Chernobyl notebook. Part of 4
In the medical unit of the city of Pripyat
The first group of victims, as we already know, was taken to the medical unit thirty to forty minutes after the explosion. It should be noted all the features and severity of the situation in a nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, when the effects of radiation on human organisms turned out to be complex: powerful external and internal exposure, complicated by thermal burns and moisturizing of the skin. The picture of real lesions and doses could not be quickly established due to the lack of data from doctors of the radiation safety of the nuclear power plant on the true radiation fields. As I mentioned earlier, radiometers at the NPP showed radiation intensity of three to five X-rays per hour. At the same time, more accurate information of the chief of the Civil Defense Headquarters of the NPP S. S. Vorobiev was not taken into account. The “softened” information of the RB service of the NPP, naturally, did not properly alert the doctors of the medical unit, which was already insufficiently prepared in this regard.
And only the primary reactions of those irradiated: a powerful erythema (nuclear tan), edema, burns, nausea, vomiting, weakness, in some states of shock - forced us to assume very heavy lesions.
In addition, the medical unit serving the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was not equipped with the necessary radiometric equipment with a fairly wide range of measurement scales, allowing for the prompt determination of the nature and extent of external and internal radiation exposure. Undoubtedly, the doctors of the medical unit were not prepared organizationally to receive such patients. In this connection, the urgent classification of victims according to the type of the course of the disease in acute radiation syndrome, each of which has certain early symptoms, the differences between which are important for the treatment of the disease, was not carried out. In such cases, the probable outcome of the disease is chosen as the main criterion:
1. Recovery is impossible or unlikely.
2. Recovery is possible with the use of modern therapeutic agents and methods.
3. Recovery is likely.
4. Recovery is guaranteed.
Such a classification is especially important in the case when a large number of people are irradiated during an accident, and it may be necessary to more quickly identify those who can receive life assistance in a timely manner. That is, such assistance should include those affected by the second and third groups of persons of the above classification, since their fate essentially depends on timely therapeutic measures taken.
Here it is especially important to know when the irradiation began, how long it lasted, the skin was dry or wet (radiant nuclides diffuse more intensively through moist skin, especially through the skin affected by burns and wounds).
We know that almost the entire shift of Akimov did not have respirators and protector tablets (potassium iodide and pentocin), and the work of these people took place without competent dosimetric support.
All the victims who arrived in the medical unit were not classified according to the course of acute radiation sickness, they freely communicated with each other. Sufficient decontamination of the skin was not provided (only washing in the shower, which was ineffective or ineffective due to diffusion of radionuclides with accumulation in the granular layer under the epidermis).
At the same time, the main attention was paid to the treatment of patients of the first group with severe primary reactions, who were immediately put under a drip, and patients with severe thermal burns (firefighters, Shashenok, Kurguz).
Only fourteen hours after the accident, a specialized brigade of physicists, radiotherapists and hematologists arrived from Moscow by plane. Single, triple blood tests were performed, outpatient discharge cards with clinical manifestations after the accident, injured complaints, white blood cell count and leukocyte count were filled out ...
Evidenced by the head of the shift unit number 4 VG Smagin (took a shift from Akimov):
About fourteen hours left the control room (vomiting, headache, dizziness, faintness), washed and changed into a sanitary inspection room, came to the ABC-1 in the health center. There were already doctors, sisters. Tried to write down where it was, what radiation fields? But what did we know? We really did not know anything. Bobbed up on a thousand microroentgen per second - that's all. Where was? .. Unless tell, where was. It is necessary for them to report the entire NPP project. Besides, I was sick all the time. Then we, about five people, were put in an ambulance and taken to the Pripyat medical unit.
They brought in the emergency room, RUPom (device for measuring activity) measured the activity of each. All radioactive. Showered again. Anyway, radioactive. They took us to the third floor to therapists. It was in the residency a few therapists. Lyudmila Ivanovna Prilepskaya immediately saw me and took me to her. Her husband is also the head of the shift unit, and we were friends families. But then I and the other guys started vomiting. We saw a bucket or urn, grabbed and three of us began to tear into this bucket.
Prilepskaya recorded my data, found out the place where I was on the unit and what kind of radiation fields there are. I could not understand the fact that there are fields everywhere, dirt everywhere. There is no clean corner. The entire nuclear power plant is a continuous radiation field. Tried to find out how much I grabbed. In between vomiting, she told her how he could. He said that nobody knows the fields of us for sure. Bobbed up on a thousand microroentgen per second - that's all. Felt very bad. Wild weakness, dizziness, nausea.
They were taken to the ward and placed on a free bed. Immediately put the drip in the vein. It lasted a long time. About two and a half to three hours. Three bottles were poured: in two clear liquid, in one - yellowish. We all called it - saline.
Two hours later, the body began to feel cheerful. When the dropper was over, I got up and started looking for a smoke. There were two more in the ward. In one bed ensign from the guard. All said:
- I'll run home. Wife, children worry. Do not know where I am. And I do not know what happened to them.
“Lie down,” I told him. Grabbed Rem, now get well ...
On the other bunk lay a young serviceman from the Chernobyl commissioning enterprise. When he learned that Volodya Shashenok died in the morning, it seems, at six in the morning, he started shouting why he was hidden, that he was dead, why he hadn’t been told. It was hysterical. And it looks like he was scared. Once Shashenyok died, it means that he may die. He shouted great.
- Everyone hides, hides! .. Why haven't they told me ?!
Then he calmed down, but he had a grueling hiccups.
The medical unit was dirty. The device showed radioactivity. Mobilized women from Yuzhatomenergomontazh. They washed all the time in the hallway and in the wards. The dosimetrist walked and measured everything. Mumbled at the same time:
- Wash, wash, and everything is dirty ...
It seems that he was dissatisfied with the work of women, although they tried hard and were not to blame for anything. The windows were wide open, the street was stuffy, radioactivity in the air. Gamma background in the air. Therefore, the device incorrectly showed. That is true - showed dirt. From the street, everything flew inward and settled.
In the open window I heard my name. Looked out, and at the bottom Seryozha Kamyshny, the shift supervisor of the reactor department from my shift. He asks: "Well, how are you?" And I answered him: "Is there a smoke?"
- There is!
They lowered the twine and lifted cigarettes on the twine. I told him:
- And you, Seryoga, what are you wandering about? You also picked up. Come to us.
And he says:
- Yes, I feel fine. Here is deactivated. - He pulled a bottle of vodka from his pocket. - You do not need?
- No, no! I have already poured ...
Looked into the ward to Lena Toptunov. He lay. All brown-brown. He had a very swollen mouth, lips, swollen tongue. It was difficult for him to speak.
All tormented one: why the explosion?
I asked him about the reactivity of stock. He hardly said that “The Rock" showed eighteen rods. But, maybe, it lied. The car sometimes lies ...
Volodya Shashenok died from burns and radiation at six in the morning. He seems to have already been buried in the village cemetery. And the deputy head of the electrical department, Alexander Lelechenko, after the drip, felt so well that he ran away from the medical unit and went to the unit again. The second time he was taken to Kiev in very serious condition. There he died in terrible agony. The total dose received by him was two and a half thousand X-rays. Neither intensive therapy nor bone marrow transplantation helped ...
After many droppers better. I met Proskuryakov and Kudryavtsev in the corridor. They both kept their hands pressed to their chest. As they closed them from the radiation of the reactor in the central hall, their hands remained in a bent position, they could not unbend, a terrible pain. Their faces and hands are very swollen, dark brown-brown. Both complained of excruciating pain in the skin of the hands and face. They could not speak for a long time, and I did not bother them anymore.
