Probably, today there is no person who would not be familiar with one of the most famous places on Earth - Chernobyl. Information about Chernobyl today can be found not only in books, but also in numerous Internet resources. This word is primarily associated with an explosion at a local nuclear power plant. The Chernobyl disaster occurred on April 26, 1986, immortalizing the city. Its history is actually much older.
Where did the name come from
First you need to understand why Chernobyl was called Chernobyl. Who and when gave the city its name? There is an opinion that the name is connected with Chernobyl, or the wormwood, better known to us. The thing is that this plant is very common in the area where the city was founded. Wormwood literally grows here in whole fields. There are other versions of why Chernobyl was called Chernobyl. The accident at the nuclear power plant in 1986 became the cause of mystical legends and speculation. This is the prophecy of the ancients. "Black reality" - a gloomy combination, a harbinger of trouble.
Ancient history of the city
When and where was the name "Chernobyl" mentioned for the first time? The history of the city begins with a mention in the annals dated 1193. It is from there that the now known history of Chernobyl begins. This mention was associated with the Kyiv prince, who was just hunting in the vicinity of the town. There are no earlier references to the village.
At that time, the city of Chernobyl was famous for the fact that representatives of various faiths peacefully coexisted in it. There were Catholics, and Jews, and Orthodox.
The thousand-year history of Chernobyl keeps another interesting fact. At the place where it flows into the Dnieper, in the thirteenth century, the united Lithuanian and Ukrainian troops inflicted a crushing defeat on the governor of Batu Khan himself - Kaidan. The governor went to the Pripyat region in order to collect tribute. After the attack, Kaidan barely took his feet off the battlefield. He did not return to the city of Chernobyl and its environs for tribute.
City during the Great Patriotic War
This terrible war was the bloodiest in the history of mankind. It is known that the war claimed more than 60 million lives. The calculation of the total number of victims is carried out by historians to this day.
The Second World War also did not bypass Chernobyl, which by the time the Nazis invaded was already a fairly sprawling city with good infrastructure and prospects.
The Germans tried with great zeal to capture the city. The area on which Chernobyl is located is located on a hill. In addition, it is surrounded by the Pripyat and Uzh rivers, which seemed advantageous for the enemy troops in terms of military tactics. From this site, all transport routes were perfectly controlled, from land to river.
On August 25, 1941 the city was occupied. It was recaptured only during the second offensive of the Red Army on November 17, 1943. Today, in memory of those tragic events, the Park of Glory was created with memorial signs and monuments to the brave inhabitants of Chernobyl installed in it.
Postwar fate
The city was considered a strategically important object, so significant forces were thrown into its restoration. As a matter of priority, enterprises that were evacuated at the beginning of the war returned, residential buildings, objects of social significance were rebuilt: kindergartens, schools, hospitals. The military with their families was hastily sent to the city for work and permanent residence. Just a few years later, Chernobyl again became a flourishing city.
NPP construction
When planning the construction of a nuclear power plant, various sites were considered, including in Kievskaya, Vinnitskaya and No, this area was chosen for the construction of the plant. Isn't this the answer to the question "why Chernobyl was called Chernobyl"? Still a prophecy? But everything is much more prosaic. The choice fell on Chernobyl, since the land at the site of the future station turned out to be practically infertile. In addition, the high content of clay in the soil made it possible to build such a large-scale complex as a nuclear power plant. The area had the necessary resources for water supply, met all the requirements of a transport interchange and, most importantly, provided a sanitary protection zone.
May 1970 - grandiose construction began. Construction equipment began to dig a foundation pit for the future first power unit, the construction of which was completed in 1977. Then it was launched. Then, in the period from 1978 to 1983, the remaining units were completed and put into operation, including the infamous fourth power unit.
By the way, it is impossible not to mention that in the same 1970, representatives of the party drove a peg in the place of the future satellite of the station, the city of Pripyat. Moreover, the construction of this town was carried out in parallel with the work at the station.
