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. At the same time, it should be noted all the peculiarity and severity of the situation in the conditions of the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, when the effect of radiation on human organisms turned out to be complex: powerful external and internal irradiation, 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 the radiation safety service of the nuclear power plant on the true radiation fields at the doctors. As I mentioned earlier, the radiometers available at the nuclear power plant showed the radiation intensity of three to five roentgens per hour. At the same time, the more accurate information of SS Vorobiev, Chief of the Civil Defense Staff of the NPP, was not taken into account. Naturally, the "softened" information of the RB NPP service did not properly alert the doctors of the medical unit, who were already insufficiently trained in this regard.
And only the primary reactions of the exposed people: powerful erythema (nuclear sunburn), edema, burns, nausea, vomiting, weakness, in some people in shock, made us assume very severe lesions.
In addition, the medical unit serving the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was not equipped with the necessary radiometric equipment with a sufficiently wide range of measurement scales that would make it possible to quickly determine the nature and degree of external and internal irradiation. Undoubtedly, the doctors of the medical unit were not prepared organizationally to receive such patients. In this regard, the urgent classification of the victims, necessary in such cases, was not carried out 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 therapy of the disease. In such cases, the probable outcome of the disease is selected 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 quickly identify those of them who can save their lives with timely medical assistance. That is, such assistance should cover the affected second and third groups of persons of the specified classification, since their fate significantly depends on timely therapeutic measures taken.
Here it is especially important to know when the irradiation began, how long it lasted, whether the skin was dry or wet (radionuclides diffuse into the interior more intensively through wet skin, especially through the skin affected by burns and wounds).
We know that almost all of Akimov's shift did not have respirators and protective pills (potassium iodide and pentocin), and the work of these people took place without competent dosimetric support.
All the victims who were admitted to the medical unit were not classified according to the type of acute radiation sickness, they freely communicated with each other. Adequate decontamination of the skin was not ensured (only by washing under a shower, which was ineffective or not very effective due to the diffusion of radionuclides with accumulation in the granular layer under the epidermis).
At the same time, the main attention was paid to the therapy of patients of the first group with severe primary reactions, who were immediately put on a drip, and patients with severe thermal burns (firefighters, Shashenok, Kurguz).
Only fourteen hours after the accident, a specialized team of physicists, therapists-radiologists, and hematologists arrived from Moscow by plane. One-, three-time blood tests were carried out, outpatient discharge cards were filled out indicating the clinical manifestations after the accident, complaints of victims, the number of leukocytes and leukocyte formula …
VG Smagin, the head of the shift of unit 4, testifies (took the shift from Akimov):
At about fourteen o'clock I left the control room (vomiting, headache, dizziness, semi-faintness began), washed and changed in the sanitary inspection room, came to the ABK-1 health center. There were already doctors and nurses. Have you tried to write down where you were, what kind of radiation fields? But what did we know? We didn't really know anything. I went up a thousand microroentgens per second - and that was all. Where have you been?.. Can you tell me where you have been. It is necessary to report the entire NPP project to them. Plus, I got sick all the time. Then we, about five people, were put into an ambulance and taken to the Pripyat medical unit.
Brought to the emergency room, RUP (a device for measuring activity) measured the activity of each. All are radioactive. We washed ourselves again. All radioactive anyway. They took us to the third floor to see therapists. There were several therapists in the staff room. Lyudmila Ivanovna Prilepskaya saw me at once and took me to her. Her husband is also a unit shift supervisor, and we were family friends. But then I and the other guys started vomiting. We saw a bucket or urn, grabbed it and the three of us began to tear into this bucket.
Prilepskaya wrote down my data, found out the place where I was on the block and what kind of radiation fields there were. I just could not understand that there are fields everywhere, dirt everywhere. There is not a single clean corner. The entire nuclear power plant is a continuous radiation field. Tried to find out how much I grabbed. In the intervals between vomiting he told her as best he could. He said that no one knows the fields for sure. I went up a thousand microroentgens per second - and that was all. I felt very bad. Wild weakness, dizziness, lightheadedness.