But Valera Perevozchenko did not stand up after the drip. He lay silently facing the wall. He said only that the terrible pain in the whole body. And the saline did not lift his mood.
Tolya Kurguz was covered in burn blisters. In other places, the skin burst and hung with rags. His face and hands were swollen and crusted. With every mimic movement, the crusts burst. And debilitating pain. He complained that the whole body turned into a solid pain.
In the same condition was Petya Palamarchuk, who carried out Volodya Shashenka from the atomic hell ...
Doctors, of course, did a lot for the victims, but their possibilities were limited. They themselves were irradiated. The atmosphere, the air in the medical unit - were radioactive. Heavily beamed and heavy patients. After all, they absorbed radionuclides inside and absorbed into the skin.
Indeed, nowhere in the world like this was not. We were the first after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But there is nothing to be proud of here ...
All who feel better, gathered in the smoking room. We think of only one thing: Why the explosion? There was here and Sasha Akimov, sad and terribly tanned. Anatoly Stepanovich Dyatlov entered. Smokes, thinks. His usual state. Someone asked:
- How many grabbed, Stepanych?
- Y-yes, I think, r-x-ray forty ... We will live ...
He was wrong exactly ten times. In the 6-th clinic in Moscow, he was determined four hundred X-rays. The third degree of acute radiation sickness. And he burned his legs great when he went on fuel and graphite around the block ...
But why did this happen? After all, everything proceeded normally. Everything was done correctly, the regime was relatively calm. And suddenly ... In a matter of seconds everything collapsed ... So all the operators thought.
And only Toptunov, Akimov and Dyatlov could, it seemed to everyone, answer these questions. But the trick was that they could not answer this question either. Many people had the word “sabotage” in their heads. Because when you can’t explain, you’ll think about the devil ...
Akimov answered my question one:
- We did everything right ... I do not understand why this happened ...
He was full of bewilderment and annoyance.
Then really many things were not clear. We have not yet realized the depth of the trouble that befell us. Dyatlov was also sure of the correctness of his actions.
By evening, a team of doctors arrived from the Moscow 6 Hospital. We went to the wards. Inspected us. The bearded doctor, it seems, Georgiy Dmitrievich Selidovkin, selected the first batch - twenty-eight people - for urgent dispatch to Moscow. Selection did on the nuclear tan. It was not up to tests. Almost all twenty-eight will die ...
From the window of the medical unit was clearly visible emergency unit. By night the graphite caught fire. Giant flame. It hung around the ventrub in an impressive firestorm. It was terrible to watch. Painfully.
Supervised the dispatch of the first batch of deputy executive committee Sasha Esaulov. Twenty-six people were put in the red ,, Ikarus ". Kurguz and Palamarchuk were taken by ambulance. We flew from Boryspil hour in three nights.
The rest, which was easier, including me, were sent to the 6 hospital in Moscow 27 in April. Left from Pripyat somewhere around twelve days. More than a hundred people in three "Ikarusami". Shouts and tears of the mourners. Everybody rode without changing their clothes in striped hospital clothes ...
In the 6 clinic, it was determined that I grabbed 280 glad ... "
At about nine in the evening on April 26, 1986, Boris Yevdokimovich Shcherbina, Deputy Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, arrived in Pripyat. Truly historical the role fell to him. He became the first chairman of the Government Commission on the Elimination of the Consequences of the Nuclear Disaster in Chernobyl. He, all his activities in the management of energy through the incompetent Mayor, in my opinion, accelerated the arrival of Chernobyl.
He was small, frail, now more than usual pale, with a tightly compressed, already senile mouth and powerful heavy folds of thin cheeks, he was calm, collected, concentrated.
He didn’t understand yet that around - both outside and indoors - the air was saturated with radioactivity, radiating gamma and beta rays, which absolutely do not care who was irradiated - Shcherbin or mere mortals. And there were about these mere mortals, in the night city, outside the office window, about forty-eight thousand with old men, women and children. But Shcherbine was almost the same all the same, for only he wanted and could decide whether to be or not to be evacuated, to consider or not to consider what had happened as a nuclear catastrophe.
Boris Evdokimovich Shcherbina
He behaved in his characteristic manner. At first he was quiet, modest, and even a little apathetic in appearance. The colossal, little controllable power invested in this little thin man gave him a sweet feeling of unlimited power, and it seemed that he, like the Lord God, himself decided when to punish him, when to pardon, but ... Shcherbina was a man, and that’s all he will happen as a person: at the beginning, secretly, against the background of external calm, a storm will ripen, then, when he understands and outlines something, a real storm will break out, an evil storm of haste and impatience:
- Hurry, hurry! Come on, come on!
But a cosmic tragedy broke out in Chernobyl. And the Cosmos must be crushed not only by the cosmic power, but also by the depth of the mind - this is also Cosmos, but only alive and, therefore, more powerful.
According to the results of the work of the working commissions, Maiorets was the first to report. He had to admit that the 4 unit was destroyed, and the reactor was destroyed. Briefly outlined the activities for the shelter (burial) of the unit. It is necessary, he says, to lay more than 200 thousand cubic meters of concrete in the explosion-destroyed body of the block. Apparently, it is necessary to make metal boxes, lining them with a block and to concrete them. It is not clear what to do with the reactor. He's hot. We need to think about evacuation. “But I hesitate. If you put out the reactor, the radioactivity should decrease or disappear ... "
“Do not rush to evacuate,” calmly, but it was obvious that this was calm, said Shcherbina. Inside he felt impotent rage.
Oh, how he wanted to avoid evacuation! After all, it all started well at the Mayor in the new ministry. And the ratio of installed power increased, and the frequency in the power systems stabilized ... And here you ...
After Mayor, Shasharin, Prushinsky, General Berdov, Gamanyuk, Vorobyov, Commander of the Chemical Troops, Colonel-General Pikalov, and from designers Kuklin and Koniz, from the directorate of the nuclear power plant Fomin and Bryukhanov spoke.
After listening to everyone, Shcherbina invited those present to collective reflection.
- Think, comrades, suggest. Now we need a brainstorm. I do not believe that it was impossible to extinguish some kind of reactor there. Gas wells extinguished, not such a fire was there - a firestorm. But extinguished the same!
And brainstorming began. Everyone said that he would climb into his head. This is the way to brainstorm. Even some kind of nonsense, a ridicule, heresy can unexpectedly push a practical thought. What was not suggested: to lift a huge tank of water with a helicopter and throw it onto the reactor, and make a sort of atomic Trojan horse in the form of a huge hollow concrete cube. Push people there and move this cube to the reactor, and, getting close, throw this very reactor with something ...
Someone asked:
- And what about this reinforced concrete collar, then to beat the “Trojan horse”, to move? The wheels are needed and the motor-idea was immediately rejected.
He expressed the idea himself Shcherbina. He proposed to inject into the supply channel, which is next to the block, water-metering fireboats and from there fill the burning reactor with water. But one of the physicists explained that you cannot extinguish nuclear fire with water, activity will trample even more. Water will evaporate, and steam with fuel will cover everything around. The idea of boats disappeared.
Finally, someone remembered that fire, including nuclear fire, was harmlessly put out by sand ...
And then it became clear that without aviation not enough. Urgently requested from Kiev helicopter pilots.
The Deputy Commander of the Air Force of the Kiev Military District, Major General Nikolai Timofeevich Antoshkin was already on his way to Chernobyl.
