Melnik. He took over the firefighting leadership and called other fire departments to the scene of the accident.

The first shift of those who started the elimination of the fire received high doses of radiation. People began to be sent to the hospital, new forces arrived.

Not everyone was aware of the danger of radioactive radiation. So, an employee of the Kharkov Turbine Plant A.F. Kabanov refused to leave the block, as there was a vibration measurement laboratory in the engine room, which simultaneously measured the vibration of all bearings, and the computer produced good visual printouts. Kabanov was sorry to lose her.

The senior paramedic of the Pripyat hospital Tatyana Marchulaite meets the first victims in the emergency room.

“Petro Palamarchuk, a hefty man, carried and seated Volodya Shashenok, engineer of the commissioning enterprise, into the chair,” writes Anatoly Dyatlov. “He was watching the emergency equipment in the twenty-fourth room, and he was scalded with water and steam. Now Volodya was sitting in an armchair and only slightly moved his eyes, no cry, no groan. Apparently, the pain exceeded all conceivable boundaries and turned off consciousness. Before that, I saw a stretcher in the corridor, suggested where to get them and carry him to the first-aid post. P. Palamarchuk and N. Gorbachenko were taken away.”

The fire on the roof of the reactor compartment was extinguished, and the fire in the room of the main circulation pumps of the fourth power unit was extinguished.

NPP Director Viktor Bryukhanov could not take any concrete action - his condition was like a shock. The work of collecting information from dosimetrists on radiation levels and compiling the corresponding certificate was undertaken by the secretary of the party committee of the nuclear power plant, Sergei Parashin, who arrived at the shelter at about 2 hours and 15 minutes.

Those who watched the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant from afar did not really suspect anything serious. The memories of the night of April 26, 1986 of those who were directly at the station are completely different: “There was a blow. I thought that the turbine blades flew. Then another blow. Looked at the cover. It seemed to me that it should fall. We went to inspect the 4th block, saw destruction and glow in the reactor area. Then I noticed that my feet were slipping on some kind of suspension. I thought: is it not graphite? I also thought that this is the most terrible accident, the possibility of which no one has described.”

Firefighters brought down the fire on the roof of the engine room.

“On the evening of April 25, my son asked me to tell him a story before going to bed. I began to tell and did not notice how I fell asleep with the child. And we lived in Pripyat on the 9th floor, and the station was clearly visible from the kitchen window. The wife was still awake and felt some kind of shock at home, like a slight earthquake. I went to the window in the kitchen and saw above the 4th block, first a black cloud, then a blue glow, then a white cloud that rose and covered the moon.

NPP director Viktor Bryukhanov arrives at the station.

“Despite the night and poor lighting, you can see enough. The roof and two walls of the workshop were gone. In the premises, through the openings of the missing walls, water flows, flashes of short circuits on electrical equipment, and several fires are visible in places. The gas-cylinder room is destroyed, the cylinders are awry. There can be no talk of any access to the valves, V. Perevozchenko is right. There are several hearths on the roof of the third unit and the chemical workshop, which are still small. Apparently, the fire was caused by large fragments of fuel thrown out of the core by the explosion, ”recalls Anatoly Dyatlov.

Firefighters fought the fire in canvas overalls and helmets. They did not know about the radiation threat - the information that this was not an ordinary fire began to spread only after a few hours. By morning, firefighters began to lose consciousness, 136 employees and rescuers who found themselves at the station that day received a huge dose of radiation, one in four died in the first months after the accident.

The Pripyat hospital receives a call from the ambulance control room. They said that there was a fire at the nuclear power plant, there were burnt people.

“I quickly walked a few more meters along the corridor at the tenth mark, looked out of the window and saw - or rather, did not see, it was not there - the wall of the building. Over the entire height from the seventieth to the twelfth mark, the wall collapsed. What else is not visible in the dark. Further along the corridor, down the stairs and out of the building outside. I slowly walk around the building of the reactors of the fourth, then the third blocks. I look up. There is something to see, but, as they say, my eyes would not look ... at such a spectacle, ”says the book“ Chernobyl. How it was".