We were taken to the ward and put on an empty bed. Immediately put an IV in a vein. It lasted a long time. About two and a half to three hours. Three bottles were poured: two of them were transparent liquid, and one was yellowish. We all called it saline.
Two hours later, vigor began to be felt in the body. When the drip ran out, I got up and started looking for a smoke. There were two more in the ward. On one bunk there is a warrant officer from the guard. Everybody said:
- I'll run home. The wife, the children are worried. They don't know where I am. And I don't know what happened to them.
“Lie down,” I told him. Grabbed the rem, now heal …
On the other bunk lay a young adjuster from the Chernobyl commissioning plant. When he found out that Volodya Shashenok had died in the morning, it seems, at six in the morning, he began to shout why they concealed that he had died, why he was not told. It was hysterical. And it looks like he got scared. Since Shashenok has died, it means that he can also die. He shouted great.
- Everyone is hiding, hiding!.. Why didn’t they tell me ?!
Then he calmed down, but he began to have a debilitating hiccup.
The medical unit was dirty. The device showed radioactivity. Mobilized women from Yuzhatomenergomontazh. They washed all the time in the corridor and in the wards. The dosimetrist went and measured everything. At the same time he muttered:
- They wash, wash, but everything is dirty …
It seems that he was dissatisfied with the work of the women, although they tried hard and were not to blame for anything. The windows were wide open, it was stuffy outside, there was radioactivity in the air. Gamma background in the air. Therefore, the device showed incorrectly. That is right - he showed dirt. From the street, everything flew inward and settled.
Through the open window he heard my name. Looked out, and below is Seryozha Kamyshny, shift supervisor of the reactor shop from my shift. Asks: "Well, how are you?" And I answered him: "Do you have a smoke?"
- There is!
They lowered the string and raised their cigarettes on the string. I told him:
- And you, Seryoga, what are you wandering about? You picked it up too. Come to us.
And he says:
- Yes, I feel fine. Here is deactivated. He took a bottle of vodka from his pocket. - You do not need?
- No-no! I have already been poured …
I looked into Lena Toptunov's room. He was lying. All brownish brown. He had a severely swollen mouth, lips - Swollen tongue. It was difficult for him to speak.
Everyone was tormented by one thing: why the explosion?
I asked him about the reactivity margin. He said with difficulty that the "Rock" showed eighteen rods. But maybe she was lying. The machine sometimes lies …
Volodya Shashenok died of 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 dropper felt so good that he ran away from the medical unit and went back to the unit. The second time he was already taken to Kiev in a very serious condition. There he died in terrible agony. The total dose he received was two and a half thousand roentgens. Neither intensive therapy nor bone marrow transplant helped …
Many people felt better after the dropper. I met Proskuryakov and Kudryavtsev in the corridor. They both kept their hands pressed to their chest. As they closed off the radiation of the reactor in the central hall, their arms remained in a bent position, they could not straighten them, there was a terrible pain. Their faces and hands were very swollen, of a dark brownish brown color. Both complained of excruciating pain in the skin of their hands and face. They could not speak for a long time, and I did not bother them anymore.
But Valera Perevozchenko did not get up after the dropper. He lay there, silently turning his face to the wall. He only said that there was a terrible pain in the whole body. And saline did not cheer him up.
Tolya Kurguz was covered in burn blisters. In other places, the skin was broken and hung in rags. The face and hands were severely swollen and crusted. With every mimic movement, the crusts burst. And debilitating pain. He complained that his entire body was in pain.
In the same state was Petya Palamarchuk, who carried Volodya Shashenka out of the atomic hell …
The doctors, of course, did a lot for the victims, but their possibilities were limited. They were irradiated themselves. The atmosphere and air in the medical unit were radioactive. The seriously ill patients also radiated strongly. After all, they have absorbed radionuclides inside and absorbed into the skin.