The order from the district was received on the evening of April 26: “Immediately leave for the city of Pripyat. Emergency nuclear unit decided to fall asleep sand. The height of the reactor is thirty meters. Apparently, apart from helicopters, no other equipment is suitable for this ... In Pripyat, act according to the situation ... Keep in touch with us constantly ... ”
Military helicopter pilots were stationed far from Pripyat and Chernobyl. We need to move closer ...
While General N. T. Antoshkin was on his way, the Government Commission was resolving the issue of evacuation. Particularly insisted on the evacuation of representatives of the Civil Defense and doctors from the Ministry of Health of the USSR.
- Evacuation is needed immediately! - ardently argued Deputy Minister of Health EI Vorobyov. - Plutonium, cesium, strontium is in the air ... The condition of the injured in the medical unit speaks of very high radiation fields. Thyroids of people, including children, are stuffed with radioactive iodine. Prevention of potassium iodide, no one does ... Amazing! ..
Shcherbina interrupted him:
- Evacuate the city in the morning of April 27. All one thousand one hundred buses pull up at night on the highway between Chernobyl and Pripyat. You, General Berdov, please post posts to each house. Do not let anyone out. Civil defense in the morning to announce the necessary information to the public by radio. As well as the specified time of evacuation. Spread around the apartment tablets of potassium iodide. Attract Komsomol members for this purpose ... And now Shasharin and Legasov and I will fly to the reactor. Night better ...
Shcherbina, Shasharin and Legasov, on a civil defense helicopter, climbed into the night radioactive sky of Pripyat and hovered over the emergency unit. The hole in the binoculars looked at the reactor, which was heated to bright yellow color, against which darkish smoke and flames were clearly visible. And in the crevices on the right and on the left, in the depths of the destroyed core, flickering star blueness shone through. It seemed as if someone omnipotent was pumping huge invisible furs, inflating this giant, 20-meter-diameter nuclear horn. Shcherbina respectfully looked at this fiery atomic monster, which undoubtedly possessed more power than he, deputy chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers. So much so that it has already erased the fate of many big bosses and he, Shcherbina, is able to be dismissed. Serious opponent, do not say anything ...
- Oh, how inflamed! - as if Sherbina was talking to himself. “And how much into this crater,” he pronounced the letter “e” in the word “crater” very softly, “do you need to throw sand?”
“A fully assembled and loaded fuel reactor weighs ten thousand tons,” answered Shasharin. - If you threw half the graphite and fuel - it is somewhere around a thousand tons, a pit was formed up to four meters deep and twenty meters in diameter. The sand has a greater specific gravity than graphite ... I think three or four thousand tons of sand will have to be thrown ...
“The helicopter pilots will have to work,” said Scherbina. - What is the activity at a height of two hundred and fifty meters?
- Three hundred X-rays per hour ... But when the load goes into the reactor, the nuclear dust will rise and the activity at this height will increase dramatically. A "bomb" will have a smaller height ...
The helicopter descended from the crater.
Shcherbina was relatively calm. But this calm was due not only to the deputy chairman’s excerpt, but to a large extent to his lack of awareness of atomic issues, as well as the uncertainty of the situation. Within a few hours, when the first decisions are made, he will scream at his subordinates with the full force of his lungs, rush, accusing him of slowness and of all mortal sins ...
April 27 1986 years
Colonel V. Filatov tells:
It was already long past midnight on April 27, when Major General N. T. Antoshkin entered the CPSU city committee building. While approaching Pripyat, he noticed that the windows of all institutions were full of light. The city did not sleep, it was buzzing like a disturbed hive. In the city committee crowded people.
Immediately reported Shcherbin about his arrival.
Shcherbina said:
- On you and your helicopter pilots, General, now all hope. The crater must be sealed with sand tightly. From above. Nowhere else to the reactor to approach. Only on top. Only your helicopter pilots ...
- When to start? - asked General Antoshkin.
- When to start? - surprised Shcherbina. “Right now, immediately.”
- It is impossible, Boris Evdokimovich. Helicopters have not yet relocated. We need to find a platform, a place for flight control ... Only at dawn ...
“Right then, at dawn,” agreed Shcherbina. “Well, do you understand me, General?” Take this matter into your own hands. ”
Puzzled by the chairman of the Government Commission, General Antoshkin thought frantically:
“Where to get this sand? Where are the bags? Who will ship them to helicopters? What are the routes of access to the 4 block by air? From what height to throw the bags? What is radiation? Is it even possible to send pilots to the crater? What if the pilot in the air will be bad? Helicopters in the air should be guided - how, who, where from? What are sandbags? Create, General, out of nothing ... "
I thought through the line of affairs and actions:
“Sandbags - helicopters, dropping sandbags; distance from the take-off area to the crater; take-off area - a place of deployment; reactor - radiation - deactivation of personnel and equipment ... "
Antoshkin suddenly remembered that on the way from Kiev to Pripyat, there was an endless string of buses and private cars, in which people were like “rush hour” ... Then the thought flashed: “Evacuation?”
Yes, it was self-evacuation. Some people on their own initiative left the radioactive city. Already during the day and evening of April 26 ...
Antoshkin thought where to land the helicopters. Did not find the answer. And suddenly he caught himself looking carefully at the square in front of the city party committee.
"Right here! - flashed the thought. - In addition to the site in front of the city committee of the CPSU, there is nowhere to land helicopters ...
Reported Shcherbine. After some hesitation: the noise of the motors will interfere with the work of the Government Commission, - received a go-ahead.
Without analyzing where the radiation was, I rushed by the car to the emergency unit, looked at the approaches to the site. And all this without protective equipment. The confused administration of nuclear power plants failed to provide them with arrivals. All were who came in what. By the end of the day, the activity in hair and clothes reached tens of millions of decays ... ”
Deep past midnight on April 27, Major General Antoshkin called his first pair of helicopters on his personal radio. But without a leader from the ground, they could not sit down in this situation. Antoshkin climbed onto the roof of the ten-story Pripyat Hotel with his walkie-talkie and became the flight director. The 4 block reversed by the explosion, with a crown of flame above the reactor, was clearly visible. To the right, behind the Yanov station and the overpass, there is a road to Chernobyl, and there is an endless column of multicolored empty buses melting in the far morning haze: red, green, blue, yellow, frozen in anticipation of an order.
Thousand hundred of buses stretched along the whole road from Pripyat to Chernobyl for twenty kilometers. The picture of transport frozen on the road was oppressive. Flashing in the rays of dawn, flashing unusually empty sockets of windows, the column of buses leaving the horizon sharply symbolized itself that here, on this ancient, originally pure, and now radioactive land - life stopped ...
In 13 hours 30 minutes the column will tremble, move, crawl over the overpass and fall into separate cars at the entrances of snow-white houses. And then, leaving Pripyat, taking people away forever, it will carry away millions of radioactivity decays on its wheels, polluting the roads of villages and cities ...
It would be necessary to provide for the replacement of skates on the outskirts of the ten-kilometer zone. But nobody thought about it. The activity of asphalt in Kiev for a long time will be from ten to thirty milliard X-rays per hour, and for months it will be necessary to launder the roads
Deep after midnight everything was finally decided on the evacuation. But the prevailing assessment: the evacuation of a short time, for two or three days. Science, sitting in the city committee of the party, assumed that the radiation would decrease after the reactor was filled up with sand and clay. True, science itself has not really decided yet, but nonetheless the thought of the fragility of radiation has prevailed. In this regard, a recommendation was given: it is easy to dress, to take food and money for three days, to close things in wardrobes, to turn off gas, to turn off electricity, to lock the doors. The safety of the apartments will provide the police ...