The first fire brigade arrived at the scene of the explosion.

“Part of the roof of the hall collapsed. How many? I don't know, three hundred or four hundred square meters. The slabs collapsed and damaged oil and feed lines. Blockages. From the twelfth mark, I looked down into the opening, there, at the fifth mark, there were feed pumps. From the damaged pipes, hot water jets hit the electrical equipment in different directions. Steam around. And there are sharp, like a shot, clicks of short circuits in electrical circuits. In the area of the seventh TG, oil leaked from damaged pipes caught fire, operators with fire extinguishers ran there and unwound fire hoses. Flashes of fire are visible on the roof through the openings formed, ”recalls Anatoly Dyatlov, who went out into the engine room immediately after the explosion.

Four seconds later, an explosion shook the entire building. Two seconds later, a second explosion. The reactor lid flew up, turned 90 degrees and fell. The walls and ceiling of the reactor hall collapsed. A quarter of the graphite located there, fragments of red-hot fuel rods, flew out of the reactor. This debris fell on the roof of the engine room and other places, creating about 30 fires.

“At 01:23:40 a press of the button A3 (emergency protection) of the reactor was registered to shut down the reactor at the end of operation. This button is used in both emergency and normal situations. CPS rods in the amount of 187 pieces went into the core and, according to all the canons, had to interrupt the chain reaction, ”recalls Anatoly Dyatlov.

Three seconds after pressing the reactor shutdown button, the control panel begins to receive alarms about an increase in power, an increase in pressure in the primary circuit. The power of the reactor jumped sharply up.

“At 01:23:04, the control system recorded the closing of the shut-off valves supplying steam to the turbine. An experiment on the run-out of the TG has begun, - writes Anatoly Dyatlov. — Up to 01:23:40 no parameter changes are noted on the block. The run is going smoothly. It is quiet at the control room (block control panel), no conversations.

The station personnel block the emergency protection signals of the reactor due to the critically low water level and steam pressure in the separator drums. The report of the International Advisory Group on Nuclear Safety says that in fact this could have happened as early as 00:36.

The eighth pump is connected.

A seventh pump is connected to the six operating pumps to increase the ballast load.

The thermal power of the reactor reached 200 MW. Recall that for the experiment, the reactor had to operate at a power of 700-1000 MW.

Despite this, the operational reactivity margin (essentially, the degree of reactivity of the reactor) continued to decline, due to which the manual control rods were gradually removed.

NPP employees gradually raised the thermal power of the reactor, as a result of which it was possible to stabilize it at 160-200 MW.

“I returned to the control panel at 00:35,” he writes in his book “Chernobyl. How it was” Anatoly Dyatlov, former deputy chief engineer for the operation of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. - I set the time after according to the reactor power recording diagram. From the door I saw bent over the reactor control panel, except for the operator L. Toptunov, the head of the unit shift A. Akimov and trainees V. Proskuryakov and A. Kudryavtsev. I don't remember, maybe someone else. He came and looked at the instruments. Reactor power - 50 ... 70 MW. Akimov said that during the transition from LAR to a regulator with side ionization chambers (AR), there was a power failure of up to 30 MW. Now they are raising the power. It didn't bother me or bother me at all. By no means out of the ordinary phenomenon. He allowed the rise further and moved away from the console.

At this time, there is a transition from the local automatic control system to the general control system. The operator could not keep the reactor power even at 500 MW, and it dropped to 30 MW.

On April 25, 1986, the shutdown of the 4th power unit was scheduled for scheduled repairs. During such shutdowns, equipment tests are usually carried out, for which the reactor power had to be reduced to 700-1000 MW, which is 22-31% of the total reactor power. About a day before the accident, the power of the reactor began to be reduced, and by 13:00 on April 25, it was reduced to about 1600 MW (50% of full power). At 14:00, the reactor's emergency cooling system was blocked, which means that during the following hours the reactor was operated with the cooling system turned off. At 11:10 p.m., the reactor power began to decrease to the planned 700 MW, but then there was a jump, and the power fell to 500 MW.