Typical day
Chernobyl, years. For the residents of the city, it was the most ordinary day. In the evening, when the next shift on duty left the nuclear power plant and another shift arrived, the station was in normal operating mode.
Employees changed into work overalls and took their places at the control panels. On this day, at the fourth power unit, tests of the reactor turbine for "run-out" were planned. The bottom line was to check whether the station would be able to maintain its operation for some time after an emergency or emergency situation due to the residual rotation of the generator turbine. The tests were supervised by the chief engineer of the station A.S. Dyatlov.
Explosion in Chernobyl
As soon as the time came and all the necessary preparations were completed, the test began. Then events began to occur that led to a terrible catastrophe. For unspecified reasons, the power of the reactor was lowered to a very low value - 500 megawatts, while the regulation required testing at capacities from 700 to 1500 megawatts. The second mistake was to leave too few graphite rods, which were used to control the reaction. At the time of the explosion, there were only four of them in the core, which eventually led to the reactor overheating and its explosion. A subsequent investigation over several years found the absorber rods to be of poor design.
A few more specific points were noted, which together could cause the catastrophe in Chernobyl to occur. Many now call this one but it is not at all true. The explosion was thermal, and of such force that the protection of the reactor (weighing as much as 500 tons), like a teapot lid, flew into the air and collapsed back.
The explosion in Chernobyl turned out to be simply gigantic. Frightened, the country's leadership hid the true extent of the accident for a long time. Only when reports began to arrive from other countries about a sharp increase did the Soviet leadership have to admit the fact that there had been a grandiose catastrophe in Chernobyl, which had not yet been equaled in the whole world.
Liquidators of the Chernobyl accident
The explosion immediately killed 2 Chernobyl employees, another 31 employees died within a few weeks from radiation sickness. Of all the employees who were at the time of the accident at the station, only 6 people survived.
Firefighters immediately arrived at the scene of the explosion, who showed real heroism, courage and bravery. Knowing about the mortal danger, they stood as a wall near the blazing radioactive fire and put out the fire, despite multiple burns and deteriorating health. In fact, they have become a human shield in the way of deadly radiation. Six firefighters fighting the radioactive flame died of burns and acute radiation sickness a few weeks after the accident.
Helicopter pilots from the air dropped sand and boron carbide into the debris to extinguish the remnants of the reactor and prevent it from exploding again.
Scientists, realizing the risk they were taking, carried out the necessary inspections and measurements right in the nuclear hell so that the liquidators had accurate data for the effective implementation of decontamination work.
When robots were used to dump luminous pieces into the core, they simply burned out all the microcircuits from a large amount of radiation. Then the soldiers had to work, who dumped debris into the collapse of the core, using ordinary shovels.
Doctors, policemen, military, workers, miners, drivers, researchers - in total, more than 600 thousand people participated in the liquidation work over several years. The Chernobyl disaster, in addition to official employees, attracted more than a million volunteers who helped in the work to eliminate the terrible consequences of the accident. People cleared the forest and burned damaged trees, dumped radioactive earth into mines, poured water on the nearby area to reduce radiation levels, helped with evacuation, and provided first aid.
After the crash
Official sources were silent about the true scale of the Chernobyl disaster and the real disastrous consequences. The next day the city went on with its normal life. A stream of townspeople rushed to the market, schoolchildren went to school, someone went on vacation to the forest or to the river, many went to their dachas. Cafes, shops, cinemas, a wedding palace were open. The accident, of course, could not go unnoticed by ordinary citizens, but few understood the true scale and estimated the possible terrible consequences of the explosion. Those who understood this immediately left the city with their families. The overwhelming majority felt uneasy only when cars began to drive around the city and pour water on the sidewalks to reduce the background radiation.
It was not until the next day that the urgent need to leave the infected city was announced. Then, probably, many thought again why Chernobyl was called Chernobyl ... More than 500 thousand residents of the city were taken to 1000 buses. The USSR did not remember the evacuation of such a scale.
