“Ten important facts about the Chernobyl disaster and its effects of the ambulance, which was stuck in the mud and the block / Photo: Elena Nasirova 1 The first serious accident at the Chernobyl occurred in 1982, experts of the State Building of the USSR show the delegations of English builders in the territory of technogenic catastrophe. In the distance – the construction of Petropavlovskaya Street. From D. Malakova’s collection / photo:”, – WRITE ON: ua.news
The ambulance that stuck in the mud and the block / photo: provided by Elena Nazirov
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The first serious Chernobyl accident occurred in 1982
Specialists of the State Building of the USSR show delegations of English builders territory of man -made disaster. In the distance – the construction of Petropavlovskaya Street. From D. Malakov’s collection / photo: provided by Elena Nasirov
Although small accidents and accidents occurred throughout the Chornobyl NPP construction, the first serious local accident at the nuclear power plant occurred in 1982 – four years before the Chornobyl disaster. On September 14, 1982, as a result of the Chernobyl NPP accident, radioactive fuel fell into graphite masonry.
In the report the head of the KGB of the USSR Stepan Mukh wrote:
On September 14, there was an increase in the level of gamma radiation up to 1000 micro-rays per second in the unsuccessful premises of the gas circuit and drainage systems, which exceeded the permissible limit 100 times. In addition, the release of radioactive vapor through the ventilation pipe during the rain occurred local radiation contamination of the territory at the site with a radius of about 250 meters.
Anna painter,
Deputy Minister of Defense
The contaminated areas were washed with water, covered with soil and leaves, after which, according to the flying of the fly, the radiation background decreased to normal. “The UDB is taking measures to prevent the spread of panic, provocative rumors and other negative manifestations in connection with this event. The KGB of the USSR was informed, ”the Soviet special service was reported.
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Chernobyl disaster provoked 400 times more powerful emission of radioactive substances than a bombing of Hiroshima
The explosion of the fourth Chernobyl unit in April 1986 is the largest man -made accident in human history. It is one of only two nuclear accidents that have received the maximum severity on the international nuclear scale (the second is a Fukushima disaster in Japan in 2011, which was caused by earthquake and tsunami).
The cause of the Chernobyl accident was the poorly planned experiment and design imperfections of the station. On April 25, 1986, the Chernobyl NPP had to experimentally stop the fourth power unit to study the possibility of using the station’s inertia in the event of power loss. Although the technical circumstances did not meet the test plan, it was not canceled. The experiment, which began around 1:23 pm on April 26, turned into a tragedy: as a result of two thermal explosions, the 4th reactor was completely destroyed. It was the “youngest” and state -of -the -art Chernobyl reactor: it was launched only in 1984.
Shot of the 4th CHPP power unit after a disaster made from helicopter / photo: USFCRFC / IAEA IMAGEBANK VIA FLICKR
According to some estimates, as a result of the catastrophe, 400 times more radioactive substances got into the atmosphere than after the explosion of the atomic bomb Baby in the Japanese city of Hiroshima. And compared to the catastrophe at Fukushima NPPs in 2011, after the tragedy in Chornobyl, 10 times more radioactive particles were thrown into the air: 5.300 petabeccilles against 520 petabeccilles (Beckerel – a unit of measuring the activity of a radioactive source). If you take a different unit of radioactivity, the radiation consequences of the Chernobyl accident can be estimated between 50 and 200 million Curie.
It is impossible to completely deactivate the Chernobyl zone after the 1986 disaster: the emissions caused by the accident are the Plutonium-239 element, whose half-life is 2410 years. In addition, the product of half-life of plutonium-American-241-goes through the half-life for 432 years.
Sign on Radiation Pollution on the Chernobyl / Photo: USFCRFC / IAEA IMAGEBANK VIA FLICKR
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The USSR recognized a catastrophe only on April 28, and the first in the West was found out by Sweden
The staff of the Swedish Nuclear Power Plant Forsmark, in addition to Soviet functionaries, learned about the tragedy in Chernobyl. This NPP is located at a distance of approximately 1100 kilometers. In the morning of April 28, two days after the Chernobyl explosion, sirens were performed at the Forsmarck station: radioactive particles were recorded in the air, but at first the Swedes did not understand what was their source.