REFERENCE:

Chernobyl nuclear power plant named after V.I. Lenina is located in northern Ukraine, 11 km from the border with Belarus on the banks of the Pripyat River. The site for the nuclear power plant was chosen in 1965-1966, and the first stage of the station - the first and second power units - were built in 1970-1977.

In May 1975, a commission was established to launch the first power unit. By the end of 1975, due to a significant delay in the timing of work, round-the-clock work was organized at the station. The act of acceptance of the first power unit into operation was signed on December 14, 1977, and on May 24, 1978, the unit was brought to a capacity of 1000 MW.

In 1980, 1981 and 1983, the second, third and fourth power units were launched. It is worth noting that the first accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant occurred in 1982. On September 9, after a scheduled repair, the fuel assembly was destroyed and the technological channel No. 62-64 at the reactor of the first power unit was ruptured. As a result, a significant amount of radioactive substances was released into the reactor space. There is still no consensus among experts on the causes of that accident.

On April 25, 1986, the shutdown of the fourth reactor was scheduled for the next scheduled preventive maintenance to test the so-called “turbine generator rotor run-down” mode. However, this mode has not yet been worked out at the plant and has not even been introduced in principle at nuclear power plants with RBMK-type reactors. However, tests on April 25, 1986 were already the fourth to be carried out at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The first attempt, back in 1982, showed that the coastdown voltage dropped faster than originally planned. Subsequent experiments carried out at the station after the refinement of the turbogenerator equipment in 1983, 1984 and 1985 also, for various reasons, ended unsuccessfully.

The Chernobyl accident. How it happened

On April 26, 1986, at the fourth power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, during the operation of the RBMK-1000 reactor at a power of 200 MW, a powerful explosion occurred, which resulted in the complete destruction of the nuclear reactor of the station. Hot pieces of fuel assemblies and graphite were ejected from the reactor. Fragments of deadly irradiated fuel rods (fuel elements), graphite and even entire parts of metal structures were scattered over the roofs of the station's workshops and neighboring buildings located in the surrounding area. A fire broke out in various rooms of the station and on the roof. In addition to nuclear fuel, the reactor core at the time of the accident contained fission products and transuranium elements - various kinds of radioactive isotopes formed during the operation of the reactor. It was they who posed the greatest threat to the biosphere. In the environment, due to the maximum temperatures and the process of nuclear fuel melting, along with the heated air, a huge amount of radioactive substances was released, including isotopes of such chemical elements as uranium, plutonium (half-life - 8 days), cesium- 134 (half-life 2 years), (half-life 33 years), (half-life 28 years), and radioactive dust.

The data of isotope analysis of the first samples of air, water and soil taken on the territory of the station in Chernobyl in the first days after the accident - from April 26 to May 1 - indicated that about a third of the total activity was accounted for by the iodine-131 isotope. In addition to it, isotopes of barium-140 and lanthanum-140, cesium-137 and cesium-134, ruthenium-103, zirconium-95, tellurium-132, cesium-141 and neptunium-239 were found in the collected samples, as well as in the nearest zone , the resettlement zone isotopes of strontium-90 and plutonium-239 and plutonium-240.

In urban areas, hazardous substances mainly settled on flat surfaces: on lawns, roads, roofs. And since the direction of the wind was not constant, the radioactivity dissipated, and, above all, in the area around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. In the area of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, radioactivity reached 15,000 roentgens per hour. In the near zone of the accident (10-30 km from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant), the radionuclide composition of the fallout was close to its composition in the fuel, and outside this zone, the fractionation of radionuclides iodine-131 and cesium-137 was more significant. In the near zone, a large amount of "hot particles" was noted to fall out.