The city of Pripyat with a population of almost 70 thousand people was depopulated literally in a matter of hours. At the same time, villages were evacuated, some of which were later destroyed, and their remains were buried so as not to spread radiation. At first, in order to avoid panic, people were told that they were leaving for a while, although scientists and the military understood that no one would return here anymore.
Exclusion Zone
Autumn, Chernobyl 1986. After the debris was removed and the surrounding area was disinfected as much as possible, work began on the Shelter object, better known as the Sarcophagus. With the help of it, it was subsequently possible to close the fragments of reactor No. 4, dangerous in terms of radiation. Work to strengthen emergency structures and disinfection measures are being carried out to this day.
Scientists from all over the world come to the territory of Chernobyl to study the effects of critical doses of radiation on living organisms, to develop methods for eliminating the consequences of a nuclear explosion.
A special zone was formed around the station, which is known to everyone today as the Exclusion Zone. In total, it was divided into three parts: the first is the station and the city of Pripyat itself, the second captured most of the villages, and the last ring passed in the area of the city of Chernobyl.
The disastrous consequences of the Chernobyl explosion
Without exception, all participants in the liquidation of the Chernobyl accident suffered. Tens of thousands of people died over time from excessive doses of radiation, many became disabled. In subsequent years, statistics noted a sharp increase in mortality from cancer, a general deterioration in the health of the nation. Such a high death rate is caused, first of all, by the untimely evacuation of residents, negligent and criminal connivance on the part of officials, the desire to silence and hide the truth.
Today Chernobyl is an object of extreme tourism
How does Chernobyl live today? Photos confirm that this is a lifeless and deserted place. Of course, people working in the exclusion zone currently live in abandoned apartments. One of the offices of the Ministry of Emergency Situations is also located here.
For extreme tourists, the organization "Chernobyl Tour" works. Here you can book a one-day or several-day trip to the Exclusion Zone. There you can also take a brochure called “Chernobyl. History of the city”, which briefly tells about the past and present of this settlement.
People can see with their own eyes the place where one of the biggest catastrophes not only of the twentieth century, but of the entire history of Russia broke out many years ago. There is a sculptural composition dedicated to the firefighters who heroically fought the flames in the reactor. On the territory of the city, a large-scale service is held every year on April 26 in memory of all those who died from the Chernobyl accident.
Tourists can drive through the whole of Chernobyl, photos are allowed without restrictions. For some, this trip is just the satisfaction of curiosity, for some it is a tribute to the memory of the fallen heroes and proof of how destructive a “peaceful” atom can be.
Many people were victims of this terrible accident, the consequences of which are still felt today.
The catastrophe at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the Chernobyl accident (in the media the terms “Chernobyl disaster” or simply “Chernobyl” are most often used) is one of the saddest pages in the history of modern civilization.
We bring to your attention a brief description of the Chernobyl accident. As they say, briefly about the main thing. Let us recall those fatal events, the causes and consequences of the tragedy.
What year did Chernobyl happen?
The Chernobyl accident
On April 26, 1986, a reactor exploded at the 4th power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (ChNPP), as a result of which a huge amount of radioactive substances was released into the atmosphere.
The Chernobyl nuclear power plant was built on the territory of the Ukrainian SSR (now -) on the Pripyat River, near the city of Chernobyl, Kyiv region. The fourth power unit was put into operation at the end of 1983 and successfully operated for 3 years.
On April 25, 1986, at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, it was planned to carry out preventive maintenance of one of the systems responsible for safety at the 4th power unit. After that, in accordance with the schedule, they wanted to completely shut down the reactor and perform some repairs.
However, the shutdown of the reactor was repeatedly postponed due to technical problems in the control rooms. This led to difficulties regarding the control of the reactor.
The disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant
On April 26, an uncontrolled increase in power began, which led to explosions in the main part of the reactor. Soon a fire started, and a huge amount of radioactive substances was released into the atmosphere.