After that, the Frostmark workers conducted a detailed analysis and found that the wind brought dangerous particles from the USSR.
Here’s what class Yaran Runnermark told, who in those years worked as a dispatcher at the Swedish NPP:
Thanks to early detection, we were able to inform Swedish power, which later reported the world of a radioactive emission that occurred after a disaster in the Soviet Union.
Anna painter,
Deputy Minister of Defense
The USSR authorities announced the Union’s residents of the disaster only on the evening of April 28 – probably tried to remain silent for longer if it were not for the Swedes. And it was impossible to understand the scale of the disaster from the official message. “An accident occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. One of the atomic reactors was damaged. Measures are being taken to eliminate the consequences Time At 21:00 on April 28.
Reserve deactivates a car near Chernobyl / Photo: USFCRFC / IAEA IMAGEBANK VIA FLICKR
Meanwhile, Swedish journalists who worked in Kiev were one of the first after the tragedy tried to get information about the explosion, but they were hampered by the KGB staff. “There are 16o in Kyiv[земних] correspondents. The attempts of correspondents from England, France and Sweden have been turned out to gather trendy information at the Kyiv railway station, ”the Soviet special services documents read.
The famous Belarusian writer and laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature Svetlana Aleksevich also told about Swedish journalists who tried to find out the truth about the disaster. “My girlfriend, a journalist from Sweden, called me, and told about the accident. I, like a normal Soviet man of the time, said: “Well, maybe it … Our radio stations are silent – I think, you exaggerate.” Then, more than once, we mentioned how slowly we were, and in particular, we were released from the “anesthesia” of ideas, belief in communism, “she recalled in an interview with NV Radio.
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Soviet power with direct decree classified information that reveals the true causes of the accident
This kind of Chernobyl was in the winter of 1986 / Photo: USFCRFC / IAEA IMAGEBANK VIA FLICKR
On July 8, 1986, the fifth department of the sixth management of the KGB of the USSR (responsible for economic counterintelligence and industrial in security) issued a secret document called A list of information to be classified on issues related to the accident on block No. 4 of the Chernobyl NPP (CHPP).
The first paragraph was ordered to classify “information that reveals the true causes of the accident on block No. 4 of the Chernobyl NPP.”
According to this document, citizens were hidden:
• consolidated information about the radiation situation, in particular in the exclusion zone (then called the 30-kilometer zone);
• complete information about the nature of the destruction and volume of damage to the equipment and systems of the NPP;
• information about the mixture thrown during the accident;
• information on the extent of the elimination of the consequences of the accident;
• information about new effective means and methods of decontamination;
• data on the incidence of people on radiation disease;
• information on radioactive contamination of natural environments, foods and feeds;
• information on mass poisoning and epidemic diseases associated with catastrophe and more.
As of May 9–10, the radiation background rationed from 500 to 1050 micro -rays per hour, and in the premises – up to 100 micro -rays per hour, while at a press conference in Moscow was stated 3-6 times lower. The norm is up to 30 micro -ranges per hour.
At the same time, the Kiev doctors, by order of the Ministry of Health of the USSR, made false diagnosis of patients with radiation disease (in particular “Vegetative-vascular dystonia”).
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80 thousand fans at the Olympic, students at a parade in the center of Kiev: Crimes of Soviet misinformation
Hiding the truth about the Chernobyl disaster, in the first days and weeks after it, the Soviet authorities not only did not cancel mass measures, but also carefully ensured that their conduct would retain the illusion of “normality” of life in Kiev and others close to the station.
Here are just a few examples of mass events in Kiev, whose participants were not warned about the risks after the explosion at the Chernobyl station.
May Day demonstration with the participation of students. According to the first President of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk (at the time of the accident – a member of the department of agitation and propaganda of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine), the order on the May Day demonstration in Kiev immediately after the Chernobyl explosion came from the General Secretary of the CPSU CPSU Mikhail Gorbachev. For the sake of the holiday, built into the cult in the Soviet Union, even students were brought to the central streets of Kiev then – a high radiation background was recorded on their costumes. “For the period of preparation of the demonstration on May 1, school students were given training suits in which they rehearsed the program 27, 28, 29 [квітня]. From May 5 to May 8, these costumes were handed over to schools. Clothing has a fairly high level of background. Schools intend to hand over suits to the Pioneer Palace. Demactivation is needed, ” – said in the certificate 6 of the Department of UCDB in Kyiv and Kyiv region about the operational situation in the capital of Ukraine and in the places of placement of evacuated persons on May 8, 1986.
