(This month marks the 23rd anniversary of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Russia. Please to enjoy.)
At 1:00 AM on April 25, 1986, the operators of the
#4 Reactor at the
Chernobyl Nuclear Power Complex began a test to determine whether or not the plant?s turbines could produce sufficient enough energy to keep the coolant pumps running, in the event of a loss of power, until the emergency diesel generator was activated. The safety systems were shut off to avoid interruption of the test and the reactor was set to run down to 25-30% capacity, at which point the test would begin. At 1:00 PM that day the reactor reached 50% power and remained there for roughly the next 10 hours because it still needed to provide power to
Kiev that afternoon/evening. The operator chose during this time to switch off the first of the plant?s two turbines and the test was put on hold.
The #4 reactor was a
Russian design called
RBMK, an acronym for the phrase
Reactor Bolshoi Moshchnosty Kanalny, loosely meaning "reactor (of) large power (with) channels", and it is a very rudimentary and unstable design. To make a long and complicated story short(er), it employed low-enriched uranium (U-235) fuel rods to pump out neutrons to boil water, the steam from which would spin the turbines, generating electricity. To regulate the reaction, the fuel rods were inserted into graphite channels and between those were adjustable control rods made of boron, both graphite and boron absorb neutrons ? more control rods, fewer neutrons, less steam, lower power. A major RBMK design flaw is that at lower power levels (which the test they?d begun was geared toward), the reactor becomes highly unstable and unpredictable, something Chernobyl would demonstrate. Keeping the equilibrium, a task described as
?like spinning 10 plates?, was a low-tech computer center and, by some accounts, an inexperienced set of operators. The test itself would be described as
?airplane pilots experimenting with the engines in flight?.
At 11:15 PM on April 25, the Chernobyl staff gets permission to proceed with the test and begins gradually drawing down the power level. At 12:28 AM, now the morning of April 26, an operator who was supposed to hold the power at 30% makes an error in forgetting to reset a control rod and causes the reactor to abruptly drop to 1% power, almost shutting it down. The core begins to fill with xenon gas, yet another neutron absorber and a byproduct of the fuel rods in all reactors when there is a quick power drop, the xenon essentially hastens the reactor toward complete shutdown. The steam normally running through the system cooled and became water which overfills the core and begins absorbing neutrons as well. In an attempt to offset these two effects and keep the plant running, the operator violated procedures and began manually pulling nearly all the control rods. But under the current conditions inside the core, the highest he?d ever be able to get to was 7%.
The operators managed to keep this percentage steady from about 1:00-1:20 AM, and receiving no warning signals because they?d shut down the safety systems to facilitate the test, they decide to try to run the it anyway, well below the desired parameters. At 1:23:04 AM the test commenced and the water pumps inside the core began to slow as the operator switched off the second turbine. The water in the core, now moving more slowly, began to boil and became steam, which no longer absorbs neutrons at the same rate. The power began to rise rapidly, and at 1:23:40 AM the operator pushed the button to drive the emergency shutdown rods into the core, but ?putting on the brakes? had exactly the opposite effect and
in 4 seconds the power level shot up to over 100 times full capacity.
At 1:23:44 AM the reactor exploded, blowing off its 1,000-ton steel and concrete containment lid, tearing hole in the roof of the building housing the reactor and exposing the core to the atmosphere. Burning pieces of uranium and graphite flew out of the explosion and landed in buildings surround the plant, causing fires to erupt. The reactor itself would burn for 10 days, releasing a radioactive cloud that would mostly poison the more immediate area, especially
Belarus and
Ukraine, but by April 29 instruments recorded high levels of radiation in
Poland,
Germany,
Austria and
Romania. On April 30 in
Switzerland and northern
Italy. On May 1 in
France,
Belgium, the
Netherlands,
Great Britain and northern
Greece. On May 2 in
Japan. On May 3 in
Israel,
Kuwait and
Turkey. On May 5 in
India, and by May 6 in the
United States and
Canada. It took less than a week for Chernobyl to become the world?s problem.
That night, in the city of
Pripyat, just 4 km (~2.5 miles) from the plant, if you weren?t woken by the sound of the explosion or the light from the fire, you were by a phone call. Many came out to gaze at the burning plant and in addition to the red glow of the fires, a few described a yellow-blue (though not green) glow over the plant. One survivor said that that was the night she realized
?death can be so beautiful?. The men from Pripyat and inevitably other men from all over Russia, soldier and civilian, were mobilized into clean-up teams called
Liquidators who saw it as their duty to work together to clean up the mess ? to claim ?victory? over the reactor ? this was what it meant to be
Communist. Not surprisingly, they were ill-prepared for the task being given minimal protection, inadequate tools and very little information about what it was they were actually dealing with. Between civilian and military Liquidator units, an estimated 600,000-800,000 people were employed for clean-up of the accident over the next year.