After that, thousands of people were sent to eliminate the accident using a variety of equipment. Local residents began to urgently evacuate, forbidding them to take any things with them.
As a result, people were forced to leave their homes and run away in what they were wearing at the time the evacuation began. Before leaving the disaster area, each person was doused with water from hoses to wash contaminated particles from the surface of the skin and clothing.
For several days, the reactor was filled with inert materials to extinguish the power of the radioactive release.
Helicopters are decontaminating the buildings of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant after the accident In the early days, everything was relatively good, but soon the temperature inside the reactor facility began to rise, as a result of which even more radioactive substances began to be released into the atmosphere.
It was possible to achieve a decrease in radionuclides only after 8 months. Naturally, during this time a huge amount was thrown into the atmosphere.
The Chernobyl accident at the nuclear power plant shook the whole world. All the world's media constantly reported on the state of affairs at a particular point in time.
Less than a month later, the Soviet leadership decided to mothball the 4th power unit. After that, construction work began on the construction of a structure that could completely close the reactor.
About 90,000 people were involved in the construction. This project was called "Shelter", and was completed in 5 months.
On November 30, 1986, the 4th reactor of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was accepted for maintenance. It is worth noting that radioactive substances, primarily radionuclides of cesium and iodine, were distributed almost throughout Europe.
The largest number of them fell on Ukraine (42 thousand km²), (47 thousand km²) and (57 thousand km²).
Chernobyl radiation
As a result of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, 2 forms of Chernobyl fallout were released: gas condensate and radioactive substances in the form of aerosols.
The latter fell along with precipitation. The greatest damage was caused to the territory within a radius of 30 km around the site of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
Helicopters put out the fire Interestingly, cesium-137 deserves special attention in the list of radioactive substances. The half-life of this chemical element occurs within 30 years.
After the accident, cesium-137 settled on the territories of 17 European countries. In total, it covered an area exceeding 200 thousand km². And again, Ukraine, Belarus and Russia were in the top three "leading" states.
In them, the level of cesium-137 exceeded the permissible norm by almost 40 times. More than 50 thousand km² of fields sown with various crops and gourds were destroyed.
Chernobyl disaster
In the first days after the disaster, 31 people died, and another 600,000 (!) liquidators received high doses of radiation. More than 8 million Ukrainians, Belarusians and were exposed to moderate radiation, as a result of which their health was irreparably harmed.
After the accident, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was suspended due to a high radioactive background.
However, in October 1986, after decontamination work and the construction of the sarcophagus, the 1st and 2nd reactors were put into operation. A year later, the 3rd power unit was also launched.
In the premises of the block control panel of the power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the city of Pripyat In 1995, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between Ukraine, the Commission of the European Union and the G7 countries.
The document spoke about the launch of a program aimed at the complete closure of nuclear power plants by 2000, which was later implemented.
On April 29, 2001, the NPP was reorganized into the State Specialized Enterprise "Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant". From that moment, work began on the disposal of radioactive waste.
In addition, a powerful project was launched to build a new sarcophagus, instead of the outdated Shelter. The tender for its construction was won by French enterprises.
According to the existing project, the sarcophagus will be an arched structure with a length of 257 m, a width of 164 m and a height of 110 m. According to experts, the construction will last about 10 years and will be completed in 2018.
When the sarcophagus is completely rebuilt, work will begin related to the elimination of the remnants of radioactive substances, as well as reactor installations. This work is planned to be completed by 2028.
After the dismantling of the equipment, cleaning of the area will begin using appropriate chemicals and modern technology. Specialists plan to complete all types of work to eliminate the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster in 2065.
Causes of the Chernobyl accident
The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was the largest in the history of nuclear energy. Interestingly, there are still heated debates about the true causes of the accident.
Some blame the dispatchers for everything, while others suggest that the accident was caused by a local one. However, there are versions that it was a well-planned terrorist act.