Children from Pripyat at the May 1986 May 1986 Demonstration / Photo: USFCRFC / IAEA IMAGEBANK VIA FLICKR
Football match at the largest stadium of Kiev. On April 27, a match of the USSR Championship between the teams of Kyiv Dynamo and Moscow Spartacus was held at the Republican stadium (now NSC “Olympic”). “Open sky stands were completely filled, more than 80,000 fans gathered here,” said NV editor -in -chief of the publishing house, Olena Nasirov. According to her, Valentin Pokrovsky, who was engaged in the selection of players for Spartacus in Ukraine, writes in his memoirs that he was forbidden to share rumors with Moscow players about the explosion. Therefore, he did not know what to answer the “uncomfortable” questions of the football players: “Why is there little people in the streets?” Or “Why should such warm pores be closed at night in hotel rooms?”
Tourist excursions for foreigners. Just three days after the Chernobyl explosion, tourists from the United States who were in Kiev were sent on a tour (no route is specified in the declassified documents of the KGB). The Americans wanted to leave Kiev early on the backdrop of the Chernobyl accident, but the KGB agents did not allow them to do so to prevent panic. “Tourists of the Secondary School (31 people) who live in the Hotel Rus, in the morning of 29.04.86, tried to buy flights to Leningrad for early departure from Kyiv, put pressure on the hotel administration. […] The situation was normalized, the group went on a tour, ” – stated in the note of the Soviet special services.
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Up to 600 thousand people participated in the elimination of the consequences of the accident
This figure is given by the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory. Military chemical, aviation, engineering, border units, medical units of the USSR Ministry of Defense, Civil Defense and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR participated in the liquidation work. In the summer of 1986, military reserve and free people were also involved in the elimination of the consequences.
The first to arrive on the alarm work of the guards of the warriorated fire brigades from the protection of the Chernobyl (2 part under the command of Lieutenant Volodymyr Pravk) and the city of Pripyat (6 part under the command of Lieutenant Viktor Kibenko). In general, about forty firemen participated in the first hours after the explosion. Trying to extinguish the fire on the roof of the station and around the building, they worked without the necessary additional protective equipment. Rescuers were not warned of the danger of radioactive smoke and debris, so because of the excess doses of radiation, most of them soon died of acute radiation and radiation burns. Vladimir Pravka was not on May 11.
The main foci of fire after the Chernobyl disaster was extinguished until 5:00 am on April 26, while within the 4th unit it was extinguished only on May 10, 1986, when most of the graphite burned.
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Only a few years ago, in June 2019, the title of Hero of Ukraine was awarded Alexei Ananenko, Valery Bespalov and Boris Baranov (posthumously)-three legendary volunteers who went down to the Barbtherus Barboter a few days after the explosion. This was necessary to avoid a new catastrophe: almost 200 tons of molten nuclear material from the destroyed reactor burned a concrete slab, under which water was accumulated in a special pool (it was used in particular to extinguish the fire in the first days after the accident). If the molten fuel got the water, there was a re -explosion. So three specialists went through the flooded cameras of the fourth reactor to find two shut -off valves and lower the water.
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Evacuation from Pripyat started only one and a half days after the disaster
The first official local report on the Chernobyl NPP accident appeared only 36 hours. At noon on April 27 at the Pripyat Council The residents of the Pripyati – the closest city with a population of about 50,000 residents – were announced.
Even during the evacuation of the city, its inhabitants did not hear the truth: they were promised that they could return home in three days. On April 27, at 13:50, the residents gathered at the entrances of the houses, and at 4:30 pm evacuation of the population from the city graduated from the city. Then about 44.5 thousand people were taken out. In Pripyat there are about 5,000 people who were involved in urgent work.
In total, by the end of the summer, more than 90,000 people were evacuated from 81 settlements of Ukraine.