Indeed, nowhere in the world has this been. We were the first after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But there is nothing to be proud of …
Everyone who felt better gathered in the smoking room. They thought only about one thing: why the explosion? Sasha Akimov was also there, sad and terribly tanned. Anatoly Stepanovich Dyatlov entered. Smokes, thinks. His usual state. Someone asked:
- How much did you get, Stepanych?
- Y-yes, I think, x-ray forty … We will live …
He was mistaken exactly ten times. In the 6th clinic in Moscow, he was diagnosed with four hundred roentgens. Third degree of acute radiation sickness. And he burned his feet great when he walked on fuel and graphite around the block …
But why did this happen? After all, everything was proceeding normally. They did everything right, 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 whole trick was that they could not answer this question either. Many people had the word “sabotage” stuck in their heads. Because when you can't explain, you’ll think about the devil …
Akimov answered one question to my question:
- We did everything right … I don't understand why this happened …
He was all full of bewilderment and annoyance.
Then, indeed, many did not understand everything. We did not yet realize the depth of the misfortune that befell us. Dyatlov was also confident in the correctness of his actions.
In the evening, a team of doctors arrived from the 6th clinic in Moscow. We went to the wards. Examined us. The bearded doctor, it seems, Georgy Dmitrievich Selidovkin, selected the first batch - twenty-eight people - for urgent dispatch to Moscow. The selection was made for nuclear tanning. There was no time for analyzes. Almost all twenty-eight will die …
The emergency unit was clearly visible from the window of the medical unit. By nightfall, graphite caught fire. A giant flame. It whirled around the vent tube in an impressive fiery tornado. It was scary to watch. Painfully.
Sasha Esaulov, Deputy Chairman of the Executive Committee, supervised the dispatch of the first batch. Twenty-six people were put in red,, Ikarus. Kurguz and Palamarchuk were driven by an ambulance. We left Boryspil at three o'clock in the morning.
The rest, who felt better, including me, were sent to the 6th clinic in Moscow on April 27. We left Pripyat about twelve in the afternoon. More than a hundred people in three "Ikarus". The cries and tears of those who saw them off. They all rode without changing their clothes, in striped hospital gowns …
In the 6th clinic, it was determined that I grabbed 280 glad …"
At about nine in the evening on April 26, 1986, the Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Boris Evdokimovich Shcherbina arrived in Pripyat. A truly historic role fell to his lot. He became the first chairman of the Government Commission on Elimination of the Consequences of the Nuclear Catastrophe in Chernobyl. He, all his activities in the management of the energy sector through the incompetent Mayor, in my opinion, hastened the arrival of Chernobyl.
Small in stature, frail, now more than usual pale, with a tightly compressed, already senile mouth and imperious, heavy folds of thin cheeks, he was calm, collected, concentrated.
He still did not understand that all around - both on the street and in the room - the air is saturated with radioactivity, emits gamma and beta rays, which absolutely do not care who to irradiate - Shcherbina or mere mortals. And there were about forty-eight thousand of them, these mere mortals, in the night city, outside the office window, with old people, women and children. But it was almost the same for Shcherbina, because only he wanted and could decide whether or not there should be an evacuation, whether or not what happened was a nuclear catastrophe.
He behaved in his usual manner. At first he was quiet, modest, and even a little apathetic outwardly. The colossal, little controllable power invested in this little dry man gave him a sweet sensation of unlimited power, and it seemed that, like the Lord God, he himself decided when to punish him, when to have mercy, but … Shcherbina was a man, and he had everything will happen as in a person: at first, latently, against the background of external calmness, a storm will ripen, then, when he understands something and outlines the way, a real storm will break out, an evil storm of haste and impatience:
- Hurry, hurry! Come on, come on!
But a space tragedy broke out in Chernobyl. And the Cosmos must be crushed not only by cosmic force, but also by the depth of reason - this is also Cosmos, but only alive and, therefore, more powerful.
