On the night of April 26, 1986, at the fourth power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (ChNPP), located on the territory of Ukraine (at that time the Ukrainian SSR) on the right bank of the Pripyat River, 12 kilometers from the city of Chernobyl, Kyiv region, the largest accident in the history of world nuclear energy occurred .

The fourth power unit of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant was put into commercial operation in December 1983.

On April 25, 1986, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant was scheduled to conduct design tests of one of the safety systems at the fourth power unit, after which the reactor was planned to be shut down for scheduled repair work. During the tests, it was supposed to de-energize the nuclear power plant equipment and use the mechanical energy of rotation of stopping turbogenerators (the so-called run-down) to ensure the operation of the power unit’s safety systems. Due to dispatch restrictions, the shutdown of the reactor was delayed several times, which caused certain difficulties in controlling the reactor's power.

On April 26, at 01:24 a.m., an uncontrolled increase in power occurred, which led to explosions and destruction of a significant part of the reactor facility. Due to the explosion of the reactor and the subsequent fire at the power unit, a significant amount of radioactive substances was released into the environment.

Measures taken in the following days to fill the reactor with inert materials led first to a decrease in the power of radioactive release, but then an increase in temperature inside the destroyed reactor shaft led to an increase in the amount of radioactive substances released into the atmosphere. Radionuclide emissions decreased significantly only by the end of the first ten days of May 1986.

At a meeting on May 16, the government commission decided on the long-term conservation of the destroyed power unit. On May 20, the Ministry of Medium Engineering issued an order “On the organization of construction management at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant,” in accordance with which work began on the creation of the “Shelter” structure. The construction of this facility, involving about 90 thousand builders, lasted 206 days from June to November 1986. On November 30, 1986, by decision of the state commission, the mothballed fourth power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was accepted for maintenance.

The fission products of nuclear fuel released from the destroyed reactor into the atmosphere were carried by air currents over large areas, causing their radioactive contamination not only near nuclear power plants within the borders of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, but also hundreds and even thousands of kilometers from the accident site. The territories of many countries have been exposed to radioactive contamination.

As a result of the accident, the territories of 17 European countries with a total area of ​​207.5 thousand square kilometers were exposed to radioactive contamination with cesium-137 with levels above 1 Ci/km2 (37 kBq/m2). The territories of Ukraine (37.63 thousand square kilometers), Belarus (43.5 thousand square kilometers), and the European part of Russia (59.3 thousand square kilometers) were significantly contaminated with cesium-137.

In Russia, 19 subjects were exposed to radiation contamination with cesium-137. The most polluted regions are Bryansk (11.8 thousand square kilometers of contaminated areas), Kaluga (4.9 thousand square kilometers), Tula (11.6 thousand square kilometers) and Oryol (8.9 thousand square kilometers).

About 60 thousand square kilometers of territories contaminated with cesium-137 with levels above 1 Ci/km 2 are located outside the former USSR. The territories of Austria, Germany, Italy, Great Britain, Sweden, Finland, Norway and a number of other Western European countries were contaminated.

A significant part of the territory of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus was contaminated at a level exceeding 5 Ci/km 2 (185 kBq/m 2). Agricultural land covering an area of ​​almost 52 thousand square kilometers was affected by cesium-137 and strontium-90, with half-lives of 30 and 28 years, respectively.

Immediately after the disaster, 31 people died, and 600 thousand liquidators who took part in firefighting and cleanup received high doses of radiation. Almost 8.4 million residents of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia were exposed to radioactive radiation, of which almost 404 thousand people were resettled.

Due to the very high radioactive background after the accident, the operation of the nuclear power plant was stopped. After work on the decontamination of the contaminated area and the construction of the Shelter facility, the first power unit of the Chernobyl NPP was launched on October 1, 1986, the second on November 5, and the third power unit of the station was put into operation on December 4, 1987.

In accordance with the Memorandum signed in 1995 between Ukraine, the G7 states and the European Union Commission, on November 30, 1996, a decision was made to permanently shut down the first power unit, and on March 15, 1999, the second power unit.

On December 11, 1998, the Law of Ukraine “On the general principles of subsequent operation and decommissioning of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the transformation of the destroyed fourth power unit of this nuclear power plant into an environmentally safe system” was adopted.

The Chernobyl nuclear power plant stopped generating electricity on December 15, 2000, when the third power unit was permanently shut down.

In December 2003, the UN General Assembly supported the decision of the Council of Heads of State of the CIS to proclaim April 26 as the International Day of Remembrance for Victims of Radiation Accidents and Disasters, and also called on all UN member states to celebrate this International Day and hold relevant events within its framework.

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources

For almost eight centuries, Chernobyl was just a small Ukrainian town, but after April 26, 1986, this name began to mean the worst man-made disaster in the history of mankind. The very word “Chernobyl” carries the sign of radioactivity, the imprint of human tragedy and mystery. Chernobyl frightens and attracts, and for many decades it will remain in the center of attention of the whole world.

Accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant

The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on April 26, 1986 is the beginning of a new period in the relationship between man and the atomic nucleus. A period full of fear, caution and mistrust.

An object: Power unit No. 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Pripyat, Ukraine.

Victims: 2 people died during the disaster, 31 people died in the following months, about 80 in the next 15 years. 134 people developed radiation sickness, which led to death in 28 cases. About 60,000 people (mostly liquidators) received high doses of radiation.

Causes of the disaster

An unusual situation has developed around the Chernobyl disaster: the course of events of that fateful night of April 26, 1986 is known literally down to the second, all possible causes of the emergency have been studied, but it is still unknown what exactly led to the explosion of the reactor. There are several versions of the causes of the accident, and over the past three decades the disaster has acquired many speculations, fantastic and downright delusional versions.

In the first months after the accident, the main blame for it was placed on the operators, who made a lot of mistakes that led to the explosion. But since 1991, the situation has changed, and almost all charges against the nuclear power plant personnel were dropped. Yes, people made several mistakes, but all of them complied with the reactor operating regulations in force at that time, and none of them were fatal. So the low quality of regulations and safety requirements was recognized as one of the causes of the accident.