If the members of the Governmental Commission knew about the size of the radiation background, the decision would be different. Many residents would be able to pick up basic clothes, packing them in plastic bags. After all, the natural influx of radioactive dust into the apartments (through the cracks in the doors and windows) continued. And a week later, the radioactivity of things in the apartments reached one X-ray per hour.
And many women and children left in light dressing gowns and dresses, carrying millions of decays on them and in their hair ...
Testifies V. I. Shishkin:
At first they were supposed to evacuate the city early in the morning. Shasharin, the Ministry of Health of the USSR - Vorobyov, Turovsky, representatives of the Civil Defense Headquarters insisted on this.
Science kept mum about evacuation. And in general, as it seemed to me, the danger of science was diminished. Uncertainty on the part of scientists, uncertainty about what to do with the reactor, were striking. Sand dusts were considered then as a preventive measure to combat a fire in a reactor ... ”
B. Ya. Prushinsky testifies
“On May 4, I flew a helicopter to the reactor together with Academician Velikhov. After carefully examining the destroyed power unit from the air, Velikhov said with concern:
- It is difficult to understand how to tame the reactor ...
And this was already said after the nuclear vent was filled up with five thousand tons of various materials ... "
V.N. Shishkin testifies:
“On three nights of April 27, it became clear that neither the organizational nor the technical fails to evacuate the city in the morning. It was necessary to warn the population. We decided to convene in the morning representatives of all enterprises and organizations of the city and to announce in detail the evacuation.
All members of the commission were without respirators, no one gave out potassium iodide tablets. Yes, no one asked them. Science, apparently, also did not understand in this matter. Bryukhanov and local authorities were in prostration, and Shcherbina and many members of the commission present, including me, were illiterate in terms of dosimetry and nuclear physics ...
Then I found out that the activity in the room where we were located reached one hundred millibers per hour (that is, three x-rays a day, if not go out), and outside - up to one x-ray per hour, that is, 24 x-rays per day. However, this is external exposure. The accumulation of iodine-131 in the thyroid gland was much faster, and, as dosimetrists explained later, by the middle of April 27, radiation from the thyroid gland had X-rays per hour for many 50. The proportion of the body's radiation from the thyroid is equal to the ratio of one to two. That is, people received from their own thyroid glands, plus an x-ray to what they already grabbed from external radiation. The total dose received by each resident of Pripyat and a member of the Government Commission for 14 27 hours of April was about forty-fifty happy on average.
At 3:30 a.m. I was already knocked down by wild, as it later turned out, nuclear fatigue, and I went to sleep at least a little.
In the morning of April 27 woke up about half past six, went out to the balcony to smoke. From the neighboring balcony of the Hotel Pripyat, Shcherbina diligently looked at the destroyed fourth power unit through a telescope ...
Somewhere around ten in the morning gathered all representatives of enterprises and organizations of the city. Explained the situation, how to act. Details about the evacuation, which is scheduled for fourteen hours. The main task is to prevent people from leaving homes, prevention with potassium iodide, wet cleaning of apartments and city streets.
Dosimeters are not issued. They simply were not in the right quantity. Those that were on the block are polluted ...
We dined, dined 26 on April, had breakfast and dined on 27 on April, all members of the Government Commission without precautions in the restaurant of the Pripyat Hotel. The radionuclides got into the body along with food. Tomatoes, processed cheese, coffee, tea, water. Enough was for everyone except Mayor, Shcherbina and Maryin. They could see, as usual, they expected what they would bring, but nobody brought it, and when they rushed, everything was snapped. there was a lot of jester about it and to laugh.
The members of the Government Commission felt that everyone had the same state of health on 27 April: severe nuclear fatigue (it is felt much earlier and deeper than usual with the same amount of work), a sore throat, dryness, cough, headache, itching of the skin. Potassium iodide members of the Government Commission began to issue only 28 on April ...
In the afternoon of April 27, hourly dosimetric reconnaissance was launched in the city of Pripyat. They took smears from asphalt, air samples, dust from road shoulders. The analysis showed that fifty percent of the radioactive fragments were iodine-131. Activity close to the surface of the asphalt reached 50 X-ray per hour. At a distance of two meters from the ground - about one X-ray per hour ... "
M. Tsvirko testifies:
"27 April evening, all the chefs fled. The water from the taps stopped going. Hands wash nowhere. They brought us bread in pieces in cardboard boxes, in another box - cucumbers, in the third - canned food, something else. I took bread with disgust, took a bite, and threw away the part I held with my hand. Then he realized that in vain disdained. After all, the piece that I swallowed was as dirty as the one I held with my hand. Everything was scary dirty ... "
Testifies I.P. Tsechelskaya - apparatchitsa Pripyatsky concrete-mixing unit:
“They told me and others that evacuation for three days and that nothing was needed. I left in one robe. She took with her only a passport and some money that soon ran out. Three days ago they did not let me in, I got to Lvov. No money left. I would have known, I would have brought a passbook with me. But left everything. The residence permit stamp in Pripyat, which I showed as evidence, did not act on anyone. Complete indifference. Requested benefit, not given. I wrote a letter to the Minister of Energy Mayorza. I do not know, probably, my dressing gown, everything on me is very dirty. I was not measured ... "
The visa of the Minister on the letter Tsechel:
“Let Comrade I. P. Tsechelskaya address to any organization of the USSR Ministry of Energy. She will be given 250 rubles. ”
But this visa is dated July 10th 1986. And 27 April ...
Testifies G. N. Petrov:
“April 27 was announced on the radio in the morning so that they would not leave the apartments. Sandwiches ran around the houses, spreading potassium iodide tablets. At each entrance they put a policeman without a respirator.
It was on the street, as it became known later, up to one X-ray per hour and radionuclides in the air.
But not all people obeyed the instructions. It was warm and the sun was shining. Day off. But there was a cough, a dried throat, a metallic taste in the mouth, a headache. Some ran to the medical unit to be measured. They measured the RUP of the thyroid gland. Sacked on the range of five X-rays per hour. But there were no other devices. And so genuine activity was unclear. People were worried. But then somehow they quickly forgot, Were very excited ... "
Testifies L. A. Kharitonov:
“Another 26 of April, in the afternoon, some, in particular children at school, were warned not to leave the house. But most did not pay attention to it. Towards evening it became clear that the alarm was well-founded. People went to each other, sharing concerns. I did not see it myself, but they said that many, especially men, were deactivated by drinking. In the workers' villages and without a nuclear accident, you can see drunk. And here there was a new incentive. Apparently, apart from alcohol, there was simply nothing else to deactivate. Pripyat was very lively, seething with people, as if preparing for some kind of a huge carnival. Of course, on the nose were the May holidays. But overexcitement of people was conspicuous ... "
Testifies L.N. Akimova:
“On the morning of April 27 was broadcast on the radio so that they would not leave the house or go to the window. High school students brought iodide tablets. In 12 hours it was already stated that there would be an evacuation, but not for long - on the 2 — 3 of the day, so as not to worry and take a lot of things. The children were all eager for the window, to see what was on the street. I pulled them away. It was anxious. She looked out the window herself and realized that not everyone obeys. A woman, our neighbor, was sitting on a bench near the house and was knitting. Nearby in the sand was her two-year-old son. But there, as they learned later, all the air that they breathed emitted gamma and beta rays. The air was saturated with long-lived radionuclides, and it all accumulated in the body. Especially radioactive iodine in the thyroid gland, the most dangerous for children. My head ached all the time and suffocated a dry cough ...