A significant part of the isotopes of strontium and plutonium was within a hundred kilometers from the station, as they were contained in heavy particles. Iodine and cesium spread over a wider area. Sufficiently intense fallout of strontium-90 (up to 100 kBq*m2) took place in the near zone of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, only a relatively small number of sites with a density of contamination of strontium-90 (37-100 kBq*m2) were located in the Gomel and Mogilev regions of Belarus and the Bryansk region of Russia . Areas with a high content of plutonium were within the near zone of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (30 km zone), where the density of plutonium contamination was noted to be more than 3700 Bq/m2. The excess of the global level for plutonium-239 and plutonium-240 in the upper soil layer (0-5 cm) averaged 175 times, and in more remote areas the content did not exceed 0.07-0.7 kBq*m2.

Part of the fuel, including deadly radioactive fission residues, including plutonium, in finely dispersed, droplet and gaseous form, together with superheated steam, rose to the clouds and moved with the wind mainly in a westerly direction, gradually settling and infecting the entire surrounding area along the way. The radioactive plume stretched to the west - over the European part of the USSR, to the east - to the territory of Eastern Europe and to the north - to the countries of Scandinavia. At the same time, the bulk of the contaminated sediments settled on the territory of present-day Belarus - then the Byelorussian SSR. The radiation situation in the early period was determined by short-lived fission products and neutron activation, including iodine-131. In later periods, the determining radionuclides were cesium-134 and cesium-137, and in some local areas also strontium-90. The main dose-forming radionuclide in the long term was cesium-137, the content of which in the environment was used to assess the radiological situation. The total activity of cesium-137 deposited on the territory of the former USSR was 4*1016 Bq (including about 41% in Belarus, 35% in Russia, 24% in Ukraine, and less than 1% in other republics). The vast territory subjected to radioactive contamination has a complex configuration. The area with the level of cesium-137 contamination over 1 Ku*km2 (37 kBq*m2) occupied about 150 thousand km2. On the territory of Russia, the area with a density of caesium-137 contamination from 555-1480 kBq*m2 is 2100 km2, and over 1480 kBq*m2 is 310 km2. Many of the victims are still being treated in clinics Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.

Another part of the radioactive contents of the reactor melted, a mixture of molten metal, sand, concrete and fragments of fuel assemblies leaked through cracks in the lower part of the reactor vessel beyond its limits, including penetrating into the under-reactor rooms. The surviving part of the metal structures, fuel cells and graphite continued to melt for several days after the explosion and turned into a kind of mass that “burned through” the lower biological protection from steel sheets and (in the main part) concrete, mixed with the latter, and poured out of the power unit building avalanche-like mass to the lower marks, and frozen in the form of the famous "elephant's foot". dragged on for decades and is still unfinished.

Chernobyl

The Chernobyl accident. Chronology of events. April 26, which divides the history of Ukraine into two periods - before and after the crash.

Here is a brief chronology of the most important dates associated with the Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Nuclear Power Plant in Chernobyl.

Accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant per minute, the years of events from 1970 to 2016 are also included.

1966

The Council of Ministers of the USSR issues a resolution of June 29, 1966, which approves the plan for commissioning nuclear power plants throughout the entire USSR.

According to preliminary calculations, the commissioned nuclear power plants were supposed to generate 8000 MW, which compensates for the shortage of electricity in the central region of the southern part.

1967

From 1966 to 1967, work was underway to find suitable territories. The work was carried out by the Kyiv branch of the design institute "Teploelektroproekt". As part of the research, sixteen territories were studied, mainly in the Kyiv, Vinnitsa and Zhytomyr regions.

Territory surveys continued until January 1967. As a result, it was decided to stop on the territory in the Chernobyl region, on January 18, 1967, the territory was officially approved by the Board of the State Planning Committee of the Ukrainian SSR.