The main causes of the disaster lay in the technical plane. Many volumes of investigations into the causes of the disaster boil down to one thing: the exploded RBMK-1000 reactor had a number of design flaws that, under certain (rather rare!) conditions, turn out to be dangerous. In addition, the reactor simply did not comply with many nuclear safety regulations, although this is not believed to have played a significant role.

The two main causes of the disaster are considered to be the positive vapor coefficient of reactivity and the so-called “end effect”. The first effect boils down to the fact that when water boils in the reactor, its power sharply increases, that is, nuclear reactions begin to take place more actively in it. This is due to the fact that steam absorbs neutrons worse than water, and the more neutrons, the more active the fission reactions of uranium are.

And the “end effect” is caused by the design features of the control and protection rods used in the RBMK-1000 reactors. These rods consist of two halves: the upper (7 meters long) is made of neutron-absorbing material, the lower (5 meters long) is made of graphite. The graphite part is necessary so that when the rod is pulled out, its channel in the reactor is not occupied by water, which absorbs neutrons well and therefore can worsen the course of nuclear reactions. However, the graphite rod did not displace water from the entire channel - approximately 2 meters of the lower part of the channel remained without a displacement rod, and therefore filled with water.

It is known that graphite absorbs neutrons much worse than water, and therefore, when completely pulled out rods are lowered in the lower part of the channels, due to the sharp displacement of water by graphite, nuclear reactions do not slow down, but, on the contrary, sharply accelerate. That is, due to the “end effect” in the first moments of lowering the rods, the reactor is not shut down, as it should be, but on the contrary, its power increases abruptly.

How could all this lead to disaster? It is believed that the positive vapor coefficient of reactivity played a fatal role at the moment when the power of the reactor was reduced, and at the same time the speed of the circulation pumps was reduced - because of this, the water inside the reactor began to flow more slowly and began to evaporate quickly, which caused an acceleration of the flow of nuclear reactions. In the first seconds, the increase in power was controlled, but then it acquired an avalanche-like character, and the operator was forced to press the emergency lowering button of the rods. At that moment, the “end effect” was triggered, in a split second the power of the reactor increased abruptly, and... And an explosion occurred, which almost put an end to all nuclear energy, and left an indelible mark on the face of the Earth and in the hearts of people.

Chronicle of events

The accident at the fourth power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant occurred so quickly that until the last seconds all control devices remained operational, thanks to which the entire course of the disaster is known literally to a fraction of a second.

The reactor was scheduled to be shut down for April 24-26 to carry out scheduled preventive maintenance - this is, in general, a common practice for nuclear power plants. However, very often during such shutdowns, various experiments are carried out that cannot be carried out while the reactor is running. One of these experiments was scheduled for April 25 - a test of the “turbogenerator rotor run-down” mode, which in principle could become one of the reactor protection systems during emergencies.

This experiment is very simple. Turbogenerators of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant are units consisting of a steam turbine and a generator that generates electricity. The rotors of these units are combined, and their total mass reaches 200 tons - such a colossus, accelerated to a speed of 3000 rpm, after the steam supply is stopped, can rotate for a long time by inertia, only due to the acquired kinetic inertia. This is the “coasting” mode, and theoretically, it can be used to generate electricity and power circulation pumps when regular power sources are turned off.

The experiment was supposed to show whether the turbogenerator in the “coasting” mode is capable of providing power to the pumps until the emergency diesel generators return to normal operation.

On April 24, a gradual decrease in the reactor power began, and by 0.28 on April 26, it was possible to bring it to the required level. But at this moment, the reactor power dropped to almost zero, which required the immediate raising of the control rods. Finally, by 1 am, the reactor power reached the required value, and at 1:23:04, several hours late, the experiment was officially launched. This is where the problems started.

The turbogenerator in the “coasting” mode stopped faster than expected, which is why the revolutions of the circulation pumps connected to it also dropped. This led to the fact that the water began to pass through the reactor more slowly, boiled faster, and the positive vapor coefficient of reactivity came into play. So the reactor power began to gradually increase.

After some time - at 1:23:39 - the instrument readings reached critical values, and the operator pressed the AZ-5 emergency protection button. The completely removed rods began to plunge into the reactor, and at that moment the “end effect” worked - the power of the reactor increased many times, and after a few seconds an explosion occurred (more precisely, at least two powerful explosions).

The explosion completely destroyed the reactor, damaged the power unit building, and started a fire. Firefighters quickly arrived at the scene of the accident, and by 6 a.m. they had completely extinguished the fire. And in the first two hours, no one imagined the scale of the disaster that had occurred and the degree of radiation contamination. Within an hour after the start of extinguishing, many firefighters began to show symptoms of radiation damage. People received large doses of radiation, and 28 of the firefighters died from radiation sickness in the following weeks.

Only at 3.30 in the morning on April 26, the radiation background at the site of the disaster was measured (since at the time of the accident the standard control devices were out of order, and compact individual dosimeters simply went off scale), and an understanding came of what actually happened.

From the first days after the explosion, measures began to eliminate the consequences of the disaster, the active phase of which lasted several months, and in fact lasted until 1994. During this time, over 600,000 people took part in the liquidation work.

Despite the powerful explosion, the bulk of the contents of the nuclear reactor remained at the site of the destroyed fourth power unit, so it was decided to build a protective structure around it, which later became known as the “Sarcophagus”. The construction of the shelter was completed by November 1986. The construction of the “sarcophagus” took over 400 thousand cubic meters of concrete, several thousand tons of a mixture that weakens radioactive radiation and 7,000 tons of metal structures.

Explosion

Disputes still continue over the nature of the reactor explosion at the fourth power unit of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

Many experts agree that the explosion was similar to a nuclear one. That is, an uncontrolled chain reaction began in the reactor, similar to what happens when a nuclear bomb is detonated. These reactions lasted a fraction of a second, and did not turn into a full-fledged nuclear explosion, since the entire contents of the reactor were thrown out of the shaft, and the nuclear fuel dissipated.