But in general, everyone lived as usual. Cooked breakfast, lunch, dinner. The whole day and evening of April 26 went to the shops. Yes, and 27 in the morning too. We went to visit each other ...
But the food, the food was already contaminated with radiation too ... I was also very worried about the condition of my husband: dark brown skin color, agitation, feverish eye glitter ... "
Testifies G. N. Petrov:
“At exactly fourteen o'clock, buses arrived at each entrance. They warned us over the radio once again: it's easy to dress, take a minimum of things, we'll be back in three days. Even then, an involuntary thought flashed through my mind; if you take a lot of things, then five thousand buses will not be enough ...
Evacuation of the population from the 30-kilometer zone of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Residents of the Kiev region say goodbye to each other and with their houses, 1986 year
Most people obeyed and did not even take a stock of money. In general, we have good people: they joked, encouraged each other, calmed the children. They were told: “Let's go to grandmother", "To the film festival", "To the circus" ... The older guys were pale, sad and silent. In the air, along with the radiation, hung cheerfulness and anxiety. But everything was businesslike. Many went down in advance and crowded with children outside. They were all the time asked to enter the entrance. When the landing was announced, they left the entrance and immediately went to the bus. Those who were hesitant, ran from bus to bus, only grabbed extra reels. And so for the “peaceful” day, ordinary life picked up outside and inside abound.
We drove to Ivankov (60 kilometers from Pripyat) and settled there in villages. Not everyone accepted willingly. One Kurkul did not let my family into his huge brick house, but not from the danger of radiation (he did not understand this and did not act on it), but from greed. "Not to build, he says, to let others in ..."
Many, having landed in Ivankov, went further, towards Kiev, on foot. Who is on the way. One acquaintance of a helicopter pilot, already later, told me what he had seen from the air: huge crowds of lightly dressed people, women with children, old people — they were walking along the road and on the sidelines towards Kiev. Saw them already in the area of Irpin, Brovary. Machines stuck in these crowds, as if in herds of persecuted livestock. In the cinema you often see this in Central Asia, and it immediately occurred to me, though not a good one, but a comparison. And people walked, walked, walked ... "
It was tragic parting leaving with pets: cats, dogs. The cats, stretching the tails with a pipe, inquiringly looking into the eyes of people, meowed piteously, dogs of various breeds mourned wistfully, burst into buses, squealed heart-rendingly, snapped when they were dragged from there. But it was impossible to take with you cats and dogs, to which children were especially accustomed. Their hair was very radioactive, as were human hair. After all, animals all day on the street, how many have accumulated in them ...
For a long time even the dogs, abandoned by their owners, each fled after their own bus. But in vain. They fell behind and returned to the abandoned city. And they began to unite in flocks.
Once, archaeologists read an interesting inscription on ancient Babylonian clay tablets: “If dogs in a city gather in flocks, the city will fall and collapse.”
The city of Pripyat was not destroyed. He remained abandoned, canned by radiation for several decades. Radioactive ghost town ...
The dogs, combined in flocks, first of all ate most of the radioactive cats, began to run wild and snap at people. There have been attempts to attack people, abandoned livestock ...
A group of hunters with guns was urgently brought together, and for three days - 27, 28 and 29 of April (that is, until the day of evacuation of the Government Commission from Pripyat to Chernobyl), all radioactive dogs were killed, including mongrels, Great Danes, shepherds, terriers , spaniels, bulldogs, poodles, lapdogs. April 29 shooting was completed, and the corpses of assorted dogs littered the streets of the abandoned Pripyat ...
Evacuations were also made to the residents of the villages and farms close to the NPP: Semihodov, Kopachi, Shipelychich and others.
Anatoly Ivanovich Zayats (chief engineer of the Yuzhatomenergomontazh trust) with a group of assistants, among whom were hunters with guns, went around the courtyards of the villages and explained to the people that they needed to leave their homes.
It was painful, it was bitter to see the sufferings and tears of people who were to be for years, maybe, to leave forever the land of their ancestors ...
“Yes, yes! But yak, I will throw the hut, the cattle ?! Garden ... But what about yak tse, son?! .. "
“We must, grandmother, we must,” explained Anatoly Ivanovich. - Everything is radioactive around: both the earth and the grass. Now it is impossible to feed the cattle with this grass, it is impossible to drink milk. Nothing ... Everything is radioactive. The state will fulfill you, pay for everything in full. Everything will be fine...
But people did not understand, did not want to understand such words.
- Yak tse?! .. The sun is shining, the grass is zelana, the truncated grows, blooms, gardens, bachish, yaks? ..
- That's the thing, grandmother ... Radiation is invisible and therefore dangerous. Cattle can not be taken with you. Cows, sheep, goats are radioactive, especially wool ...
Many residents, having heard that the cattle should not be fed with grass, drove cows, sheep and goats along the sloping flooring onto the roofs of sheds and kept them there so that they would not go pinching grass. Thought it was not for long. Day two, and then again it will be possible.
But I had to explain everything again and again. The cattle were shot, people were taken to a safe place ...
But let us return to the city of Pripyat, to the General of the Air Force N. T. Antoshkin.
The commander of the crew of the Mi-8T helicopter Mr. S.I. Volodin, Chief of Staff of the Air Force KVO, Major General N.T. Antoshkin, pilot-navigator Art. lt V.N. Bushkov and flight engineer to Mr. A.V. Pankov. 1986
On the morning of April 27 arrived at his call the first two Mi-6 helicopters, piloted by experienced pilots B. Nesterov and A. Serebryakov. The thunder of the helicopter engines that landed on the square in front of the city committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union woke up all the members of the Government Commission, who lay down for a couple of hours to take a nap.
General Antoshkin flew and landed helicopters while on the roof of the Pripyat Hotel. That night he did not close his eyes.
Nesterov and Serebryakov made a thorough reconnaissance of the entire territory of the nuclear power plant and its environs from the air, drew a scheme of visits to the reactor to discharge the sand.
Approaches to the reactor from the air were dangerous, interfered with the ventilation pipe of the fourth block, the height of which was one hundred fifty meters. Nesterov and Serebryakov measured the activity above the reactor at different heights. Below one hundred and ten meters did not fall, for activity sharply increased. At a height of one hundred and ten meters - 500 X-ray per hour. But after the "bombing" probably will rise even higher. To discharge the sand, it is necessary to hover over the reactor for three to four minutes. The dose that pilots will receive during this time will be X-ray 20 to 80, depending on the degree of background radiation. And how many flights will there be? This was not yet clear. Today will show. The battle situation of a nuclear war ...
On the landing in front of the city committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union now and then they would land and take off helicopters. The deafening roar of the engines interfered with the work of the Government Commission. But all suffered. Had to speak very loud, just scream. Shcherbina was nervous: “Why didn't you start throwing sandbags into the reactor ?!”
During the landing and take-off of helicopters with working screws from the surface of the earth, a highly radioactive wail with division fragments was blown off. In the air near the city committee of the party and in the premises located nearby, radioactivity has increased dramatically. People choked.
And the destroyed reactor all spewed and spewed out of itself new millions of curies of radioactivity ...
General Antoshkin, instead of himself, left Colonel Nesterov on the roof of the Pripyat Hotel so that he could control the flights, and he himself would ascend to the sky and personally inspect the reactor from the air. Long could not understand where the reactor. Stranger to the construction of the block is difficult to navigate. Understood that you need to take on the "bombing" of experts from installers or operation ...
All new helicopters arrived. There was a continuous deafening roar.