On February 2, 1967, the Board of the State Planning Committee of the Ukrainian SSR approved the project for the construction of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

On September 29, 1967, reactors were approved to be installed at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

Three of them have been approved:

graphite-water reactor RBMK-1000;
graphite-gas reactor RK-1000;
pressurized water reactor VVER.
Based on the results of the considered options, it was decided to choose the RBMK-1000 graphite-water reactor.

1970

The Directorate of the Chernobyl NPP was formed. Projects and urban planning plans for the city of Pripyat were approved, and its construction began.

May 1970 the marking of the first pit for the first power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was made.

1972

The formation of a special water tank begins to cool the reactors. The reservoir was formed by changing the riverbed and building a dam in this channel, as a result, in addition to the dam, the Pripyat River acquired a wide navigable canal.

1976

October 1976 tank filling procedure started.

1977

May 1977 start-up and adjustment work at the first power unit.

1978

1979

Pripyat receives city rights.

The Chernobyl nuclear power plant produced 10 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity.

1981

1982

On September 1, a malfunction of reactor No. 1 was recorded. Slight contamination of some damaged evaporation fuel units.

On September 9, the fuel assembly was destroyed and an emergency rupture of process channel No. 62-44 occurred.

Due to the rupture, the graphite stack of the core was deformed, and a significant amount of radioactive substances from the destroyed fuel assembly was thrown into the reactor space.

The reactor was repaired and restarted. Information about the accident was published only in 1985.

1983

The construction of reactor No. 4 has been completed.

1984

On August 21, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant produced 100 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity.

1986

“The probability of the destruction of the core occurs once every 10,000 years. Power plants are safe and reliable. They are protected from destruction by three security systems,” said Vitaliy Sklyarov, Minister of Energy and Electrification of Ukraine.

Start of preparations for the reactor 4 turbocharger test. The reactor power has been reduced.

The reactor power has been reduced to 1600 MW, which is half the nominal value.

Reducing the power intended for the reactor's own needs. Generator shutdown 2.

At this hour, the reactor power is expected to reach only 30 percent. Power, at the request of the dispatcher of the Kyiv Energy District, was reduced for several hours. 23:00 the reactor was operating at 50 percent. Rated power.

The reactor power was reduced to 1600 MW, at which the experiment was carried out. From the operator "Kievenergo" made a ban on further reduction of capacity.

The ban on power reduction has been lifted, and a new stage of power reduction has begun.

26 April

The night shift took over the reactor.

The reactor power was reduced to the planned 700 MW.

The reactor power dropped to 500 MW. Due to the complexity of the steering, the xenon core was "poisoned", as a result of which the thermal power of the reactor decreased to 30 MW. To increase the power of the reactor, the crew removed the control rods. Only 18 rem remained in the core, but at least 30 rem is needed.

The reactor power was increased to 200 MW. To prevent automatic shutdown of the reactor, the personnel blocked the safety system.

A sharp decrease in the reactivity of the reactor.

Start of testing of the turbogenerator. Turbine valves have been cut off. The power of the reactor began to grow uncontrollably.

The emergency braking of the control rods did not work because they jammed the channels (and reached a depth of 2-2.5 m instead of a full thrust of 7 m).

A rapid increase in steam power and reactor power (within a few seconds, the power was about 100 times higher than the required value).

The fuel overheated, the zirconia surrounding it ruptured and the molten fuel leaked, and then the pressure channels ruptured. This began to lead to an exothermic reaction.

An emergency signal has been given

The first explosion happened

There was a second explosion - water vapor was released first, then hydrogen was released. The reactor and parts of the structure were destroyed.

As a result of the explosion, a 2000-ton plate was thrown back onto the reactor vessel. Waste graphite core and molten fuel are discarded.

It is estimated that about 8 out of 140 tons of fuel leaked from the reactor.

The fire brigade accepted the call from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and moved out to extinguish the fire.

An additional fire brigade left the city of Pripyat.

A fire alarm has been issued. Employees tried to start the reactor's cooling systems, hoping that they had not been damaged during the explosion.

Arriving firefighters of the first crew begin to put out the fire on the roof of the turbine hall.

