April 26, 1986… This date will be remembered by several generations of Ukrainians, Belarusians and Russians as the day and year when a terrible man-made accident occurred. When all this happened, perhaps even the most experienced experts did not fully and completely realize what awaited us all afterwards.
The catastrophe of April 26, 1986 caused thousands of deaths and diseases, infected forests, poisoned water and soil, mutations of plants and animals. Among other things, a thirty-kilometer exclusion zone appeared on the map of Ukraine, access to which is possible only with a special permit.
This article aims not only to once again remind readers of what happened on April 26, 1986, but also to look at what happened, as they say, from different angles. Now it seems to be no secret to anyone that in the modern world there are more and more often those who are willing to pay a lot of money to go on an excursion to these places, and some former residents, who have not settled down in other regions, often return to their ghostly and abandoned cities.
Brief summary of events
Almost 30 years ago, andit was on April 26, 1986, on the territory of present-day Ukraine, that the largest nuclear accident in the world occurred, the consequences of which are felt by the planet to this day.
A nuclear reactor of the fourth power unit exploded at a power plant in the city of Chernobyl. A huge amount of deadly radioactive substances was released into the air at the same time.
It has now been calculated that in the first three months alone, starting from April 26, 1986, 31 people died literally on the spot from radiation. Later, 134 people were sent to specialized clinics for intensive treatment for radiation sickness, and another 80 died in agony from infection of the skin, blood and respiratory tract.
Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (1986, April 26 and the following days) needed workers more than ever. More than 600 thousand people took part in the liquidation of the accident, most of whom were military personnel.
Perhaps the most dangerous consequence of the incident was a huge release into the environment of deadly radioactive substances, namely isotopes of plutonium, uranium, iodine and cesium, strontium and radioactive dust itself. The plume of radiation covered not only a huge 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 SSRs.
A lot of international experts have been investigating the causes of the accident, but even so far no one knows for sure the true causes of the incident.
Distribution area
After the accident around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, it was necessary to designate the so-called "dead" zone of 30 km. Hundreds of settlements were destroyed almost to the ground or buried under tons of earth with the help of heavy equipment. If we consider the sphere of agriculture, we can say with confidence 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 was released into the environment during the explosion. In addition, at that time, various radioactive isotopes accumulated during operation were in the active phase. It was they, according to experts, who posed the greatest danger.
Over 200,000 sq. km of surrounding land was contaminated with radiation. The deadly radiation spread like an aerosol, gradually settling on the surface of the earth. Pollution of the territories then mainly depended only on the direction of the wind. Those regions that were hit hardest by rain on April 26, 1986 and the next few weeks.
Who is to blame for what happened?
In April 1987, a court session was held in Chernobyl. One of the main culprits of the nuclear accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was recognized as the director of the station, a certain V. Bryukhanov, who initially neglected the elementary safety rules. Subsequently, this person deliberately underestimated the data on the level of radiation, did not put into effect an evacuation plan for workers and the local population.
Also along the way were openedfacts of the grossest neglect of their official duties on April 26, 1986 by the chief engineer of the Chernobyl N. Fomin and his deputy A. Dyatlov. They were all sentenced to 10 years in prison.
The head of the same shift where the accident happened (B. Rogozhkin) was sentenced to another five years, A. Kovalenko, his deputy, to three years, and Y. Laushkin, state inspector of Gosatomenergonadzor, to two.
At first glance, this may seem cruel enough, but if all these people had shown great care in working at such a dangerous enterprise as the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the accident on April 26, 1986 would hardly have happened.
Alert and evacuation of the population
The expert commission claims that after the accident, the first thing to do would be to immediately evacuate the population, but no one took the responsibility to make the necessary decisions. Had the opposite happened then, there could have been dozens or even hundreds of times less human casu alties.
In practice, it turned out that people did not know anything about what had happened all day. On April 26, 1986, someone was working on a personal plot, someone was preparing the city for the upcoming May holidays, kindergarten kids were walking on the street, and schoolchildren, as if nothing had happened, were doing physical education in the fresh, as it seemed to them, air.
The work to evacuate the population began only at night, when an official order was issued to prepare for evacuation. On April 27, a directive was issued for the complete evacuation ofcity, scheduled for 14.00.
So the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the disaster on April 26, 1986, which deprived the homes of many thousands of Ukrainians, turned the modest satellite town of Pripyat into a terrible ghost with devastated houses, abandoned parks and squares and dead, deserted streets.
Panic and provocations
When the first rumors about the accident spread, part of the population decided to leave the city on their own. Already on April 26, 1986, closer to the second half of the day, many women in panic and despair, picking up babies in their arms, literally ran along the road away from the city.