However, the main explosion of the reactor was facilitated by an explosion of a different nature - steam. It is believed that due to the avalanche-like growth of steam formation inside the reactor, the pressure increased many times (in fact, 70 times), which tore off the multi-ton plate covering the reactor from above, like the lid of a saucepan. As a result, the reactor was completely dehydrated, uncontrolled nuclear reactions began in it, and - an explosion.

A different version of what happened was proposed by Konstantin Pavlovich Checherov, a man who devoted more than 10 years to analyzing the causes of the Chernobyl disaster, during which he personally examined virtually every meter of the reactor shaft and the reactor hall of the fourth power unit. In his opinion, due to the emergency stop of the pumps, the temperature in the lower part of the reactor rose sharply, the pipelines (the water pressure in them reached 70 atmospheres) ruptured, and as a result, the entire reactor, like a colossal jet engine, was thrown out of the shaft up into the reactor hall . And already there, under the roof of the hall, an explosion occurred, which was nuclear in nature, but had a relatively small power - about 0.01 kilotons. This explosion destroyed the roof and walls of the reactor hall. That is why virtually all the fuel (90-95%) was thrown out of the reactor shaft. Checherov’s version for a long time contradicted the official position and therefore remained (and remains) practically unknown to a wide circle.

To imagine the scale of the disaster, you need to understand what the RBMK-1000 reactor is. The basis of the reactor is a concrete shaft with dimensions of 21.6 × 21.6 × 25.5 m, at the bottom of which lies a steel sheet 2 m thick and 14.5 m in diameter. On this plate rests a cylindrical graphite masonry, penetrated by channels for fuel rods, coolant and rods - in fact, this is the reactor. The diameter of the masonry reaches 11.8 m, the height is 7 m, it is surrounded by a shell of water, which serves as additional biological protection. The top of the reactor is covered with a metal plate with a diameter of 17.5 m and a thickness of 3 m.

The total mass of the reactor reaches 5000 tons, and all this mass was simply thrown out of the mine by an explosion.

Consequences of the Chernobyl accident

The Chernobyl disaster is in the forefront of the most serious man-made accidents in the entire history of mankind. It had such disastrous consequences that even now - almost 30 years later - the situation remains very difficult.

The explosion of the reactor led to radiation contamination of the area on a monstrous scale. At the time of the accident, the reactor contained about 180 tons of nuclear fuel, of which from 9 to 60 tons were released into the atmosphere in the form of aerosols - a huge radioactive cloud rose above the nuclear power plant and settled over a large area. As a result, large areas of Ukraine, Belarus and some regions of Russia were contaminated.

It should be noted that the main danger is not uranium itself, but highly active isotopes of its fission - cesium, iodine, strontium, as well as plutonium and other transuranium elements.

In the first hours after the accident, its scale remained unknown, but already on the afternoon of April 27, the entire population of the city of Pripyat was hastily evacuated; in the following days, people were taken out first from the 10-kilometer zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, and then from the 30-kilometer zone. To this day, the exact number of people evacuated is unknown, but according to rough estimates, about 115,000 people were evacuated from more than a hundred settlements throughout 1986, and in subsequent years, more than 220,000 people were resettled.

Subsequently, around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, in a 30-kilometer zone, a so-called “exclusion zone” was created, in which a ban on all economic activities was introduced, and in order to prevent the return of people, almost all populated areas were literally destroyed.

It is interesting that even now in some areas that have been contaminated, there are exceeding permissible levels of radioactive isotopes in the soil, plants and, as a result, in cow's milk. This situation will continue for several decades, since the half-life of cesium-137 is 30 years, and strontium-90 is 29 years.

Over time, the radioactive background in contaminated areas generally decreases, but this effect has unexpected manifestations. It is known that when radioactive elements decay, others are formed, and they can be either less or more active. Thus, the decay of plutonium produces amerecium, which has higher radioactivity, so over time the radioactive background in some areas only increases! It is believed that in the contaminated areas of Belarus, due to the increase in the amount of amerecium, by 2086 the background will be 2.5 times higher than immediately after the accident! The only reassurance is that the bulk of this background is alpha radiation, which is relatively easy to protect against.

The terrible consequences of the accident caused widespread dissatisfaction with nuclear energy, people began to simply be afraid of nuclear power plants! This led to the fact that in the period from 1986 to 2002 not a single new nuclear power plant was built, and the construction of new power units at existing stations was either frozen or completely stopped. And only in the last ten years has there been growth in nuclear energy, but this applies more to Russia - the accident at the Japanese Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant dealt a new blow, and a number of countries have already announced the abandonment of nuclear energy (for example, Germany wants to completely abandon nuclear power plants by the 2030s).

The Chernobyl disaster also had some quite surprising consequences. The exclusion zone has long been the subject of dark jokes about mutations and other terrible things caused by radiation. But in reality the situation in those areas is completely different. Almost 30 years ago, people left the 30-kilometer zone, and since then no one has lived there (with the exception of several hundred “self-settlers” - people who returned here despite all the prohibitions), plowed or sowed, or polluted the environment and did not dump waste. As a result, radioactive forests and fields were almost completely restored, animal populations, including rare ones, increased many times over, and the environmental situation generally improved. Paradoxical as it may seem, the radiation disaster has become not an evil, but rather a blessing for nature!

And finally, Chernobyl gave rise to a new sociocultural phenomenon - stalking. The Exclusion Zone perfectly embodies the Zone created by the Strugatsky brothers in the novel Roadside Picnic. Since the beginning of the 90s, hundreds of “stalkers” have flocked to close the territory, dragging everything that was lying around, visiting abandoned cities and heading to the stalker’s “Mecca” - the post-apocalyptic city of Pripyat, forever frozen in the Soviet past. And no one knows what doses of radiation these unfortunate stalkers received, and what dangerous things they brought home.

Stalking has become so widespread that the Ukrainian government was forced to adopt special legislation limiting people's access to the Exclusion Zone. But despite the increased control of the borders of the zone and all the prohibitions, the newly-minted stalkers do not give up trying to get into the most mysterious region of the planet, covered in myths and legends.