Unfortunately, the Russian government saw to it that not many people beyond scientists were told or given much information on the effects of radiation itself. The government had shown the average citizen what to do in the case of a nuclear missile attack, but just as in the United States? own
Civil Defense films, very little was revealed on the effects of radiation poisoning. Many common Russians
didn?t even know radiation existed! And because they couldn?t sense the radiation in any way, they believed the stories of this ?invisible killer? to be more lies from the government trying to get one over on them again, while still others thought another war had started. Without even the concept of radiation, Chernobyl was just another fire?
The firefighters sent to the reactor had managed to put out the fires in the surrounding buildings by 5:00 AM on April 27, but at a heavy cost. Given no special equipment, they fought the flames with their trucks and hoses, which stopped functioning in the radiation. They used water and their boots to stomp out burning hunks of radioactive graphite ? the air foul with radioisotopes they no doubt inhaled. Many of them would die horribly over the course of the next 14 days having received 2,000-3,000 roentgens, 400 is considered a lethal dose.
Their skin would puff up and then return to semi-normal but be very dry, their hair would fall out in clumps. The radiation burns would then come to the surface (like a microwave, radiation cooks you from inside) and their flesh would turn nearly black and break open in lesions. Their skin would become so brittle that folds in the bed sheet would tear it open. They would not be able to hold down meals and ended up vomiting pieces of their organs and intestines along with the food. At the end the corpse would be literally wounds, blood and ooze having nearly liquefied. The body would then be put into a thick plastic bag, and then into a coffin. The coffin would be bagged as well and then buried in a specially designed zinc-lined, cement-topped grave. The remaining firefighters who managed to survive (like anything, radiation works differently depending on the person) would all acquire some form of sickness and any children they attempted to have would invariably have deformities, if the baby survived until birth at all.
But even with those fires out, they still had to contend with putting out the reactor core. The pumping system had been so damaged that there was no way to flood the core chamber. So some 30 helicopters flew hundreds of rounds over the top of the smoking building to drop tons of lead and sand into the hole to smother the flames. The Liquidators at the reactor were given lead vests, but this didn?t protect them from the radiation coming from
below them and many would end up like the firefighters. This is doubly tragic because apparently their effort had done more harm than good. They?d essentially managed to insulate the heat and trap it under a blanket ? and the core started getting hotter, which meant, of course, that the radiation it was emitting increased as well. By the end of the official clean-up many of the vehicles used, the vast majority of which would no longer function, would be so contaminated they were put into a ?graveyard? called
Rassohka.
On the 4th day with the reactor still burning and permanent evacuations becoming more widespread, the propaganda began. The radio droned the same message of
?things are stabilizing, things are stabilizing ? don?t panic.? over and over. Eventually,
Gorbachev would go on television to give pep speeches in which he?d declare that while it was a terrible tragedy
?the Soviets are winning the battle with the reactor?. He also denounced any claims to the contrary as ?propaganda of the decadent West?. The Liquidators were ordered to fly a Soviet flag over the reactor as proof of this ?victory?. It would only take a few weeks before the radiation would consume the flag and another would be ordered put in its place. Liquidators were then sent up to replace this ludicrous flag, bathed in radiation while doing so, for what amounted to a PR stunt. And this stunt was being ordered by a group of men who had never visited the site and who?d managed to secure for themselves private lines of distribution for clean food and water.
Meanwhile, inside the #4 reactor building, were some of the most courageous of all the Liquidators. They laid down cement inside the building to stop the flow of ?fuel lava? that seeped out of the core into the floors below it. The ?lava? was uranium combined with some unknown mixture of metals that was so dense and hard, a rifle was needed to chip off a piece for study (
adamantium, perhaps?). And then there was the danger of a nuclear explosion. Apparently, if the remainder of the core and what was left of the graphite casings managed to fall into the pool of water below, it would form critical mass with an explosion estimated at
3-5 megatons ? this is a thousand times larger than the bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima combined. Large portions of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe would be uninhabitable. Because the equipment was so wrecked in the explosion, someone had to dive into the pool and release the drains manually ? keep in mind that the radiation level this close to the core was off the scale. Volunteers were offered money, cars, apartments in
Moscow, aid for their family for life ? the team that finally succeeded was also given 7,000 rubles. After they?d managed to empty the pool, they tried pumping concrete under the core in hopes of snuffing it out, but this had little effect. It wasn?t until someone got the bright idea to pump in liquid nitrogen that the Liquidators managed to finally snuff the smoldering reactor core.