Mayorets was the first to report on the results of the work of the working commissions. He was forced to admit that Unit 4 was destroyed, that the reactor was also destroyed. Briefly outlined the measures for the shelter (burial) of the block. It is necessary, he says, to put more than 200 thousand cubic meters of concrete into the body of the block destroyed by the explosion. Apparently, it is necessary to make metal boxes, cover the block with them and concretize them already. It is not clear what to do with the reactor. It's hot. We need to think about evacuation. “But I hesitate. If you extinguish the reactor, the radioactivity should decrease or disappear …"
- Do not rush to evacuate, - calmly, but it was clear that this is done calm, said Shcherbina. Inside him, it was felt that a powerless rage bubbled up.
Oh, how he wished there was no evacuation! After all, everything started so well for Mayorets in the new ministry. And the installed capacity factor was increased, and the frequency in the power systems stabilized … And here you are …
After Mayorets, Shasharin, Prushinsky, General Berdov, Gamanyuk, Vorobyov, the commander of the chemical troops, Colonel-General Pikalov spoke, from the designers Kuklin and Konviz, from the directorate of the nuclear power plant - Fomin and Bryukhanov.
After listening to everyone, Shcherbina invited those present for collective reflection.
- Think, comrades, suggest. Brainstorming is needed now. I will not believe that it was impossible to extinguish some kind of reactor there. Gas wells were extinguished, there was not such a fire - a firestorm. But extinguished!
And the brainstorming began. Everyone said that he would get into his head. This is the way to brainstorm. Even some kind of nonsense, nonsense, heresy can unexpectedly push you into a sensible thought. What was not suggested: and lift a huge tank of water on a helicopter and throw it on the reactor, and make a kind 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 specifically asked:
- But what about this reinforced concrete colossus, then beat the "Trojan horse", move? Wheels are needed and a motor - The idea was immediately rejected.
Shcherbina himself expressed the idea. He proposed to overtake water-measuring fire boats into the supply channel next to the block and from there fill the burning reactor with water. But one of the physicists explained that a nuclear fire cannot be extinguished with water, the activity will trample even more. The water will evaporate, and steam and fuel will cover everything around. The idea of boats was dropped.
Finally, someone remembered that it is harmless to extinguish a fire, including a nuclear one, with sand …
And then it became clear that aviation was indispensable. Helicopter pilots were urgently requested from Kiev.
Major General Nikolai Timofeevich Antoshkin, Deputy Commander of the Air Force of the Kiev Military District, was already en route to Chernobyl.
I received an order from the district on the evening of April 26: “Immediately leave for the city of Pripyat. They decided to cover the emergency nuclear unit with sand. The height of the reactor is thirty meters. Apparently, except for helicopters, no other technique is suitable for this business … 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 NT Antoshkin was on his way, the Government Commission was deciding on the evacuation. Representatives of the Civil Defense and doctors from the USSR Ministry of Health especially insisted on evacuation.
- Evacuation is necessary immediately! - EI Vorobiev, Deputy Minister of Health, argued fervently. - Plutonium, cesium, strontium are in the air … The condition of the injured in the medical unit speaks of very high radiation fields. The thyroid glands of people, including children, are stuffed with radioactive iodine. Nobody does prophylaxis with potassium iodide … It's amazing!..
Shcherbina interrupted him:
- We will evacuate the city on the morning of April 27th. All one thousand one hundred buses pull up at night on the highway between Chernobyl and Pripyat. I ask you, General Berdov, to post posts at every house. Do not let anyone out into the street. Civil defense in the morning to announce on the radio the necessary information to the population. And also the specified time of evacuation. Distribute potassium iodide tablets to apartments. Bring in the Komsomol members for this purpose … And now Shasharin and Legasov and I will fly to the reactor. You know better at night …
Shcherbina, Shasharin and Legasov climbed into the radioactive night sky of Pripyat in a civil defense helicopter and hovered over the emergency block. Shcherbina examined the reactor heated to a bright yellow color through binoculars, against which the darkish smoke and tongues of flame were clearly visible. And in the crevices on the right and left, in the depths of the destroyed core, a shimmering starry blue shone through. It seemed as if someone almighty was pumping huge invisible mechs, fanning this giant, 20-meter diameter, nuclear forge. Shcherbina looked at this fiery atomic monster with respect, which undoubtedly possessed more power than he, the deputy chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers,. So much more that it has already crossed out the fate of many big bosses and he, Shcherbina, is able to be relieved of his post. Serious opponent, you won’t say anything …
- Look how it flared up! - as if Shcherbina spoke to himself. - And how much into this crater, - he pronounced the letter "e" in the word "crater" very softly, - should we throw sand?