Current situation at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant

Despite the disaster, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant resumed its work in the fall of 1986: power unit No. 1 was launched on October 1, and power unit No. 2 was launched on November 5. The launch of the third power unit was made difficult by the fact that it is located in close proximity to the emergency fourth, so it began work only on November 24, 1987.

On the evening of October 11, 1991, a serious fire occurred at the second power unit, which virtually put an end to the operation of the station. On this day, the reactor of power unit No. 2 was shut down; later work began on its restoration, but it was never completed, and since 1997 the reactor has been considered officially shut down. The reactor of power unit No. 1 was shut down on November 30, 1996. The shutdown of the reactor of power unit No. 3 was carried out by the President of Ukraine on December 15, 2000 - this event was staged as a show and broadcast live.

So today the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is not functioning, but work is being done to replace the “sarcophagus” (which is beginning to collapse) with a new protective structure. In this regard, about 750 people continue to work at the station. The progress of work is broadcast around the clock on the official website of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant http://www.chnpp.gov.ua/.

On November 14, 2016, the process of moving the assembled new shelter began - in 4 days it should take its place above the destroyed power unit.

What has been done to prevent the disaster from happening again?

It is believed that the main causes of the Chernobyl disaster were design flaws in the RBMK-1000 nuclear reactor. But these reactors were installed not only at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, but also at several other stations - Leningrad, Smolensk and Kursk. Millions of people are in potential danger!

After the disaster, the question arose about modernizing all these reactors, which was done in subsequent years. Currently, there are still 11 RBMK-1000 reactors in operation, which no longer pose a danger, however, due to physical wear and obsolescence, most of them will be decommissioned in 5 - 10 years.

Also, the Chernobyl disaster forced a review of reactor operating regulations and stricter nuclear safety requirements. So truly serious safety measures at nuclear power plants were introduced only after 1986 - before that it was believed that many accident scenarios were simply unthinkable and fears were far-fetched.

Today, the global nuclear energy industry has become one of the most high-tech industries, in which special attention is paid to safety, reliability of equipment and personnel training. And this was largely due to the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which showed: the fission of an atomic nucleus is much more complex and dangerous than simply burning coal.

April 26, 1986... This date will be remembered by several more generations of Ukrainians, Belarusians and Russians as the day and year when the terrible thing happened. When all this happened, perhaps even the most experienced experts did not fully and fully understand what awaited us all subsequently.

The disaster of April 26, 1986 resulted in thousands of deaths and illnesses, contaminated forests, poisoned water and soil, and mutations of plants and animals. Among other things, a thirty-kilometer exclusion zone has appeared on the map of Ukraine, travel to the territory of which is possible only with a special permit.

This article is aimed not only at once again reminding readers what happened on April 26, 1986, but also at looking at what happened, as they say, from different angles. Now, it seems, it is no secret to anyone that in the modern world there are more and more often those who are willing to pay a lot of money to go on an excursion to these places, and some former residents, having never settled down in other regions, often return to their ghostly and abandoned cities.

Brief summary of events

Almost 30 years ago, namely on April 26, 1986, the largest nuclear accident in the world occurred on the territory of what is now Ukraine, the consequences of which are felt by the planet to this day.

The nuclear reactor of the fourth power unit exploded at a power plant in the city of Chernobyl. A huge amount of deadly radioactive substances were simultaneously released into the air.

It has now been calculated that in the first three months alone, starting from April 26, 1986, 31 people literally died from radiation on the spot. Later, 134 people were sent to specialized clinics for intensive treatment for radiation sickness, and another 80 died in agony from infection of the skin, blood and respiratory tract.

The Chernobyl nuclear power plant (1986, April 26 and the following days) needed workers more than ever. More than 600 thousand people took part in the liquidation of the accident, most of whom were military personnel.

Perhaps the most dangerous consequence of the incident was the huge release into the environment of deadly radioactive substances, namely isotopes of plutonium, uranium, iodine and cesium, strontium and radioactive dust itself. The radiation plume covered not only a huge part of the USSR, but also Eastern Europe and the Scandinavian countries, but most of all on April 26, 1986 it affected the Belarusian and Ukrainian SSR.

A lot of international experts were involved in investigating the causes of the accident, but even to this day no one knows exactly the true causes of what happened.

Distribution area

After the accident, a so-called “dead” zone of 30 km had to be designated around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Hundreds of settlements were destroyed almost to the ground or buried under tons of earth using heavy equipment. If we consider the sphere with confidence, we can say that Ukraine at that time lost five million hectares of fertile soil.

Before the accident, the reactor of the fourth power unit contained almost 190 tons of fuel, 30% of which was released into the environment during the explosion. In addition, at that time, various radioactive isotopes accumulated during operation were in the active phase. It was they, according to experts, who posed the greatest danger.

More than 200,000 sq. km of surrounding lands were contaminated with radiation. The deadly radiation spread like an aerosol, gradually settling on the surface of the earth. Pollution of territories then mainly depended only on those regions where it rained on April 26, 1986 and the next few weeks. Very severely affected were those regions.

Who is to blame for what happened?

In April 1987, a court hearing took place in Chernobyl. One of the main culprits at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant was recognized as the director of the plant, a certain V. Bryukhanov, who initially neglected basic safety rules. Subsequently, this person deliberately underestimated the level of radiation and did not put into effect a plan for the evacuation of workers and the local population.

Also, along the way, facts were discovered of gross neglect of their official duties on April 26, 1986 on the part of the chief engineer of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant N. Fomin and his deputy A. Dyatlov. All of them were sentenced to 10 years in prison.

The head of the very shift on which the accident occurred (B. Rogozhkin) was sentenced to another five years, A. Kovalenko, his deputy, was sentenced to three years, and Yu. Laushkin, the state inspector of Gosatomenergonadzor, was sentenced to two years.

At first glance, it may seem that this is quite cruel, but if all these people had shown great caution when working at such a dangerous enterprise as the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the disaster of April 26, 1986 would hardly have occurred.

Notification and evacuation of the population

The expert commission argues that after the accident, the first step should have been to immediately evacuate the population, but no one took responsibility for making the necessary decisions. If the opposite had happened then, there could have been tens, or even hundreds of times fewer human casualties.