The absence of a measuring device was established, the first device was damaged during the explosion. The second is located in a zone cut off by rubble. The second fire brigade arrived, some of the firefighters are engaged in extinguishing the fire, the other part of the fire brigade is analyzing the rubble for access to the measuring equipment.

Firefighters begin to vomit, the skin begins to burn under clothing.

The Department of the Ministry of the Interior manages the crisis personnel meeting.

It was decided to put blocks on the road. Fire and police brigades are called.

The officers are not well trained - they do not have dosimeters and protective clothing.

Viktor Bryukhanov, plant manager, arrives at the crisis management center located in a bunker under the administration building of the gym.

The authorities notified the central authorities about what happened in Moscow.

The ignition is blocked, the possibility of the fire spreading to other rooms is excluded.

Other firefighters arrived from Polesye and Kyiv.

The fire is completely extinguished.

188 firefighters were called to the scene of the accident.

The exposed firefighters were evacuated to the Radiological Hospital No. 6 in Moscow. Air ambulances were used for evacuation.

The morning shift came to the power plant. Construction work began at the construction site of reactors 5 and 6. 286 people worked there.

A decision was made to supply water to the area of the damaged reactor.

A status report was sent to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant

The government commission was headed by Valery Legasov. The specialists who arrived at the scene did not expect to see parts of the graphite fuel channels.

The data of measuring instruments were received, the level of pollution was established, and a decision was made to evacuate the population.

Requests were sent to neighboring districts and the city of Kyiv for the allocation of transport for the evacuation of the population.

The transport department of the city of Kyiv gives an order to remove all suburban buses from the routes and direct transport to the city of Chernobyl.

Checkpoints have been set up on roads within a radius of 30 kilometers to prevent the movement of civilians across the infected area.

Reactors 1 and 2 are disabled.

The administration of the city of Pripyat collects all administrative personnel.

The administrative personnel of hospitals, schools, kindergartens are instructed.

The processing of the city begins. Laundry soap and additional water tanks were placed in all toilets of the city. It was necessary to repeat the processing of the premises every hour.

All schools began to work, without fail all children were measured with a radiation device, medical personnel issued tablets containing iodine.

The processing of the forest area around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant has begun.

Police officers were briefed. The district police officers made a detour and counted residential buildings, taking into account the number of people living in them.

The first emissions of sand, boron and lead began over the destroyed reactor No. 4.

Two thousand buses and more than a hundred units of military equipment have been assembled on the border of the city of Chernobyl.

Schoolchildren were sent home with instructions to stay in their apartments. A general briefing has begun in the city.

Momentary drop in radioactivity around the power plant.

Conducted briefing in the city police department. The city is divided into six sectors. A responsible person was assigned to each, two police officers were assigned to each entrance of a residential building.

Police officers arrived at their places and began briefing and collecting residents.

An official announcement about the accident and the planned evacuation of the population was broadcast on the radio.

The evacuation of people from Pripyat began. Almost 50 thousand. People left their homes within 3.5 hours. For this purpose, 1,200 buses were used.,

Police officers examined the city of Pripyat, recorded the absence of civilians.

Increased radioactivity in the air around the Swedish nuclear power plant in Forsmark.

Moscow television reported on an "incident" at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

The Danish Institute of Nuclear Physics reported that it is most likely that the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant completely melted the reactor.

The Soviet media reported the death of two people as a result of the accident, the destruction of the reactor unit and the evacuation of the population.

At that time, American spy satellites took the first photographs of the destroyed reactor.

Analysts were shocked by what they saw - a damaged reactor roof and a glowing mass of molten reactor core.

To date, more than 1,000 tons of material have been dropped from helicopters into the destroyed reactor block.

The wind changed direction, and the radioactive cloud began to move towards Kyiv. Solemn processes were held on the occasion of the May 1 holiday.

