Chernobyl NPP: the disaster of April 26, 1986

April 26, 1986 ... This date will be remembered by several generations of Ukrainians, Byelorussians and Russians as the day and year when a terrible man-made accident occurred. When all this happened, perhaps even the most experienced experts completely and completely did not realize what is waiting for us all afterwards.

The catastrophe of April 26, 1986 caused thousands of deaths and diseases, contaminated forests, poisoned water and soil, mutations of plants and animals. Among other things, on the map of Ukraine appeared dvadtsatikilometrovaya exclusion zone, travel to the territory which is possible only if there is a special authorization document.

This article is aimed not only at once to remind readers of what happened on April 26, 1986, but also to look at what happened, as they say, from different sides. Now, it seems, it's not a secret for anyone that in the modern world, more and more often those who are willing to pay a lot of money to go on a trip to these places, and some former residents, and not having taken root in other regions, Often return to their ghostly and abandoned cities.

Brief summary of events

Almost 30 years ago, on April 26, 1986, the largest nuclear accident in the world happened on the territory of present-day Ukraine, the consequences of which the planet feels to this day.

At the power plant in the city of Chernobyl, the nuclear reactor of the fourth power unit exploded. A huge amount of deadly radioactive substances was simultaneously thrown into the air.

It has already been calculated that only for the first three months, beginning on April 26, 1986, 31 people died from radiation just on the spot. Later 134 people were sent to specialized clinics for intensive treatment for radiation sickness, and 80 more died in torment from the infection of the skin, blood and respiratory tract.

The Chernobyl nuclear power plant (1986, April 26 and the following days) needed more workers than ever before. In the elimination of the accident, more than 600,000 people participated, most of whom were servicemen.

Perhaps the most dangerous consequence of the accident 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 the vast part of the USSR, but also Eastern Europe and the Scandinavian countries, but most of all the Chernobyl tragedy on April 26, 1986 affected the Byelorussian and Ukrainian SSR.

A lot of international experts have investigated the causes of the accident, but even so far no one knows for sure the true causes of what happened.

Distribution area

After the accident around the Chernobyl NPP, it was necessary to designate the so-called "dead" zone in 30 km. Hundreds of settlements were destroyed almost to the ground or buried under tons of land with the help of heavy equipment. If we consider the sphere of agriculture, we can confidently say that Ukraine at that time lost five million hectares of fertile soil.

In the reactor of the fourth power unit before the accident there were almost 190 tons of fuel, 30% of which during the explosion was released into the environment. In addition, at that time in the active phase there were various radioactive isotopes accumulated during the operation. They, in the opinion of experts, were the greatest danger.

More than 200 000 square meters. Km of surrounding land was contaminated by radiation. Lethal radiation spread like an aerosol, gradually settling on the surface of the earth. The pollution of the territories then mainly depended only on the direction of the wind. Very badly affected those regions in which on April 26, 1986 and the next few weeks it rained.

Who is to blame for what happened?

In April 1987, a trial was held in Chernobyl. One of the main culprits of the nuclear accident at the Chernobyl NPP was the plant's director, a certain V. Bryukhanov, who initially neglected elementary safety rules. Subsequently, this person deliberately understated data on the level of radiation, did not put into effect a plan for the evacuation of workers and the local population.

Also in the course of the case, the facts of gross neglect of his official duties on April 26, 1986 by the chief engineer of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, N. Fomin and his deputy A. Dyatlov, were discovered. All of them were sentenced to 10 years in prison.

For another five years, the chief of the very shift on which the accident happened (B. Rogozhkin) was convicted, to three - A. Kovalenko, his deputy, and to two - Yu. Laushkin, the state inspector of the State Atomic Energy Inspectorate.

At first glance it may seem that it is cruel enough, but if all these people showed great caution in working at such a dangerous enterprise as the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the disaster of April 26, 1986 would hardly have happened.

Notification and evacuation of the population

The expert commission claims that, after the accident, the first thing to do immediately would be to evacuate the population, but no one took the responsibility to make the necessary decisions. Happen then, on the contrary, human victims could be tens, if not hundreds of times smaller.

In practice, it turned out that people all day did not know anything about what happened. April 26, 1986, someone worked on the garden, someone prepared the city for the upcoming May holidays, kindergarten kids were walking on the street, and the schoolchildren, as if nothing had happened, were engaged in physical education in fresh, they thought, air.

Work on export of the population has begun only at night when there was an official instruction to prepare for evacuation. On April 27, the directive on full evacuation from the city, scheduled for 14.00, was announced.

So the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the April 26, 1986 catastrophe that deprived many thousands of Ukrainians of their homes, turned the modest satellite town of Pripyat into a terrible ghost with devastated houses, abandoned parks and squares and dead, deserted streets.