In practice, it turned out that people knew nothing about what had happened the whole day. On April 26, 1986, someone was working on a personal plot, someone was preparing the city for the upcoming events. Kindergarten children were walking on the street, and schoolchildren, as if nothing had happened, were doing physical education in what they thought was fresh air.

Work to evacuate the population began only at night, when an official order was issued to prepare for evacuation. On April 27, a directive was announced on the complete evacuation of the city, scheduled for 14.00.

Thus, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the disaster on April 26, 1986, which deprived many thousands of Ukrainians of their homes, turned the modest satellite town of Pripyat into a terrible ghost with devastated parks and squares and dead, deserted streets.

Panic and provocations

When the first rumors about the accident spread, part of the population decided to leave the city on their own. Already on April 26, 1986, towards the afternoon, many women in panic and despair, picking up their babies in their arms, literally ran along the road away from the city.

Everything would be fine, but this was done through the forest, the dose of pollution of which was actually many times higher than all permissible indicators. And the road... According to eyewitnesses, the asphalt surface glowed with some strange neon hue, although they tried to pour it abundantly with water mixed with some white solution unknown to the common man.

It is very unfortunate that serious decisions to rescue and evacuate the population were not made on time.

And finally, only a few years later it became clear that the intelligence services of the Soviet Union were aware of the procurement of three tons of meat and fifteen tons of butter in the territories directly affected by the Chernobyl tragedy on April 26, 1986. Despite this, they decided to reprocess radioactive products by adding relatively pure components to them. In accordance with the decision made, this radioactive meat and butter was distributed to many large factories in the country.

The KGB also knew for sure that during the construction of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, defective equipment from Yugoslavia was used, it was also familiar with various kinds of miscalculations in the design of the station, delamination of the foundation and the presence of cracks in the walls...

What was going on anyway? Trying to prevent more grief

At about half past two at night in the city of Chernobyl (1986, April 26), the local fire department received a signal about a fire. The duty guard responded to the call and almost immediately transmitted a signal about a fire of high complexity.

Upon arrival, the special team saw that the roof of the turbine room and the huge reactor hall were on fire. By the way, today it has been established that when extinguishing that terrible fire, the guys who were working in the reactor hall suffered the most.

Only at 6 o'clock in the morning was the fire completely extinguished.

In total, 14 vehicles and 69 employees were involved. In terms of overalls, the people performing such an important mission had only a canvas robe, a helmet and mittens. The men extinguished the fire without gas masks, since it was simply impossible to work in them at high temperatures.

Already at two o'clock in the morning the first victims of radiation appeared. People began to experience severe vomiting and general weakness, and also experienced a so-called “nuclear tan.” They say that for some, the skin of their hands was removed along with their mittens.

Desperate firefighters did everything possible to prevent the fire from reaching the third block and beyond. The station personnel began extinguishing local fires in different rooms of the station and took all necessary measures to prevent a hydrogen explosion. These actions helped prevent an even greater man-made disaster.

Biological consequences for all humanity

Ionizing radiation, when it hits all living organisms, has a destructive biological effect.

Radiation radiation leads to the destruction of biological matter, mutation, and changes in the structure of organ tissue. Such irradiation contributes to the development of various types of cancer, disruption of vital functions of the body, changes and decay of DNA and, as a result, leads to death.

A ghost town called Pripyat

For several years following the man-made disaster, this settlement aroused the interest of various kinds of specialists. They came here en masse, trying to measure and analyze the level of the contaminated area.

However, in the 90s. Pripyat began to attract more and more attention from scientists interested in environmental changes in the environment, as well as issues of transformation of the natural zone of the city, which was completely left without anthropogenic influence.

Many Ukrainian scientific centers conducted assessments of changes in flora and fauna in the city.

Stalkers of the Chernobyl zone

First of all, it is worth noting that stalkers are people who penetrate into the exclusion zone by hook or by crook. Chernobyl extreme sports fans are conditionally divided into two categories, distinguished by their appearance, slang used, photographs and prepared reports. The first are curious, the second are ideological.

Agree, now you can really find a lot of information in the media

Chernobyl nuclear power plant under the protective arch

The construction of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was a huge step forward in the development of nuclear energy throughout the USSR. Favorable territory, the introduction of a new type of reactor into the operation of the station, big plans and ambitions of the government elite - all this undoubtedly seduced and pushed for the earliest possible start of construction of the main structures.

One of the leading goals in the development of the nuclear power plant project was the construction of the satellite city of Pripyat. It was planned that in the future Pripyat would become not only a home for hardworking workers, but also a model among the cities of the Soviet Union.

Chernobyl nuclear power plant under construction

How the decision was made and the construction site was chosen

The prospects for using the peaceful atom have long attracted the attention of scientists and energy specialists. To build a gigantic mechanism that ensures the reproduction of energy meant being ahead of many developing countries.

Of course, the second side of the coin was not as optimistic as the first. After all, the use of nuclear energy is always fraught with potential danger.

On September 29, 1966, a historic resolution of the Council of Ministers was issued stating that it was necessary to introduce a capacity of about 11.9 million kW. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant has become one of the links in the systematic actions of the state. The nuclear power plant in Chernobyl should have received about 8 million kW.

Active phase of construction of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant

Before the start of construction, the first thing the specialists did was to take the choice of the location for the construction of the nuclear power plant very seriously. The station that was supposed to be built was supposed to provide electricity to the central region, which at that time covered 27 regions of the Ukrainian SSR, as well as the Rostov region. For this purpose, a social study was conducted at 16 potential construction sites.

The studies were mainly carried out in the Kyiv, Zhytomyr and Vinnytsia regions. After this, several places were proposed for the construction of station structures: Ladyzhiny in the Vinitsa region, as well as the village of Kopachi in the Kyiv region. The management gave its preference to the second option.

Construction of a satellite city for the Chernobyl nuclear power plant

Noteworthy for history is the fact that the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl was previously called the Central Ukrainian Nuclear Power Plant.