Exploration carried out, approaches to the reactor identified.
We need bags, shovels, sand, people who will load the bags and load them into helicopters ...
All these questions, General Antoshkin laid out Shcherbine. Everyone in the city committee of the party was coughing, drying his throat, it was hard to say.
- You have few people in the army? - asked Shcherbina. - Are you asking me these questions?
- Pilots should not ship sand! - retorted the general. - They need to drive cars, keep the wheel; The output to the reactor must be accurate and guaranteed. Hands should not tremble. They can not roll bags and shovels!
“Here, General, take two deputy ministers, Shasharin and Meshkov, let them load you, take out bags, shovels, sand ... There is a lot of sand around here. Sandy ground. Find a nearby asphalt-free site - and go ... Shasharin, attract installers and builders widely. Where is Kizima?
Testimony of G. A. Shasharin:
“Air Force General Antoshkin did a very good job. Energetic and business general. He did not give anyone peace, He hindered everyone.
They found five hundred meters from the city party committee, near the cafe "Pripyat" near the river station, a mountain of excellent sand. It was washed with dredgers for building new microdistricts of the city. A pack of sacks was brought from the ORS warehouse, and we were first three: I, First Deputy Minister of Medium Machine Building A. G. Meshkov and General Antoshkin began loading bags. They quickly evaporated. Who worked what they were, me and Meshkov in their Moscow suits and shirts, the general in his parade uniform, all without respirators and dosimeters.
Soon, I connected N. Yu. Antonchuk, the head of the Yuzhatommenergomontazh trust, his chief engineer A. I. Zayats, the head of the GEM department VF Vypirylo and others to this case.
Antonshchuk ran up to me with a list of benefits, which looked ridiculous in this situation, but I immediately approved it. It was a list of people who would work on filling the bags with sand, linking them and loading them into helicopters. Such lists were usually approved in the past by people who performed installation or construction work at operating NPPs in the dirty area. But here ... Antonshchuk and those who had to work, acted according to the old scheme, not realizing that the dirty zone is now in Pripyat everywhere and that the benefits must be paid to all residents of the city. But I did not distract people with explanations. It was necessary to do business ...
But there were not enough people who arrived. I asked the chief engineer of the Yuzhatomenergomontazh A.I. Zayats to drive to the nearest collective farms and ask for help ... "
Evidenced by the chief engineer of the trust Yuzhatomenergomontazh Anatoly Ivanovich Zayats:
“April 27 in the morning had to organize help for helicopter pilots to load sand into bags. There were not enough people. Antonshchuk and I drove through the farms of the Druzhba collective farm. We walked around the yard. People worked in the backyard plots. But many were in the field. Spring came north. They began to explain that the land was already unusable, that they needed to shut up the shed of the reactor and that they needed help. It was very hot in the morning. People had a Sunday, pre-holiday mood. They didn’t believe us badly. They continued to work. Then we found the chairman of the collective farm and the party organization secretary. They went to the field together. They explained to the people again and again. Eventually, people reacted with understanding. about one hundred and five Ten volunteers - men and women. They then worked tirelessly on loading bags and helicopters. And all this without respirators and other protective equipment. April 27 provided 110 helicopter flights, April 28 - 300 helicopter flights ... "
G.A. Shasharin testifies:
“And Shcherbina hurried. Under the crash of helicopters, I yelled at the top of my mouth that we couldn’t work, we were not well deployed. He drove everyone like Sidorov goats - ministers, deputy ministers, academicians, marshals, generals, not to mention the rest ...
- How to blow up a reactor, so they can, and there is no one to load bags with sand!
Finally, the first batch of six sandbags was loaded onto the Mi-6. Helicopters flew alternately with N. bombardment N. K. Antushchuk, V. D. Deygraf, V. P. Tokarenko. They mounted this reactor, and the pilots had to be more precise in showing where to throw the bags.
The first pilot of the first class, Colonel B. Nesterov, was the first to "bomb". In a straight line with a speed of 140 kilometers per hour went to the fourth block. Landmark - on the left two 150-meter ventilation pipes of the NPP.
We went over the crater of a nuclear reactor.
One of the first photos of the reactor of the fourth power unit
Height one hundred fifty, no, high. One hundred and ten meters. The radiometer 500 x-ray per hour. Hinged over the gap formed by a semi-expanded washer upper biological protection and mine. The gap is about five meters wide. Gotta get it. Biosecurity is heated to the color of the sun disc. Opened the door. Bottom carried heat. Powerful upward flow of radioactive gas ionized by neutrons and gamma rays. All without respirators. The helicopter is not protected by lead from the bottom ... We thought of it later, when hundreds of tons of cargo had already been dropped. And now ... They poked their heads into the open door and, looking into the nuclear vent, aiming at him with their eyes, they dropped the bag after the bag. And so all the time. There was no other way ...
The first twenty-seven crews and Antonshchuk, Deigraf, Tokarenko who helped them soon went out of order and were sent to Kiev for treatment. After all, the activity after dropping the bags at a height of one hundred and ten meters reached one thousand eight hundred roentgens per hour. The pilots became ill in the air ...
When throwing bags from such a height there was a significant impact on the red-hot active zone. At the same time, especially on the first day, emissions of fission fragments and radioactive ash from burnt graphite increased sharply. People breathed it all. Within a month, the uranium and plutonium salts were washed out of the heroes' blood, replacing the blood many times.
In the following days, the pilots themselves already guessed to put lead sheets under the seat and put on respirators. This measure somewhat reduced the irradiation of the flight personnel ...
Colonel V. Filatov tells;
“In 19.00 27 on April, Major General N. T. Antoshkin reported to the Chairman of the Government Commission Shcherbine that 150 tons of sand had been dropped into the reactor mouth. He said it is not without pride. These one hundred fifty tons were heavy.
“Bad, General,” said Scherbina. - One hundred and fifty tons of sand to such a reactor is like an elephant pellet. We must dramatically increase the pace ... "
Shcherbina also smashed to smithereens of the deputy ministers of Shasharin and Meshkov, accusing them of sluggishness. The head of Soyuzatomenergostroy, MS Tsvirko, appointed the head of the sand loading.
M. Tsvirko testifies:
“In the evening of April 27, when Shasharin and Antoshkin reported on dropped bags, Shcherbina shouted for a long time that they did not work well. And instead of Shasharin, he appointed me to direct the loading of the sand. I refused the place where they took the sand before. The sand there, according to measurements of dosimeters, was very radioactive, and people in vain seized the extra doses. Found a sand pit ten kilometers from Pripyat. The bags were first taken in the ORS, shops, shaking out the cereals, flour, and sugar. Then the bags were brought from Kiev. 28 April, we were given optical dosimeters, but they need to be charged, but they seem not to be charged. My dosimeter showed me a year and a half of X-ray. The arrow did not budge. Then I took another dosimeter. It showed two x-rays, And no gu-gu more. He spat and stopped watching more. They grabbed somewhere around seventy, a hundred x-rays. I think no less ... "
General Antoshkin was exhausted from fatigue and insomnia, and such an assessment by Shcherbina discouraged him. But only for a moment. He rushed into battle again. From 19 to 21 hours, I debugged relations with all the leaders on whom the provision of helicopter pilots, sand, people for loading depended ... I guessed to use parachutes to increase performance. Fifteen bags were loaded into the parachute canopy turned upside down by the lines of the dome. It turned out the bag. Lanyards clung to the helicopter and - to the reactor ...