May 2

The employees of the liquidation commission found that the core of the exploded reactor is still melting. At that time, the core contained 185 tons of nuclear fuel, and the nuclear reaction continued at a terrifying rate.

Beneath the 185 tons of molten nuclear material was a reservoir of five million gallons of water. This water was needed as a coolant, and a thick concrete slab separated the nuclear fuel and the water tank.

For molten nuclear fuel, a thick concrete slab was not a sufficient obstacle, the melting core burned through this slab, going down to the water.

If the hot core of the reactor comes into contact with water, a massive, radiation-contaminated steam explosion will occur. The result could be the radioactive contamination of much of Europe. In terms of the death toll, the first Chernobyl explosion would have looked like a minor incident.

Engineers have developed a plan according to which it is possible to avoid a steam explosion. To do this, drain the water in the tank. To drain the water, it is necessary to open the valves located in the flooded radioactive zone.

Three people volunteered for the task:

Alexey Ananenko senior engineer
Valery Baspalov mid-level engineer
Boris Baranov shift supervisor

All of them understood that the dose of radioactive substances that they would receive during the dive would be fatal for them.

It was about opening the valves in the water tank, which was located under the damaged reactor, in order to prevent another explosion - a mixture of graphite and other materials with a temperature of more than 1200 degrees Celsius with water.

The scuba divers plunged into a dark pond and with difficulty found the necessary valves, manually opened them, after which the water was drained. After their return, they were taken to the hospital, by the time of hospitalization they had an acute stage of radiation sickness, they could not be saved.

Work has begun on the construction of a tunnel under reactor No. 4 in order to install a special cooling system there.

A 30-kilometer zone was created around the reactor, from which 90,000 people were evacuated.

A special embankment was built to protect it from pollution.

Reducing radioisotope releases.

Firefighters pump water from the basement under the reactor core.

From radiation in Chernobyl, they began to give Lugol's drug.

It was decided to start building a sarcophagus over the destroyed reactor block No. 4.

The Chernobyl Atomic Energy Board was fired, accusing it of "lack of responsibility and gaps in the supervision of the reactor."

Russia sent the first report after that to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

There it was discovered that an extraordinary sequence of events, negligence, mismanagement and security breaches led to the disaster.

Reactor #1 was turned on again.

Work continued on the construction of reactors 5 and 6.

Reactor No. 2 was turned on. Hans Blixa, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, visited Chernobyl.

The work on assembling the sarcophagi for reactor block 4 has been completed, they are designed for 30 years of radiation protection.

400 thousand tons of concrete and more than 7 thousand tons of metal were used.

1987

Reactor #3 started producing electricity again.

Work on the construction of reactors 5 and 6 was stopped.

1989

Shutdown of reactor No. 2 after a turbine fire. Importantly, there was no risk of infection.

The final decision was made to stop the construction of reactors 5 and 6.

1991

Fire in the turbine hall of reactor No. 2.

Power unit No. 2 was put into operation after a major overhaul. While reaching the set power level, one of the turbine generators of the power unit spontaneously turned on.

The reactor power was 50% of the thermal power - at that time one turbine generator of the unit (425 MW) was operating.

The second turbogenerator, which spontaneously turned on, worked in the “motor” mode for only 30 seconds.

As a result of work in the turbogenerator, large axle loads arose, which led to the complete destruction of the turbogenerator shaft bearings.

The destruction of the bearings led to depressurization (decompression) of the generator, which led to the release of a large amount of oil and hydrogen. As a result, there was a big fire.

During the subsequent investigation of the causes of the accident, it was found that the inclusion of the turbogenerator was caused by the fact that the turbogenerator was not protected from the mode of connection to the network on the run-out of the rotor.

Spontaneous closing occurred as a result of loss of insulation between the cable controlling the closing of the circuit breaker and the cable through which the signal about the disconnected state of the circuit breaker is transmitted.

A defect was made in the installation of cables - signal and control cables are placed in one tray.

This accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant did not lead to significant pollution of the territory of the exclusion zone. The specific activity of the release is estimated within 3.6*10 -5 Ci.

1992

The Ukrainian authorities are announcing a competition for new construction, which will include a hastily built sarcophagus on reactor building 4.

There were 394 proposals, but only one was considered worthwhile - the construction of a sliding installation.

Assembly testing of structures in Italy. Delivery of the first components for the construction of the sarcophagus.

Raised the first eastern fragment of the dome (5300 tons, 53 m)

2013

A fragment of the roof over reactor block 4 was destroyed by snow pressure. Fortunately, the construction was not compromised.

The second operation to lift the first eastern fragment (9,100 tons, 85.5 m)

The third operation to raise the first eastern fragment (11,516 tons, 109 m)

October November

Construction of a new and dismantling of the old chimney for power unit No. 3.

2014

The first part of the structure was completed and moved to the car park (12,500 t, 112 m)

The first operation to raise the second western fragment of the sarcophagus (4,579 tons, 23 m)

The second operation to raise the second western fragment (8352 tons, 85 m).

The third operation to raise the second western fragment of the dome (12,500 tons, 112 m)

2015

The beginning of the raising of the inclined side walls of the sarcophagus.

Work began on the electrical and ventilation systems inside the dome.

Docking of two parts of the new sarcophagus.

Introduction of new equipment for the dome.

2016

Beginning of the ladle shift operation above reactor block 4 and the old sarcophagus.

Solemn completion of work on the construction of a new dome over the 4th reactor block.

Women and children were the first to be evacuated. In this corner of the former Soviet Union, there was a shortage of buses. Buses from other regions of the country came here to take 50 thousand people out of the city. The length of the bus column was 20 kilometers, which meant that when the first bus left Pripyat, the pipes of the power plant were no longer visible to the last one. In less than three hours, the city was completely empty. And so it will remain forever. In early May, the evacuation of people living in the 30-kilometer Exclusion Zone around Chernobyl was organized. Disinfection works were carried out in 1840 settlements. However, the Chernobyl exclusion zone was not developed until 1994, when the last inhabitants of the villages in its western part were moved to new apartments in the Kyiv and Zhytomyr regions.

Today Pripyat is a city of ghosts. Despite the fact that no one lives there, the city has its own elegance and atmosphere. It did not cease to exist, unlike the neighboring villages, which were buried in the ground by excavators. They are marked only on road signs and maps of the countryside. Pripyat, as well as the entire 30-kilometer Exclusion Zone, is guarded by the police and patrol service. Despite their constant watch, the city was repeatedly subjected to robbery and looting. The whole city has been looted. There was not a single apartment left, no matter where the thieves who took away all the jewelry would visit. In 1987, residents had the opportunity to return to collect a small portion of their belongings. The military plant "Jupiter" worked until 1997; the famous swimming pool "Azure" operated until 1998. At the moment, they are looted and destroyed even more than the apartments and schools in the city combined. There are three other parts of the city that are still in operation: a laundry (for the Chernobyl nuclear power plant), garages for trucks, and a deep well with a pumping station that supplies water to the power plant.

The city is full of 1980s graffiti, signs, books, and images mostly associated with Lenin. His slogans and portraits are everywhere - in the Palace of Culture, a hotel, a hospital, a police station, as well as in schools and kindergartens. Walking through the city is like going back in time, the only difference is that there is no one here, not even birds in the sky. One can only imagine a picture of the era when the city flourished, during the tour we will show you historical photos. To give you a vivid idea of the times of the Soviet Union, we offer a Soviet form, a retro walk in our RETRO TOUR. Everything was built from concrete. All buildings are of the same type, as in other cities built under the Soviet Union. Some houses were overgrown with trees so that they were barely visible from the road, and some buildings were so worn out that they collapsed from a large amount of snow that had fallen. Chernobyl is a life example of how Mother Nature takes her toll over the efforts of many people. In a few decades, only ruins will remain from the city. There is not a single place like this in the world.