However, as soon as construction began in 1970, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine acquired a new name. The abbreviation Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant stands for Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. And it's not just a name. This is the gigantic power of nuclear fuel, which has become destructive for the picturesque territory and the life of its population.

Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant before commissioning

Nuclear power plant in its prime

Back in 1985, the station looked like a developing and successful facility. Optimism and the desire to work for the benefit of the USSR did not leave the hearts of workers inspired by the national idea. Over the year, energy production reached 29 billion kilowatts. The success and prosperity of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was talked about throughout the Soviet Union.

The Chernobyl nuclear power plant was also always open for children. The task of the state was to instill the right thoughts about the use of peaceful atoms, therefore the management of the station strongly supported the conduct of school excursions on the territory of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Whole groups of young guys walked along the corridors of the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl. Propaganda for the peaceful atom became more and more widespread.

Location of reactors 3 and 4

What changed people's minds?

On the night of April 26, 1986, the largest nuclear surge occurred in the fourth power unit of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant - a consequence of an explosion during experimental work. A large and dangerous radioactive fire began.

Military fire departments from nearby settlements were involved in extinguishing the fire. All as one, the liquidators fought the flames and let lethal doses of radiation into their bodies.

After the fire was localized and extinguished, a mass evacuation was carried out. People were taken not only from the city of Pripyat, but also from nearby settlements. After all, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exclusion zone has spread over thirty kilometers.

For a long time, the contaminated area was subject to decontamination, and radioactive objects were destroyed. However, the consequences of the Chernobyl accident were fatal not only for the Chernobyl affected area. Thousands of people were also affected, many of whom became disabled for life.

The fourth reactor of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant today

The fate of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant

After the events of 1986, the priority was the construction of the Sarcophagus and the development of a plan to decommission the surviving power units. The cessation of operation of the remaining reactors took place gradually, because the power of the station was quite large. The complete closure of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant occurred by 2000. It was then that the last, third power unit was shut down.

At the same time, in accordance with the decision of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and the law on the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant of 2000, a specialized enterprise was created on the basis of the station, which continues to operate today. Every year, the Chernobyl NPP Department makes amendments and additions on issues of protecting the population, rehabilitation of the exclusion zone and support for people affected by the disaster.

Now the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant is not a prosperous landmark of the USSR, but an exclusion zone where people have no place. The man-made disaster of the 20th century will continue to haunt people for a long time with the echoes of radiation. According to scientists, it will not be possible to live safely in the city where the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is located for several thousand years.

Myths and facts

On April 26, 1986, an accident occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Experts from all over the world are still eliminating the consequences of the largest disaster in the history of peaceful nuclear energy.

The Russian nuclear industry has carried out a modernization program, almost completely revised outdated technological solutions and developed systems that, according to experts, completely eliminate the possibility of such an accident.

We talk about the myths that surround the Chernobyl accident and the lessons learned from it.

DATA

The largest disaster in the history of the peaceful atom

Construction of the first stage of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant began in 1970, and the city of Pripyat was built nearby for service personnel. On September 27, 1977, the first power unit of the station with a RBMK-1000 reactor with a capacity of 1 thousand MW was connected to the power grid of the Soviet Union. Later, three more power units came into operation; the station’s annual energy production amounted to 29 billion kilowatt-hours.

On September 9, 1982, the first accident occurred at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant - during a test run of the 1st power unit, one of the reactor’s process channels collapsed, and the graphite lining of the core was deformed. There were no casualties; eliminating the consequences of the emergency took about three months.

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It was planned to shut down the reactor (at the same time, the emergency cooling system was turned off) and measure the generator indicators.

It was not possible to shut down the reactor safely. At 1 hour 23 minutes Moscow time, an explosion and fire occurred at the power unit.

The emergency was the largest disaster in the history of nuclear energy: the reactor core was completely destroyed, the power unit building partially collapsed, and there was a significant release of radioactive materials into the environment.

One person died directly in the explosion - pump operator Valery Khodemchuk (his body could not be found under the rubble), and on the morning of the same day in the medical unit, automation system adjustment engineer Vladimir Shashenok died from burns and a spinal injury.

On April 27, the city of Pripyat (47 thousand 500 people) was evacuated, and in the following days, the population of the 10-kilometer zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was evacuated. In total, during May 1986, about 116 thousand people were resettled from 188 settlements in the 30-kilometer exclusion zone around the station.

The intense fire lasted 10 days, during which time the total release of radioactive materials into the environment amounted to about 14 exabecquerels (about 380 million curies).

More than 200 thousand square meters were exposed to radioactive contamination. km, of which 70% are on the territory of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.

The northern regions of the Kyiv and Zhytomyr regions were the most polluted. Ukrainian SSR, Gomel region. Byelorussian SSR and Bryansk region. RSFSR.

Radioactive fallout fell in the Leningrad region, Mordovia and Chuvashia.

Subsequently, contamination was noted in Norway, Finland and Sweden.

The first brief official message about the emergency was transmitted to TASS on April 28. According to the former General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Mikhail Gorbachev, said in an interview with the BBC in 2006, the May Day demonstrations in Kiev and other cities were not canceled due to the fact that the country's leadership did not have a “complete picture of what happened” and feared panic among the population. Only on May 14, Mikhail Gorbachev made a televised address in which he spoke about the true scale of the incident.

The Soviet state commission to investigate the causes of the emergency placed responsibility for the disaster on the management and operational staff of the station. The International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) Nuclear Safety Advisory Committee (INSAG) confirmed the findings of the Soviet commission in its 1986 report.

Tassovites in Chernobyl

One of the first journalists to go to the scene of the accident in Ukrainian Polesie to tell the truth about an unprecedented man-made disaster in history was Tass employee Vladimir Itkin. He showed himself as a real hero-reporter during the disaster. His materials were published in almost all newspapers in the country.

And just a few days after the explosion, the world was shocked by photographs of the smoking ruins of the fourth power unit, which was taken by TASS photojournalist Valery Zufarov and his Ukrainian colleague Vladimir Repik. Then, in the first days, flying around the power plant in a helicopter together with scientists and specialists, recording all the details of the atomic emission, they did not think about the consequences for their health. The helicopter from which the correspondents were filming hovered just 25 meters above the poisonous abyss.