28 April already dropped 300 tons.
29 April - 750 tons.
30 April - 1500 tons. 1 May - 1900 tons.
In 19 hours 1 in May, Shcherbina announced the need to cut the discharge in half. There was a fear that they would not withstand the concrete structures on which the reactor rested, and that everything would collapse into the barbuter pool. It threatened with a thermal explosion and a huge radioactive release ...
In total, from 27 April to May 2, about five thousand tons of bulk materials were discharged into the reactor ...
Testifies Yu. N. Filimontsev - Deputy Head of the Main Scientific and Technical Directorate of the USSR Ministry of Energy:
I arrived in Pripyat on the evening of April 27. From the road very tired. I chatted in the city committee, where the Government Commission worked, and went to the hotel to sleep. I had a pocket radiometer with me, which I was given at the Kursk NPP before I left for work in Moscow. The device is good, with a totalizer. For ten hours of sleep, I got one X-ray. Consequently, the activity in the room was one hundred milli-roentgen per hour. On the street in different places - from five hundred milli-roentgen up to one x-ray per hour ... "
I will give a continuation of the certificate of Yu. N. Filimontsev somewhat later.
April 28 1986 years
At eight in the morning on April 28, I arrived at work and entered the office of the head of the Main Production Directorate for Construction of the USSR Ministry of Energy Yevgeny Alexandrovich Reshetnikov to report on the results of a trip to the Crimea nuclear power plant.
It is necessary to inform the reader that Glavstvo, in short, Glavstroy, dealt with the construction and installation of thermal, hydraulic and nuclear power plants. As deputy chief, I headed the atomic direction.
And although I myself am a technologist, and for many years I worked on the operation of nuclear power plants, after radiation sickness I was contraindicated to work with sources of ionizing radiation. From operation I went to work at the construction and installation organization Soyuzatomenergostroy, where I coordinated the installation and construction works at nuclear power plants. That is, it was the work at the junction of technology and construction. Working in Soyuzatomenergostroy, where M. S. Tsvirko was the head, I received an invitation from Reshetnikov to move to a new central board.
In other words, the decisive factor for me in the new job was the lack of contact with radiation, since I already had one hundred and eighty X-rays in the integral.
Reshetnikov - an experienced and energetic organizer of the construction industry, passionately supporting the success of the business. True, it prevented him from developing poor health - a heart disease. He worked for a long time in the province on the construction of factories, mines, thermal and nuclear power plants. However, he did not know the technological part of nuclear power plants, especially nuclear physics.
Having entered the office, I began to report to him about my trip to the Crimean station, but Reshetnikov interrupted me:
- The accident at the fourth block of the Chernobyl NPP ...
- What happened, the reason? - I asked.
“The connection is very bad,” he replied. - Phones at the station are disabled. Only “HF” works, and that is bad. The device is installed in the office of the Deputy Minister Sadovsky. But the information is fuzzy. As if a rattle exploded in the emergency tank of the CPS, in the central hall. The blast demolished the tent of the CH and the roof of the drum-separator premises, destroyed the premises of the MCP ...
- Reactor intact? - I asked.
- It is not known ... It seems to be complete ... Now I will run to Sadovsky, maybe some new news, and I beg you - look at the drawings and prepare a certificate for the report to the Secretary of the Central Committee V. I. Dolgikh. Help make quite popular. Sadovsky will report, and he, you know, the hydraulic engineer, does not understand atomic subtleties. I will inform you as information becomes available. If you find out yourself, report to me ...
“We should fly there, look at everything on the spot,” I said.
- Bye wait. There, and so many people flew away. The Ministry of Energy has no one to prepare materials for the report. You will fly after the minister returns with the second team. Or maybe I'll fly. I wish you success ...
I went to my office, picked up the drawings and began to look.
An emergency reserve of water for cooling the control and safety system drives is necessary in case the standard cooling system fails. Mounted at a height of from plus fifty to plus seventy meters in the outer end wall of the central hall. The capacity of the tank is one hundred and ten cubes. Loosely connected to the atmosphere with the breathing tube. If there was going to radiolytic hydrogen, then he had to leave the tank through the vent. Something could not believe that the tank exploded. Most likely, an explosion of detonating gas could occur at the bottom, in the drainage collector, where return water from the CPS channels is collected and which is filled with an incomplete section. Thought worked on. If the explosion is below, it could have thrown all the absorbing rods out of the reactor with a shock wave and then ... Then the acceleration on instant neutrons and the explosion of the reactor ... Besides, according to Reshetnikov, the destruction is enormous. Well, well ... The CPS tank exploded, which is unlikely, to demolish the tent of the central hall and the roof of the separator rooms. But it seems that the premises of the MCP have also been destroyed ... Only an explosion from the inside could destroy them, for example, in a solidly dense box ...
Cold inside from such thoughts. But very little information ... I tried to call Chernobyl. In vain. There is no connection. I contacted VPO Soyuzatomenergo in three. The head of the association Veretennikov - or dark, or he really knows nothing. He says the reactor is intact, cooled by water. But bad radiation environment. I do not know the details. Besides him, no one could say anything intelligible. All guess at the coffee grounds. At the Soyuzatomenergostroy construction association, the duty officer reported that on the morning of April 26 had a conversation with the chief engineer of the construction site Zemskov, who said that they had a small accident and asked not to distract.
Data for the report was clearly not enough. Help built on the basis of the explosion of the CPS tank, a possible explosion in the lower discharge manifold with subsequent acceleration and explosion of the reactor. But before the explosion, there was certainly a discharge of steam through the safety valves to the pool barber. Then an explosion in a firmly tight box and the destruction of MCH premises can be explained ...
As it turned out, I was not so far from the truth. Anyway, the reactor explosion I guessed,
At eleven in the morning Reshetnikov announced, very worried that he had managed to talk with Pripyat with difficulty on “HF”. Activity over the reactor - 1000 X-ray per second ...
I said that this is a clear lie, an error of two orders of magnitude. Maybe ten roentgen per second. In a working reactor, activity reaches thirty thousand roentgens per hour, as in the nucleus of an atomic explosion.
- So the reactor is destroyed? - I asked.
“I don't know,” Reshetnikov replied mysteriously.
“Destroyed,” already firmly, and rather to myself, I said. “So the explosion.” Cut off all communications ... I presented the whole horror of disaster.
“They are throwing sand,” Reshetnikov said mysteriously again. “You are an atomic scientist ... What else can you advise to throw into the reactor in order to drown it?”
- We had twenty years ago the acceleration on instantaneous neutrons on an open machine. We then, from the mark of the central hall, threw bags of boric acid into the reactor vessel. Drowned out ... Here, I think, it is necessary to throw boron carbide, cadmium, lithium - excellent absorbing materials ...
- Immediately report Shcherbine.
On April 29, in the morning, Reshetnikov informed me that, according to our information, Deputy Minister Sadovsky reported on what happened in Chernobyl to the secretaries of the CPSU Central Committee V. I. Dolgikh and E. K. Ligacheva.
Further, it became known about the fire on the roof of the machine room, about the partial collapse of the roof.
In recent days in Moscow, in the ministry, it has finally become clear that a nuclear catastrophe has occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which was unparalleled in the nuclear power industry.
Immediately, the USSR Ministry of Energy organized an urgent and massive transfer of special construction equipment and materials to Chernobyl through Vyshgorod. They filmed from everywhere and transported to the disaster area: mixers, pavers, cranes, concrete pumps, equipment for concrete plants, trailers, vehicles, bulldozers, as well as dry concrete mix and other building materials ...