Everything would be fine, but it was done through the forest, the dose of pollution of which actually many times exceeded all permissible indicators. And the road … According to eyewitnesses, the asph alt surface shone with some strange neon tint, although they tried to fill it with plenty of water mixed with some white solution unknown to a simple man in the street.
It is very unfortunate that serious decisions to rescue and evacuate the population were not made in time.
And, finally, only a few years later it turned out that the secret services of the Soviet Union were aware of the procurement of three tons of meat and fifteen tons of butter in the territories that were directly affected by the Chernobyl tragedy on April 26, 1986. Despite this, they decided to recycle radioactive products, adding relatively pure components to them. In accordance with the decision taken, this radioactive meat and butter was transported to many large plants.countries.
Also, the KGB knew for sure that defective equipment from Yugoslavia was used during the construction of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, it was also familiarized with various kinds of miscalculations in the design of the station, delamination of the foundation and the presence of cracks in the walls…
What was done anyway? Attempts to prevent more grief
About half past one in the night in Chernobyl (1986, April 26), the local fire department received a signal about a fire. The duty guard responded to the call and almost immediately transmitted a high-complexity fire signal.
Upon arrival, the special team saw that the roof of the engine room and the huge reactor room were on fire. By the way, today it has been established that when extinguishing that terrible fire, the guys who were engaged in the reactor hall suffered the most.
Only at 6 am the fire was completely extinguished.
In total, 14 vehicles and 69 employees were involved. Of the overalls, people who carried out such an important mission had only canvas overalls, a helmet and mittens. The men put out the fire without gas masks, as it was simply impossible to work in them at high temperatures.
Already at two in the morning, the first victims of radiation appeared. People began to experience severe vomiting and general weakness, as well as the so-called "nuclear sunburn". It is said that some of the skin of the hands was removed along with the mittens.
Desperate firefighters did their best to keep the fire from reachingthird block and beyond. The station staff, however, began extinguishing local fires in various areas of the station and took all necessary measures to prevent a hydrogen explosion. These actions helped prevent an even greater man-made disaster.
Biological consequences for all mankind
Ionizing radiation, when it hits all living organisms, has a detrimental biological effect.
Radiation radiation leads to the destruction of biological matter, mutations, changes in the structure of organ tissues. Such irradiation contributes to the development of various types of oncological diseases, radiation sickness, disruption of the vital functions of the body, alteration and decay of DNA, and as a result leads to death.
A ghost town called Pripyat
Several years following the man-made disaster, this settlement aroused the interest of various kinds of specialists. They came here en masse, trying to measure and analyze the level of the radiation background of the contaminated territory.
However, in the 90s. Pripyat began to attract more and more attention from scientists interested in environmental changes in the environment, as well as in the transformation of the natural zone of the city, which was completely left without anthropogenic influence.
Many Ukrainian research centers have been assessing changes in flora and fauna in the city.
Chernobyl zone stalkers
First of all, it is worth noting that stalkers are people who, by hook or by crook, penetrate the zonealienation. Chernobyl fans of extreme sports are conditionally divided into two categories, distinguished by their appearance, slang used, photographs and prepared reports. The first are curious, the second are ideological.
Agree, now in the media you can really find a lot of information on the topic: “Chernobyl. 1986 26 April . Curious stalkers got their knowledge about the radiation zone from there. Computer games also played a significant role. These young people, whose average age rarely exceeds 20, in most cases only enter the exclusion zone, but do not cross the Chernobyl border itself. This is where their adventure ends.
The second category is unique ideological stalkers. They go deeper, and not only into the 30-kilometer zone, but also into the 10-kilometer one, and live there for several days. It is difficult to explain what drives such people, but it seems to be their way of expressing themselves. There is no reliable data on the size of this group of stalkers, but according to approximate estimates, there are no more than 20 of them, and the "playing" ones are an order of magnitude higher.
Modern residents of Chernobyl
A significant part of the evacuated population, despite the ban and restrictions, nevertheless came back after some time. Of the 100,000 deported people, about 1,200 returned home, but by 2007 only 314 remained. They are called self-settlers. As a rule, these are elderly people, and age is considered the main reason for the sharp decrease in their number. What prompted people to return to their radiation-contaminated homes?The main reasons for this decision were the deep economic crisis in the country, the fall in incomes of the population and the unwillingness to leave their homes.
Further fate of the power plant
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 cleaning work carried out, two units started working again, and in December 1987 the third was launched.
In 1995, Ukraine, the European Union and the G7 countries signed a Memorandum, which began a program for the complete closure of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which was supposed to be done by 2000. In December 2000, the 3rd block of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was finally stopped.
Today, 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, which was won in 2007 by a French joint venture.
In 2015, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant finally and irrevocably stopped its work.