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Valery already knew that he had “grabbed” a huge dose, but continued to fulfill his professional duty, creating a photo chronicle of this tragedy for posterity.

Reporters worked at the mouth of the reactor during the construction of the sarcophagus.

Valery paid for these photographs with his premature death in 1996. Zufarov has many awards, including the Golden Eye awarded by World Press Photo.

Among the Tass journalists who have the status of liquidator of the consequences of the Chernobyl accident is correspondent in Chisinau Valery Demidetsky. In the fall of 1986, he was sent to Chernobyl as a person who had already dealt with atom - Valery served on a nuclear submarine and knew what the radiation hazard was.

“Most of all,” he recalls, “the people there were amazing. They were real heroes. They understood well what they were doing, working day and night. I was amazed by Pripyat. The beautiful city where the nuclear power plant workers lived resembled the zone of Tarkovsky’s Stalker. Abandoned in a hurry houses, scattered children's toys, thousands of cars abandoned by residents."

– according to TASS reports

Walking to Hell

One of the first to take part in eliminating the accident were fire department workers. The fire signal at the nuclear power plant was received on April 26, 1986 at 1:28 am. By the morning, there were 240 personnel of the Kyiv Regional Fire Department in the accident zone.

The government commission turned to the chemical defense troops to assess the radiation situation and to military helicopter pilots to assist in extinguishing the core fire. By this time, several thousand people were working at the emergency site.

Representatives of the radiation control service, the Civil Defense Forces, the Chemical Troops of the Ministry of Defense, the State Hydrometeorological Service and the Ministry of Health worked in the accident zone.

In addition to eliminating the accident, their task included measuring the radiation situation at the nuclear power plant and studying radioactive contamination of natural environments, evacuating the population, and protecting the exclusion zone that was established after the disaster.

Doctors monitored those exposed and carried out the necessary treatment and preventive measures.

In particular, at different stages of liquidation of the consequences of the accident the following were involved:

From 16 to 30 thousand people from different departments for decontamination work;

More than 210 military units and units with a total number of 340 thousand military personnel, of which more than 90 thousand military personnel in the most acute period from April to December 1986;

18.5 thousand employees of internal affairs bodies;

Over 7 thousand radiological laboratories and sanitary and epidemiological stations;

In total, about 600 thousand liquidators from all over the former USSR took part in fire suppression and cleanup.

Immediately after the accident, the station's work was stopped. The mine of the exploded reactor with burning graphite was filled from helicopters with a mixture of boron carbide, lead and dolomite, and after the completion of the active stage of the accident - with latex, rubber and other dust-absorbing solutions (in total, about 11 thousand 400 tons of dry and liquid materials were dropped by the end of June).

After the first, most acute, stage, all efforts to localize the accident were concentrated on the creation of a special protective structure called a sarcophagus (“Shelter” object).

At the end of May 1986, a special organization was formed, consisting of several construction and installation divisions, concrete plants, mechanization departments, motor transport, energy supply, etc. Work was carried out around the clock, in shifts, the number of which reached 10 thousand people.

Between July and November 1986, a concrete sarcophagus with a height of more than 50 m and external dimensions of 200 by 200 m was built, covering the 4th power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, after which the emissions of radioactive elements stopped. During construction, an accident occurred: on October 2, an Mi-8 helicopter caught its blades on a crane cable and fell on the station territory, killing four crew members.

Inside the “Shelter” there is at least 95% of irradiated nuclear fuel from the destroyed reactor, including about 180 tons of uranium-235, as well as about 70 thousand tons of radioactive metal, concrete, glassy mass, several tens of tons of radioactive dust with a total activity of more than 2 million curies.

"Shelter" under threat

The world's largest international structures - from energy concerns to financial corporations - continue to provide assistance to Ukraine in solving the problems of final cleanup of the Chernobyl zone.

The main disadvantage of the sarcophagus is its leakage (the total area of ​​the cracks reaches 1 thousand sq. m).

The guaranteed service life of the old Shelter was calculated until 2006, so in 1997 the G7 countries agreed on the need to build Shelter 2, which would cover the outdated structure.

Currently, a large protective structure, the New Safe Confinement, is being built - an arch that will be placed over the Shelter. In April 2019, it was reported that it was 99% ready and had undergone a three-day trial operation.

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Work on the construction of the second sarcophagus was supposed to be completed in 2015, but was postponed more than once. The main reason for the delay is said to be a "serious shortage of funds."

The total cost of completing the project, of which the construction of the sarcophagus is an integral part, is 2.15 billion euros. At the same time, the cost of construction of the sarcophagus itself is 1.5 billion euros.

675 million euros were provided by the EBRD. If necessary, the bank is ready to finance the budget deficit for this project.

The Russian government decided to make up to 10 million euros (5 million euros annually) - an additional contribution to the Chernobyl fund - in 2016-2017.

180 million euros were promised by other international donors.

The US intended to provide $40 million.

Some Arab countries and China also announced their desire to make donations to the Chernobyl Fund.

Myths about the accident

There is a huge gap between scientific knowledge about the consequences of the accident and public opinion. The latter, in the overwhelming majority of cases, is influenced by the developed Chernobyl mythology, which has little relation to the real consequences of the disaster, notes the Institute for the Safe Development of Nuclear Energy of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IBRAE RAS).

Inadequate perception of radiation danger, according to experts, has objective, specific historical reasons, including:

State silence about the causes and real consequences of the accident;

Ignorance by the population of the elementary fundamentals of the physics of processes occurring both in the field of nuclear energy and in the field of radiation and radioactive exposure;

Hysteria in the media provoked by the above reasons;

Numerous social problems of a federal scale, which have become good soil for the rapid formation of myths, etc.

Indirect damage from the accident, associated with socio-psychological and socio-economic consequences, is significantly higher than direct damage from the effects of Chernobyl radiation.

Myth 1.