Many people, without trusting the power of the catastrophe, tried to leave Kiev and the surrounding cities. In 1990, children with areas contaminated with radiation went for treatment abroad at the invitation of foreign governments / photos: USFCRFC / IAEA Imagebank Via Flickr
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Almost 2.3 thousand cities and towns of Ukraine were polluted as a result of the catastrophe
More than 2290 Ukrainian cities and towns with the then population of about 2.6 million people were contaminated with radioactive nuclides after the Chernobyl disaster – such data is cited by the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory. In total, about 8.5 million residents of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia received significant doses of radiation in the first days after the accident. The action of radioactive contamination has spread to the territory of about 200 thousand square meters. kilometers, of which 52 thousand square meters. km – agricultural lands.
The highest emission from the damaged reactor at the level of tens of millions of Curie a day lasted 10 days, from April 26 to May 6, after which it decreased thousands of times.
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The first shelter object was built in 206 days
After the Chernobyl NPP has eliminated the first direct consequences of the catastrophe – in particular the fire at the station – it became obvious that the main threat would further be radioactive dust. To prevent it from spreading or at least localizing it, the station was decided to build a dense physical “sarcophagus” – a building made of concrete and metal known as the shelter.
Its construction began on May 20, 1986, 25 days after the explosion. About 90,000 people were involved in the shelter construction process, and the facility was built in 206 days. 400 thousand cubic meters of concrete mix and 7 thousand tons of metal structures were consumed on its creation.
The operation of the facility was designed for 20-30 years, after which the station would need more modern protection. But even during this period, the “sarcophagus” rapidly lost its reliability: the total area of the cracks in it reached 1000 m2, and on February 13, 2013 there was a collapse of the slabs above the machine hall of a few hundred square meters.
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The new Confinement of the Chernobyl NPP is designed for 100 years of operation
Insulation Arch Structure over the Chernobyl NPPs destroyed as a result of the crash
The new safe confinement of the Chornobyl NPP was received in November 2016, when the official final proposal ceremony on the fourth Chernobyl unit of the Chernobyl NPP was more modern protective structure. The confinement has the form of an arch structure that has covered an outdated shelter and has become the world’s largest terrestrial moving structure.
This object began to be built in 2007. The tender for the design, construction and commissioning of a new protective facility, declared by the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, was won by Novarka, a joint venture of several French contractors, as it eventually put into life a complex engineering plan. In total, specialists from contracting organizations of 27 different countries were involved in the construction of a new confinement for the Chernobyl NPP.
Here are just a few characteristics of the new Chernobyl Confinement:
• Project service life – 100 years,
• Estimated cost – € 1.5 billion,
• Weight – 36.2 thousand tons,
• The arches runs – 257 meters,
• The height of the structure is 109 meters (which is approximately equal to the height of the 35-storey building),
• The length of the structure is more than 160 meters (one and a half football fields).
The new safe confinement is equipped with a number of complex additional systems: from radiation and seismic control to fire protection systems and backup power. The condition of the building structures is monitored separately, and the arch itself has an outer and inner walls. Such a feature of the structure is provided to ensure that dry and warm air can be pumped between the walls. It creates excess pressure that prevents the exit of radioactive substances from the arch, and prevents condensation from forming and helps to avoid corrosion on metal parts of the arch.
The Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant finally ceased to generate energy more than two decades ago: in 2000 it stopped its last unit # 3. However, the final decommissioning of the Chernobyl NPP should last at least 2065 (including conservation and then dismantling of the reactor plants). That is why the station still works and cares for its safety, a lot of staff, who were hostaged by the Russian army on February 24, 2022.
The Russians seized the Chernobyl NPP in the first day of a full -scale invasion. Crossing the border with Belarus, this path to Kiev moved the most capable and upgraded parts of the Russian army. The group with the tactical sign V played a decisive role in the capture of Kiev: these occupation troops had to step on the capital of Ukraine along the right bank of the Dnieper, capture the Chernobyl NPP, and then advance to the south and cut the Zhytomyr highway (highways of international importance M06 Kiev). At the same time, Russia hoped to quickly seize and control other working NPPs of Ukraine, including Zaporizhzhya and South Ukrainian.