Since 2003, April 26 has been considered the International Day of Remembrance for Victims of Radiation Accidents and Catastrophes. On this day, the whole world remembers the terrible tragedy that claimed the lives of many people.
Workers of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant walk past the control panel of the destroyed 4th power unit of the station Unlike, the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant resembled a very powerful "dirty bomb" - radioactive contamination became the main damaging factor.
Over the years, people have been dying from various types of cancer, radiation burns, malignant tumors, immunity decline, etc.
In addition, in the affected areas, children were often born with some kind of pathology. So, for example, in 1987 an unusually large number of cases of Down syndrome were recorded.
After the Chernobyl accident, serious inspections began to be carried out at many similar nuclear power plants in the world. In some states, nuclear power plants have decided to close altogether.
Frightened people went to rallies, demanding that the government find alternative ways to produce energy in order to avoid another environmental disaster.
I would like to believe that in the future humanity will never repeat such mistakes, but will draw conclusions from the sad experience of the past.
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Thirty years have passed since the tragic events at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, but only today terrible details become known ... And today the sarcophagus expires ......
On April 26, 1986, the most grandiose man-made accident occurred on the planet. This catastrophe claimed thousands of lives and shook the lives of millions. The place of the tragedy is still one of the most dangerous places on Earth. And over the years, it becomes more and more dangerous, as the structure that insulates the old nuclear reactor is gradually being destroyed. After German ecologists discovered traces of radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in their underground waters, it was decided to start building a huge sarcophagus that would serve as a shield against further radiation leaks. 
Patients were brought to the medical unit 126 a day after the explosion. In the basement, the things of patients are still piled up, the radiation background from them today exceeds the norm by 5,500 times. 
And there is not a word about the official summary of any employee of the medical unit. For the first time, all the documents related to the disaster were classified, and then they were in no hurry to make them public.
Order of the Third Main Directorate of the Ministry of Health of the USSR dated June 27, 1986 "On strengthening the secrecy regime when performing work to eliminate the consequences of the Chernobyl accident." Here are the fatal points:
"4. Classify information about the accident. 8. Classify information about the results of treatment. 9. Classify information about the degree of radioactive damage to personnel involved in the liquidation of the consequences of the Chernobyl accident. Head of the Third Main Directorate of the Ministry of Health of the USSR Shulzhenko.
Another document. This one was issued by the government commission itself “List of information on the Chernobyl accident, which are not subject to publication in the open press, radio and television broadcasts”, No. 423 of September 24, 1987. It was instructed to keep secret:
"one. Information about the levels of radiation contamination for individual settlements, exceeding the level (MPL). 2. Information on indicators of deterioration in physical performance, loss of professional skills of operational personnel working in special conditions at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant or persons involved in the elimination of the consequences of the accident.
The truth was hidden from people, people were not even allowed to leave the danger zone, no matter what the truth came out, no matter what sowed panic in the country. The Ministry of Health did not save people, but simply increased the radiation rates by 10 times and 50 times.
The scale of the accident was hushed up by many countries, not just the USSR. The French Alps and the mountains of Germany were in the infection zone. There are areas in the UK that are still unused. There are 17 countries on the list of polluted. The first blow fell on Scandinavia. The radioactive fallout in Sweden and Norway was so strong that reindeer herders could not sell reindeer meat, as it was contaminated. Radiation covered half the globe.
The liquidators say that they went to Chernobyl as if they were going to the front. 
The pilots took on lethal doses, millions of times higher than the permissible ones, they dropped sandbags from helicopters into the reactor to reduce the amount of emissions.
Nikolai Antoshkin, head of the aviation group of liquidators:
“The air temperature at a height of 200 meters reached 180 degrees in the middle of the so-called cone. After 2-3 flights, onboard technicians began to vomit. Looking into this fiend, the pilots understood what was going on there. God forbid what happens to the helicopter, you will immediately find yourself there and instantly burn out, evaporate.