The accident had a catastrophic impact on the health of tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of people

According to the Russian National Radiation-Epidemiological Register (NRER), radiation sickness was detected in 134 people who were at the emergency unit on the first day. Of these, 28 died within a few months after the accident (27 in Russia), 20 died from various causes within 20 years.

Over the past 30 years, NRER has recorded 122 cases of leukemia among liquidators. 37 of them could have been induced by Chernobyl radiation. There was no increase in the number of diseases of other types of oncology among liquidators compared to other groups of the population.

In the period from 1986 to 2011, out of 195 thousand Russian liquidators registered in the NRER, about 40 thousand people died from various causes, while the overall mortality rates did not exceed the corresponding average values ​​for the population of the Russian Federation.

According to NRER data at the end of 2015, out of 993 cases of thyroid cancer in children and adolescents (at the time of the accident), 99 could be associated with radiation exposure.

No other consequences for the population were recorded, which completely refutes all existing myths and stereotypes about the scale of the radiological consequences of the accident on public health, experts say. The same conclusions were confirmed 30 years after the disaster.

Curie, becquerel, sievert - what is the difference

Radioactivity is the ability of some natural elements and artificial radioactive isotopes to spontaneously decay, emitting radiation invisible and imperceptible to humans.

To measure the amount of a radioactive substance or its activity, two units are used: an off-system unit curie and unit becquerel, adopted in the International System of Units (SI).

The environment and living organisms are affected by the ionizing effects of radiation, which is characterized by the dose of radiation or irradiation.

The greater the radiation dose, the greater the degree of ionization. The same dose can accumulate over different times, and the biological effect of radiation depends not only on the magnitude of the dose, but also on the time of its accumulation. The faster the dose is received, the greater its damaging effect.

Different types of radiation create different damaging effects with the same dose of radiation. All national and international standards are established in terms of equivalent radiation dose. The extrasystemic unit of this dose is rem, and in the SI system – sievert(Sv).

First Deputy Director of the Institute for the Safe Development of Nuclear Energy of the Russian Academy of Sciences Rafael Harutyunyan clarifies that if we analyze the additional doses accumulated by residents of the Chernobyl zones in the years following the accident, then out of the 2.8 million Russians who found themselves in the affected area:

2.6 million received less than 10 millisieverts. This is five to seven times less than the global average radiation dose from natural background radiation;

Fewer than 2 thousand people received additional doses of more than 120 millisieverts. This is one and a half to two times less than the radiation doses to residents of countries such as Finland.

It is for this reason, the scientist believes, that no radiological consequences are and cannot be observed among the population, except for the thyroid cancer already noted above.

According to specialists from the Scientific Center for Radiation Medicine of the Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine, out of 2.34 million people living in the contaminated territories of Ukraine, in the 12 years after the disaster, approximately 94,800 people died from cancers of various origins, and about 750 additionally died due to Chernobyl cancers. Human.

For comparison: among 2.8 million people, regardless of their place of residence, the annual mortality rate from cancers not related to the radiation factor ranges from 4 to 6 thousand, that is, over 30 years - from 90 to 170 thousand deaths.

What doses of radiation are lethal?

The natural background radiation that exists everywhere, as well as some medical procedures, lead to the fact that each person annually receives on average an equivalent radiation dose of 2 to 5 millisieverts.

For people professionally involved with radioactive materials, the annual equivalent dose should not exceed 20 millisieverts.

A dose of 8 sieverts is considered lethal, and a half-survival dose, at which half of the irradiated group of people dies, is 4-5 sieverts.

At the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, about a thousand people who were near the reactor at the time of the disaster received doses of 2 to 20 sieverts, which in some cases turned out to be fatal.

For liquidators, the average dose was about 120 millisieverts.

© YouTube.com/TASS

Myth 2.

The genetic consequences of the Chernobyl accident for humanity are terrible

According to Harutyunyan, over 60 years of detailed scientific research, world science has not observed any genetic defects in human offspring due to radiation exposure of their parents.

This conclusion is confirmed by the results of constant monitoring of both the victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the subsequent generation.

No excess of genetic deviations relative to the national average was recorded.

20 years after Chernobyl, the International Commission on Radiological Protection, in its 2007 recommendations, reduced the value of hypothetical risks by almost 10 times.

At the same time, there are other opinions. According to the research of Doctor of Agricultural Sciences Valery Glazko:

After a disaster, not everyone who should have been born is born.

Forms that are less specialized but are more resistant to adverse environmental factors are predominantly reproduced.

The response to the same doses of ionizing radiation depends on its novelty for the population.

The scientist believes that the real consequences of the Chernobyl accident on human populations will be available for analysis by 2026, since the generation directly affected by the accident is only now beginning to start families and have children.

Myth 3.

Nature suffered from the nuclear power plant accident even more than humans

At Chernobyl, there was an unprecedentedly large release of radionuclides into the atmosphere; on this basis, the Chernobyl accident is considered the most severe man-made accident in human history. Today, almost everywhere, with the exception of the most contaminated areas, the dose rate has returned to background levels.

The effects of irradiation on flora and fauna were noticeable only directly next to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant within the exclusion zone.

The paradigm of radioecology is such that if a person is protected, then the environment is protected with a huge margin, notes Professor Harutyunyan. If the impact on human health of a radiation incident is minimal, then its impact on nature will be even smaller. The threshold for negative impacts on flora and fauna is 100 times higher than for humans.

The impact on nature after the accident was observed only near the destroyed power unit, where the radiation dose to trees in 2 weeks reached 2000 roentgens (in the so-called “red forest”). At the moment, the entire natural environment, even in this place, has been completely restored and even flourished due to a sharp decrease in anthropogenic impact.

Myth 4.

The resettlement of people from the city of Pripyat and surrounding areas was poorly organized

The evacuation of residents of the city of 50 thousand was carried out quickly, says Harutyunyan. Despite the fact that, according to the standards in force at that time, evacuation was mandatory only if the dose reached 750 mSv, the decision was made when the predicted dose level was less than 250 mSv. Which is quite consistent with today's understanding of emergency evacuation criteria. The information that people received large doses of radiation exposure during the evacuation is not true, the scientist is sure.