Panic and provocation

When the first rumors about the accident were passed, a part of the population decided to leave the city on their own. Already on April 26, 1986, closer to the afternoon, many women in panic and desperation, picking up babies, literally fled on the road away from the city.

All would be nothing, but it was done through a forest, the dose of contamination which in fact many times exceeded all the permissible indicators. And the road ... According to eyewitnesses, the asphalt covering was shone with some strange neon shade, although it was tried to fill it with water, mixed with some unknown white inhabitant with white solution.

It is very unfortunate that serious decisions on the rescue and evacuation of the population were not taken on time.

Finally, it was only a few years later that it became clear that the special services of the Soviet Union were aware of the harvesting of three tons of meat and fifteen tons of oil in the territories directly affected by the Chernobyl tragedy on April 26, Despite this, they decided to rework radioactive products, adding relatively pure components to them. In accordance with the decision, this radioactive meat and oil was carried to many large mills in the country.

The KGB also knew that during the construction of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant defective equipment from Yugoslavia was used, it was also familiarized with various miscalculations in the design of the station, the separation of the foundation and the presence of cracks in the walls ...

What was done? Attempts to prevent an even greater grief

About half of the second night in Chernobyl (1986, April 26) a fire signal was received by the local fire department. The guard on duty went to the call and almost immediately gave the signal of a fire of high complexity.

Upon arrival, a special team saw that the roof of the engine room and the huge reactor hall were burning. By the way, for today it is established that when fighting that terrible fire, the guys who were engaged in the reactor hall most of all suffered.

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

In all, 14 cars and 69 employees were involved. Of overalls, people who performed such an important mission had only a canvas robe, helmet and mittens. Men extinguished the fire without gas masks, because at high temperatures it was simply impossible to work in them.

Already at two o'clock in the morning the first victims of radiation appeared. People began to have the strongest vomiting and general weakness, and also observed the so-called "nuclear tanning." They say that some of them, along with the mittens, also took off the skin of their hands.

Desperate firemen did everything possible to prevent the fire from reaching the third block and on. The personnel of the same station engaged in extinguishing local foci in various stations of the station and took all necessary measures to prevent the explosion of hydrogen. These actions helped to prevent an even more technogenic catastrophe.

Biological consequences for all mankind

Ionizing radiation in contact with all living organisms has a harmful biological effect.

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

Ghost town called Pripyat

A few subsequent years after the man-made disaster, this locality evoked the interest of various kinds of specialists. They massively came here, trying to measure and analyze the level of radiation background of the contaminated territory.

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

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

Stalkers of the Chernobyl zone

First of all, it should be noted that stalkers are people who, by hook or by crook, are penetrating the exclusion zone. Chernobyl extremists are conventionally divided into two categories, differing in their appearance, used slang, photographs and prepared reports. The first - curious, the second - the ideological.

Agree, now in the media you can really find a lot of information on the topic: "Chernobyl. 1986 year. 26 April". Curious stalkers from there and got their knowledge about the radiation zone. Computer games also played a significant role. These young people, whose average age rarely exceeds 20 years, in most cases only penetrate the exclusion zone, but do not cross the very boundary of Chernobyl. This is where their adventures end.

The second category is unique ideological stalkers. They climb deeper, not only in the 30-kilometer zone, but also 10-kilometer, and live there for several days. It's hard to explain what drives such people, but it seems to be their way of expressing themselves. There are no reliable data on the number of stalkers in this group, but there are no more than 20 of them according to approximate estimates, and "game" ones are an order of magnitude higher.

Modern inhabitants of Chernobyl

A significant part of the evacuated population, despite the ban and restrictions, after a while still came back. Out of a hundred thousand people taken home, about 1200 returned home, but by 2007 there were only 314 of them. They are called self-travelers. As a rule, these are elderly people, and the main reason for the sharp reduction in their numbers is precisely age. What prompted people to return to their homes contaminated with radiation? The main reasons for this decision were a deep economic crisis in the country, a drop in people's incomes and a reluctance to abandon their homes.

The further destiny of power station

After the accident in April 1986, all the work of the nuclear power plant was stopped, but already in October, after the construction of the sarcophagus and the purification works, two blocks were re-earned, and in December 1987, the third one was launched.

In 1995, Ukraine, the European Union and the G-7 countries signed the Memorandum, under which the program for the complete closure of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant began, which was to be done by the year 2000. In December 2000, the 3rd unit of the Chernobyl NPP was finally shut down.

To date, the sarcophagus, erected over the burning block of the station, is gradually being destroyed. Therefore, the EBRD in 2004 held a tender for the construction of a new shelter, in 2007 it was won by a joint French enterprise.

In 2015, Chernobyl NPP finally and irrevocably ceased its work.