And so it happened. One of the Mi-8 helicopters caught on the boom of a high-altitude crane with a blade and fell to the bottom, it fell three meters from the reactor. Four people were burned alive. 
On the night of May 23, an extensive fire broke out in the premises of the circulation pumps of the third and fourth units. The fire threatened to put the third unit out of action, which would provoke an even more terrible man-made disaster than the explosion in the 4th power unit a month earlier.
Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Maksimchuk, who came to lead the hastily assembled fire brigades, prevented a tragedy that threatened all of Europe from happening. He personally led the reconnaissance, not paying attention to the indicators of dosimeters and the radiation wound on his leg. Maksimchuk tried with all his might to save his subordinates by introducing fire extinguishing in shifts and their delivery in armored personnel carriers.
The officer himself did not dare to rest during the fire in the third block. With radiation burns of the respiratory tract and lower leg, he was taken to the hospital. 
Pripyat was evacuated in one day. People were promised a speedy return, they left light. The liquidators then collected things, took them out of town and buried them. Naturally, not everything was taken out, the rest was stolen by marauders.
Alarm signals are coming from the Chernobyl area. Marauders collected all the scrap metal and sent it in an unknown direction. All this will be sawn up, melted down and made goods for the people.
In the suburbs of Pripyat, dozens of hectares of cut down forest were found. Everything will be sold to the people.
The military equipment that was used in the accident also disappeared. She was in working condition, only infected. The famous cemetery of equipment contaminated with radiation, used in the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident, "Rassokha" is empty! 
Apparently, all these machines, by the 30th anniversary of the disaster, were incredibly "cleared" of radiation? I wonder where all that metal with the lethal charge went? Is it possible that such a volume of contaminated metal has spread from this cemetery all over the world?
Andrey Pyzh, stalker:
“There is an unspoken agreement to protect the Chernobyl zone and local residents. If the locals see the stackers, they hand them over to the guards. In turn, the guards turn a blind eye to the fact that local residents regularly visit the zone.”
The territory within a radius of 30 km from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is considered an exclusion zone, around, in the border zone, 5,000,000 people live. This year, ecologists checked how these people live: in milk, meat, mushrooms, radionuclides exceed the norm tenfold. Moreover, the zone of infection is constantly expanding. Fires and winds carry radiation outside the zone, and wild animals are also dangerous.
Thirty years ago, they concealed not only the details of the tragedy, but also its causes, the director and staff were accused of violating the operation. Yes, there were violations, but this is not the whole truth.
Help of the KGB of the USSR:
“... there are facts of deviation from projects, as well as violations of the technology of construction and installation work, which can lead to accidents and accidents.”
Unfortunately, this information was not always responded to in a timely manner. According to declassified materials of the KGB of the Ukrainian SSR, from 1971 to 1981 inclusive, 29 emergency stops were recorded at the station, including several minor accidents. Eight of them occurred through the fault of the staff.
Thirty years is not only the anniversary of the tragedy, it is the end of the operation of the sarcophagus, under which there are still hundreds of tons of nuclear fuel. Now all forces are thrown into the construction of a nuclear repository. Will modern Ukraine be able to complete the construction of a new one? Billions of dollars are spent on it by foreign investors from Europe and the USA. Why do foreigners spend huge amounts of money? They are preparing to create an international storage facility for nuclear waste there, it is planned to bring nuclear waste from half of the world here. 
Here, something like this ... Source: Violetta Krymskaya. http://kalmius-info.ru/
After the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the clock showed 72 hours 95 minutes, - the operator of unit No. 4
On April 26, 6 hours after the accident, Aleksey Breus, Unit 4 Senior Control Engineer, according to the work schedule, arrived at the Chernobyl NPP for his work shift. He became the last person to press the button on the still "live" control panel of the destroyed block. This happened almost 15 hours after the explosion of the reactor. 
In an interview with Segodnya, Breus said that no one told him about what had happened - he himself saw everything.