Although the plan of the invaders mostly failed, from the very beginning of the invasion and until March 31, 2022, the troops of the Russian Federation kept the Chernobyl NPP, making one of their bases in northern Ukraine here. “The main headquarters were in the Chernobyl territory. There were about 50 pieces of equipment, and about a thousand soldiers were guarded inside the Chernobyl NPP,” Yevgen Kramarenko, Head of the State Agency for Exclusion Zone Management, said later. In addition, he said, the invaders staged a commandant in the city of Chernobyl, with up to 500 soldiers.
For more than three weeks, the invaders did not allow the Chernobyl staff to rotate, which should change daily. Only on March 20, only 64 people were able to export from the station: alternating staff of the Chernobyl NPP, National Guard employees of Ukraine (eight women and one cancer), one employee of the SES, as well as four Stalkers. They were sent 46 volunteers among the station employees. However, before this, on March 14, the Chernobyl staff stopped repairing and maintaining equipment – through physical and psychological fatigue and continuous work for almost three weeks.
Chernobyl employee Yuriy Dobrytsky in a conversation with NV later explained that the station could be ten times people if the invaders began an invasion of the day, not at night. “Very It was lucky that it was a night shift, at a minimum of 56 people here at night, not taking into account the military guards. If it happened in the afternoon – you can imagine, these are two trains of 12 wagons, in every 100 seats – all these people would be here. ”
During the Chernobyl Occupation, many situations that were critically threatened with security:
• on the object Shelter Several neutron flow control sensors, gamma radiation dose and radiation pollution, have failed,
• The IAEA reported the loss of communication with the Chernobyl control systems,
• Some Chernobyl was completely deactivated, which posed the threat of release of radioactive substances from the nuclear waste storage facility,
• Almost immediately after the invasion of the occupying troops into the exclusion zone there increased the level of radiation contamination, as their equipment raised radioactive dust,
• The invaders transported and stored a considerable amount of ammunition in the immediate vicinity of the Chernobyl NPP.
NV and the deputy chief of the 11th rescue detachment of the SES named Sergey told about theft of the invaders: “They went to the territory several times in the territory several times [пожежної] Parts, we were inspected for weapons. The guys were stolen from the guys: mobile phones, laptop, some unit property, two drones. ”
During his stay in the Chernobyl zone, the Russian military “distinguished” as much as possible irresponsible and suicide behavior. Chernobyl workers told the Reuters agency that the Russians traveled on their technique with a red forest, “raising clouds of radioactive dust”, without any radiation protection. One of the specialists of the station called it “suicide” and stated that this dust could have caused internal radiation. “When they asked if they knew about the 1986 disaster, the fourth power unit was explosive, they had no idea. They had no idea what object they are on, ”the Reuters interlocutor said about their communication with some Russian military.
Later it became known that several parties of the invaders were brought to the Belarussian Gomel, who received high doses of radiation at the Chernobyl NPP. The reports were also confirmed that Russian servicemen dug trenches in the red forest, the most polluted throughout the exclusion zone. The information “On fortifications – trenches that were built directly in the red forest” confirmed in particular in the company Energoatom. Later, the mayor of Varash Oleksandr Menzul declared the death of all the invaders, who at the beginning of the invasion were dug in the red forest in the Chernobyl zone.
Of the nearly 170 National Guards, whom the Russians were captured from the Chernobyl NPP in 2022, there is still a large part in captivity. As of February 2025, more than 60 representatives of the National Guard were held in captivity, who defended the Chernobyl NPP. The relatives have not seen them for three years and are still waiting for their loved ones.
Although the level of radiation outside the Chernobyl NPP has remained within the normal range, it is unknown how the damaged arch is repaired – and whether possible.
“We have conducted a lot of security analyzes by considering various possible threats [під час проєктування конфайнменту]. We took into account earthquakes, tornadoes, strong winds, record snowfall – all kinds of things. But we did not look at the fighting, ”the New York Times said American engineer Eric Schmimen, who worked for 15 years on the project as a senior technical advisor.
Now the plan for dismantling the reactor and the safe disposal of radioactive waste, which was to begin over the next five years, has been in danger. By the end of this year, experts planned to complete the initial plan of the first stage of dismantling.
“Unfortunately, it is no longer possible,” said Artem Gray, Head of Operations.