They attempted to use robots donated by the Japanese to gather the debris from the roof of the reactor, but the intense radiation would cause the robots to malfunction ? only humans could survive long enough to be effective. So after the helicopters had smothered the core, damping its estimated 2,000?C temperatures, Liquidators were sent to the roof to collect in wheelbarrows the hunks of uranium and graphite, along with concrete and metal debris, and toss it over the side to more Liquidators on the ground so it could be taken to the burial pits. Each man would spend what they were told was 1.5-2 minutes on the roof, and were then discharged, given a medal, awarded 100 rubles and a trip back to from wherever they?d come. The problem was that the task took more than 2 minutes to complete and the fact that the heat and radiation were melting the roof only slowed the process further.
?It was like walking in tar,? a surviving Liquidator would recall. Each would be exposed to 10,000+ roentgens in the short time spent on the roof. When a team came down, they were measured with a dosimeter to see how many roentgens they?d collected, but they were never told the number. How many of these men have died or are ill as a result of their exposure is apparently still a bitter dispute.
Over the next seven months the ruined reactor building and its molten core were enclosed within a reinforced concrete casing known as
The Sarcophagus. This shelter was supposed to help absorb radiation and contain the remaining fuel. The Sarcophagus was considered to be an interim measure and was initially designed with a lifetime of only 20 to 30 years in mind. The greatest problem is a lack of stability: it was hastily constructed, and has many ?gaps? which have begun to seep radiation. If The Sarcophagus breaks open more radiation will be released into the atmosphere. There are currently plans to rebuild the structure properly so that it can contain the radiation for 100 years. Construction was completed on April 23, 2008 and is reported to be able to withstand an earthquake registering up to 6.0 on the Richter scale.
At the same time the Liquidators were struggling to extinguish the core, even more were sent out 30km (~19 miles) in every direction from the plant to cleanse an area that would become known as
The Zone. Armed with shovels and bulldozers, they started by digging up and burying the contaminated topsoil ? they had to bury the earth ? but this was largely futile as the reactor was still burning and would re-contaminate the turned soil anyway. When they came to a village or town they would evacuate the inhabitants, who were allowed to bring no possessions and no pets. Many were told they?d be back in 3-5 days to stop them from carrying radioactive objects out of The Zone. Eventually the Liquidators would hunt, kill and bury in huge pits the abandoned, contaminated house pets, lest they manage to find their way out of The Zone on their own. There were some towns that were so radioactive, the Liquidators were forced to chase out the inhabitants and bury the buildings and houses with everything still inside. An estimated 200,000 people were evacuated from The Zone.
There were reports of truly bizarre phenomena that occurred because of the high radiation levels in The Zone. Chicken and rooster combs turned black. People discovered a white powder or sometimes black, red or blue ?chunks? of?
something that would be in their yards and gardens that would melt away when the rain came. Rainfall would leave puddles that would turn yellow and bright green. A pond in one town turned deep red and the geese and ducks avoided it. Strange blue lights in the forests at night. A tree near the plant collected enough radiation to glow red ?
in the daytime. Calves were born with long fur that hung to the ground. When milk went bad, instead of curdling, it turned to powder. There are large areas of unnerving silence that even the insects have abandoned.
And yet some people stayed and are still living there to this day. Some wouldn?t go in the initial evacuation, but most have snuck back in after making their way around the checkpoints surrounding The Zone. Some came back because they?d always lived there, others because they didn?t have the strength to start over again and still others because there was no war.
?One thing is for certain, no one is going to be fighting over this land,? rationalized one re-settler. Some say it?s a bit lonely, but also point out that people who survived Chernobyl, derisively referred to as
Chernobylites, tend to be shunned or feared by others. As can be expected, the cancer rates in the survivors of the accident have skyrocketed. And the residual contamination has caused cancer rates in the former Soviet Union in general to rise dramatically, especially among children.
It is beyond our capabilities to document how Chernobyl has affected the rest of the world.
Representation of the spread of contaminants from Chernobyl