“In the morning I had to go to work according to the schedule. I got on the bus in Pripyat and went. And so, in fact, approaching the station, I saw the destroyed block from the bus and thus learned everything. Nobody said anything. I just saw ... I put on my work uniform - a white robe, and went to the reactor. Later I was given a respirator. I changed it several times during the day. They say that this is just a gauze bandage, but it protects the respiratory organs. During the shift, I visited the reactor five times. He walked, stepping over fragments of graphite and bypassing the rubble inside the block, ”said the ex-employee of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
First, the inhabitants were evacuated from Pripyat, the operators remained to work.
“When the townspeople were evacuated, I was at the station and after work I returned to an empty city. I was taken from Pripyat along with other colleagues on April 29 at one in the morning. I remember we sat on the bus for a long time and waited for something. Someone had an electronic watch. I must say - a very expensive thing in 1986. The clock showed - 72 hours 95 minutes. This is due to radiation: air ionization, circuits fail ... ”, the nuclear physicist explained.
According to the instructions, it was possible to take money and documents, after a few months - clothes and books. It was strictly forbidden to take out furniture, carpets, electrical equipment, receivers, since these items collect radioactive dust the most ... 
Atomic energy for the USSR was an endless source of cheap energy. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant was the most modern - a triumph of Soviet science. However, the situation has changed dramatically. In an hour and 24 minutes, the routine test to characterize the generator during the coastdown of the turbine rotor will be out of control. 31 people will die. Hundreds of people have been poisoned. The toxic cloud reaches Asia and the USA. And now we will return to Chernobyl to talk with the participants in the tragedy and reconstruct the events using computer technology. Disasters don't just happen. They are caused by a strict sequence of decisive events. Find out by watching this video about the fateful decision in a matter of seconds before the disaster!
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Today's date has become an occasion to say again that the current situation in Chernobyl raises security concerns. The construction of a special protective arch above the emergency power unit has not been completed.
Many experts also call dangerous the recent decision of the Ukrainian authorities to transfer local nuclear power plants to American fuel.
Excursions to the Chernobyl zone these days are sold out. Among the tourists - mostly young Ukrainians. They line up to take pictures of themselves against the backdrop of radiation signs. While the guide tells what the once well-organized area around the nuclear power plant has turned into.
Academician Viktor Grigoryevich Baryakhtar, even after 30 years, continues to analyze the causes and consequences of the largest catastrophe in the history of nuclear energy. He is convinced that the accident at the fourth reactor was the result not only of engineers' mistakes during a risky experiment, but also of a negligent attitude to safety requirements in the then Ukrainian Soviet republic. The fact that during the tests in the reactor problems may arise, the scientist claims, was no secret to anyone.
“They knew about its shortcomings back in 1984 and turned to scientific supervisors and designers that this is how it is - these mistakes must be corrected. What do you think? They didn't do anything. And when everything exploded, in half a year we had 15 such reactors - and everything was fixed, ”says Viktor Baryakhtar, liquidator of the Chernobyl accident, academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
On the eve of the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster in Kyiv, a long-term scientific work of a team of Ukrainian academicians was published - "Problems of safety of nuclear energy on the example of Chernobyl". The conclusion that scientists draw is that time is passing, power is changing, and the culture of nuclear safety in Ukraine is still at a low level.
Today, a huge arch is being erected in the Chernobyl zone, which should cover the destroyed fourth power unit of the nuclear power plant. It weighs as much as three Eiffel Towers and covers an area of 12 football fields. In 1986, in every sense of the word, the dead zone was filled with concrete, but this concrete shelter began to collapse over time. We need a new, more reliable one. The money allocated by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has repeatedly disappeared, the deadlines for completion of construction are constantly postponed, and the estimate is growing.
“If we started, the cost of the object was about 600 million dollars in 2007, but at the moment the total cost of the shelter is 1 billion 600 million euros. And by and large, this money is again not enough, ”says Yuriy Korolchuk, an expert at the Energy Research Institute (Kyiv).