I shared my concerns with Reshetnikov: if the active zone melts the concrete under itself and connects to the water in the barbatre pool, there will be a terrible thermal explosion and radioactive release. To avoid this, it is urgent to drain the water from the pool.
- How to approach? - asked Reshetnikov,
- If you can’t approach, you need to shoot cumulative shells. They burn tank armor, and even more concrete burned through ...
The thought was transferred to Shcherbina ...
29 April 1986, the Government Commission left Pripyat and moved to Chernobyl.
G.A. Shasharin testifies;
“April 26 I decided to stop the first and second blocks. Approximately, at 21.00, they started stopping and somewhere around two nights of April, 27 was stopped. I ordered for each reactor to add additional sinks evenly over the 20 core to empty channels. If there are no empty channels, remove the fuel assemblies and insert the DP in their place. Thus artificially increased the operational reactivity margin,
On the night of April 27, I, Sidorenko, Meshkov and Legasov sat and thought what caused the explosion. They sinned on radiolytic hydrogen, but then for some reason I suddenly thought that the explosion was in the reactor itself. For some reason, such a thought came. It was also assumed that sabotage. That in the central hall the explosives were hung on the CPS drive and ... they were fired from the reactor. This led to the idea of acceleration on instant neutrons. Then, on the night of April 27, V. I. Dolgikh reported the situation. He asked: can there be another explosion? I said no. We had already measured the intensity of the neutron flux around the reactor. There were no more 20 neutrons per square centimeter per second. Over time, 17 — 18 neutrons. This suggested that there was no reaction. True, measured from a distance and through the concrete. What was the true neutron density is unknown. From the helicopter did not measure ...
On the same night, he determined the minimum operational staff required to service the first, second and third units. Compiled lists, handed Bryukhanov for execution.
29 April, already at the meeting in Chernobyl, I spoke and said that all the other 14 units with an RBMK reactor should be stopped. Shcherbina listened silently, then, after the meeting, when they came out, he told me:
- You, Gennady, in addition, do not make a fuss. Do you understand what it means to leave the country without fourteen million kilowatts of installed capacity? .. "
In the Ministry of Energy of the USSR and here in Glavstroy, continuous duty, control of cargo traffic to Chernobyl, and the immediate needs are organized.
It turned out that there are no mechanisms with manipulators for collecting radioactive parts (pieces of fuel and graphite). The reactor graphite and fuel debris were scattered all over the site around the emergency unit and significantly further by the explosion.
In the army of such robots also did not appear. We agreed with one of the German firms on the purchase of three manipulators for collecting fuel and graphite on the territory of the nuclear power plant for a million gold rubles.
In Germany, a group of our engineers headed by the chief mechanic of Soyuzatomenergostroy N. N. Konstantinov urgently flew out to learn how to work on robots and to accept products.
Unfortunately, it was not possible to use robots for their intended purpose. They were designed to work on a flat site, and in Chernobyl - solid rubble. Then they threw them on the roof to collect fuel and graphite on the roof of the deaerator shelf, but the robots got entangled in the hoses left by the firefighters. As a result, I had to collect fuel and graphite by hand. But then I ran a little ahead ...
The first, second and third of May were on duty at Glavstroy - control of cargo traffic to Chernobyl. There was practically no connection with Chernobyl.
4 of May 1986 of the Year Testimony of G. A. Shasharin;
“On May 4, we found a valve that had to be opened in order to drain water from the bottom of the Barbater pool. There was little water. In the upper pool looked through the hole of the backup tunnel. There was no water there. I took out two wetsuits and handed them over to the military. Open the gate valve went military. Also used mobile pumping stations and sleeve passages. The new chairman of the Government Commission, I. S. Silaev, persuaded: who would open, in case of death, a car, a dacha, an apartment, family support until the end of days. Participants: Ignatenko, Saakov, Bronnikov, Grishchenko, captain Zborovsky, lieutenant Zlobin, junior sergeants Oleinik and Navava ... "
On Saturday 4 May, Scherbina, Mayorets, Mariin, Semenov, Tsvirko, Drach and other members of the Government Commission flew in from Chernobyl. At the airport "Vnukovo" they were met by a special bus and took everyone to the 6 clinic, except for M. S. Tsvirko, who called a company car and was able to leave separately ...
M. Tsvirko testifies:
“We flew to Moscow, and my pressure was terribly flooded. There was a hemorrhage in both eyes. While at the airport "Vnukovo" I collected the arrivals to be sent by bus to the 6 clinic, I called my company car and drove to my usual 4 Headquarters under the USSR Ministry of Health. The doctor asked why I had red eyes. I said that I shot (hemorrhage) in both eyes, apparently, very high pressure. The doctor measured it, it turned out: two hundred and twenty to one hundred and ten. Then I learned that the radiation is very good at drawing pressure. check. The doctor told me that they do not know how to treat from radiation, and that I have to go to the 6 clinic. Then I asked the doctor to check my data. He gave directions, I donated blood and urine and went home. At home, I washed myself thoroughly. Before leaving, I was still well washed Chernobyl and Kiev. And I began to stay in bed. But they were already looking for me. They called and told me to go to the 6 clinic immediately. They say they are waiting for me there. I say with great reluctance when I went there.
- I'm from Chernobyl, from Pripyat.
I was sent to the emergency room. A dosimetrist sniffed me with a sensor. It seems clean. I after all well before it was washed, and I have no hair.
In the 6 clinic, I saw a deputy. Minister A. N. Semenov. He was already shaved under the machine as a typhoid patient. He complained that after lying down in bed, his head had become dirtier than before. They turned out to be laid on beds, on which the injured firefighters and operators, brought here on April 26, lay before. It turns out that the linen on the beds was not changed and the arrivals were contaminated by radiation from each other through the bedclothes. I categorically insisted that they let me go, and soon I went home. There, and slept ... "
Victim of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in treatment at the sixth clinical hospital of the USSR Ministry of Health
Annelica Valentinovna Barabanova, Head of the Department of the Clinic No. 6 in Moscow, where irradiated firemen and operators from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant were treated:
“When they brought the first victims from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, we did not have radiometers or dosimeters in the clinic of the Institute of Biophysics. We asked the physicists, it seems, from our institute or from the Kurchatov Institute to approach us and measure the radioactivity of the incoming patients. Soon, dosimetrists arrived with instruments and measured ... "
The rest of the arrivals at the 6 clinic were “sniffed” with a sensor, stripped, washed, and shaved their hair. Everything was very radioactive. One Shcherbina did not allow himself to shave. After washing, he changed into clean clothes and went home with radioactive hair (Shcherbina, Mayorets and Maryin were treated separately from others in the medical unit adjacent to the 6 clinic).
All of them, except Shcherbina, Zvirko, and Mayorts who quickly left the clinic, were left for examination and treatment at the 6 clinic, where they stayed from a week to a month. To replace Shcherbin, a new composition of the Government Commission headed by the Deputy Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers I. S. Silaev flew to Chernobyl.
3 May 1986 years
Chernobyl evacuated. A group of hunters shot all Chernobyl dogs. The drama of the farewell of the four-legged with their masters ...
Announced 30-kilometer zone. Evacuated population and livestock.
The headquarters of the Government Commission retreated to Ivan-kov. Overshoot. Dramatically increased air activity.
Marshal S.Kh. Aganov trained with assistants on the fifth block in the explosion of shaped charges. Helped officers and installers. May sixth will have to shoot in real conditions on the emergency unit. The hole is needed for pulling the liquid nitrogen supply pipe under the base plate for cooling.
Продолжение следует ...
Information