The operator of four nuclear power plants in Ukraine now has no money even for current expenses. The day before, the Energoatom concern stopped all payments for the supply of nuclear fuel and the removal of spent fuel. And today, industry workers went to a rally demanding that the operator's accounts be unblocked.
“Accounts have been arrested. We cannot purchase either equipment or fuel for the operation of the stations. And today, safety is at risk, perhaps even shutting down units,” said Ivan Lavrichenko, head of the trade union committee of the Atomremontservice division of NNEGC Energoatom.
The most important questions are still unresolved - for example, what to do with the remains of baked radioactive fuel, which has been poisoning the soil under nuclear power plants for three decades.
“Unfortunately, over the years, very little has been done in terms of creating a storage facility for highly active long-lived radioactive materials,” says Georgy Kopchinsky, a member of the international advisory sonnet on nuclear safety at SINR.
Last April, a second attempt was made to build a spent fuel storage facility. The first one was unsuccessful. The French project of 2003, according to experts, due to the lack of control by the state, as a result turned out to be unsuitable for operation. Now the Americans have undertaken to build the storage facility. Ecologists are against. And the point is not only that they are going to store nuclear waste just 70 kilometers from the capital, in the upper reaches of the Dnieper, which supplies Ukraine with drinking water.
“All waste will be transported through Kyiv, Kyiv Passenger. We constantly have something falling, exploding, burning. Where is the guarantee that a wagon with radioactive waste will not fall down or be stolen?” - says the director of the Kyiv Ecological and Cultural Center Volodymyr Boreyko.
By cutting off all ties with Russia, including through nuclear energy, Ukraine, according to experts, has driven itself into a dangerous trap. The government has decided to transfer Ukrainian nuclear power plants to American fuel. US laws prohibit the importation of waste into this country. Therefore, Ukraine has no choice but to build a storage facility at home. Signs have already been solemnly installed at the construction site. At the same time, American fuel has not even passed mandatory certification yet, it is still being used experimentally. Moreover, in Europe, such experiments ended unsuccessfully.
“We also tried to do it at Lovis - at the station in Finland. Did not work out. Then in the Czech Republic - it did not work out. Now they are trying to implement it in Ukraine. The assemblies were already loaded into the cores of our reactors, and problems arose,” says Rafael Harutyunyan, First Deputy Director of the Institute for the Safe Development of Nuclear Energy.
Even despite the problems that arose, the American fuel supplier Westinghouse decided to continue the experiment without consulting with the developers of the nuclear power plant. Kyiv does not object.
“Ukraine is a poor country, unlike the Czech Republic and Finland, so it was in a stalemate. And if the Americans give them money for something in a package with works by Westinghouse, they simply have to go to these works. I mean politicians,” says Mikhail Rylov, director of the Intersectoral Expert-Certification, Scientific, Technical and Control Center for Nuclear and Radiation Safety (Rescenter).
And one of the latest decisions taken by the Cabinet of Ministers of the resigned Yatsenyuk, experts directly call suicidal. Officials want to transfer nuclear power plants to the maneuvering mode, that is, load regulation.
“Working at low power is the path to reactor instability. In other words, this is the path to Chernobyl No. 2,” said Viktor Baryakhtar, a liquidator of the Chernobyl accident, an academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
“I am surprised how one can issue such decrees, orders without a professional opinion!” - says Georgy Kopchinsky, a member of the international advisory council on nuclear safety of SINR.
Before the Chernobyl accident, judging by the memoirs of the liquidators, no problems were noticed either. More than a hundred dead and more than four thousand injured from radiation exposure. The result of the disaster, which, according to the researchers, led to a deviation from the golden rule of nuclear energy: "if the experiment is risky, then it cannot be carried out." After 30 years, this rule in Ukraine seems to have been forgotten again.
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. He comforted 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 unit. 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.