- Fully assembled and loaded with fuel, the reactor weighs ten thousand tons, - answered Shasharin. - If half of the graphite and fuel was thrown out, this is somewhere around a thousand tons, a hole up to four meters deep and twenty meters in diameter was formed. Sand has a higher specific gravity than graphite … I think three to four thousand tons of sand will have to be thrown …
“The helicopter pilots will have to work,” said Shcherbina. - What is the activity at an altitude of two hundred and fifty meters?
- Three hundred roentgens per hour … But when the cargo flies into the reactor, nuclear dust will rise and the activity at this altitude will sharply increase. And you will have to "bomb" from a lower height …
The helicopter descended from the crater.
Shcherbina was relatively calm. But this calmness was explained not only by the restraint of the deputy chairman, but to a large extent by his lack of awareness of atomic issues, as well as the uncertainty of the situation. In a few hours, when the first decisions are made, he will start shouting at his subordinates at the top of his lungs, rushing them, accusing them of slowness and all mortal sins …
April 27, 1986
Colonel V. Filatov reports:
It was already well after midnight on April 27, when Major General of Aviation N. T. Antoshkin entered the building of the city committee of the CPSU. As he drove up to Pripyat, he noticed that the windows of all institutions were full of light. The city did not sleep, hummed like a disturbed hive. The city committee is crowded with people.
Immediately reported to Shcherbina about his arrival.
Shcherbina said:
- On you and on your helicopter pilots, General, now all hope. The crater must be tightly sealed with sand. Above. There is nowhere else to approach the reactor. Only from above. Only your helicopter pilots …
- When to start? General Antoshkin asked.
- When to start? - Shcherbina jumped up in surprise. - Right now, immediately.
- You can't, Boris Evdokimovich. The helicopters have not yet been relocated. We need to find a site, a flight control place … Only at dawn …
- Then right at dawn, - agreed Shcherbina. - Well, do you understand me, General? Take this business into your own hands."
Perplexed by the Chairman of the Government Commission, General Antoshkin thought feverishly:
“Where can I get this sand? Where are the bags? Who will load them into helicopters? What are the routes of approach to the 4th block by air? How high should you throw the bags? What is radiation? Can pilots be sent to the crater at all? What if the pilot gets sick in the air? Helicopter pilots in the air must be led - how, who, where from? What are sandbags? Create, general, out of nothing …"
Thought over the line of deeds and actions:
“Sandbags - helicopters, dropping sandbags; distance from the take-off area to the crater; take-off site - the place of deployment; reactor - radiation - decontamination of personnel and equipment …"
Antoshkin suddenly remembered that on the road from Kiev to Pripyat an endless line of buses and private cars was going towards him, in which there were people like at rush hour … Then the thought flashed: "Evacuation?"
Yes, it was self-evacuation. Some people left the radioactive city on their own initiative. Already during the day and evening of April 26th …
Antoshkin thought about where to land the helicopters. I couldn't find an answer. And suddenly I caught myself on the fact that he was carefully examining the square in front of the city party committee.
Right here! - the thought flashed. - Apart from the site in front of the city committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, there is nowhere to land helicopters …
Reported to Shcherbina. After some hesitation: the noise of the motors will interfere with the work of the Government Commission, - got the go-ahead.
Not understanding where how much radiation was, rushed in a car to the emergency unit, looked at the approaches to the site. And all this without protective equipment. The confused administration of the nuclear power plant was unable to provide them with them. All were, who arrived in what. The activity in the hair and clothes by the end of the day reached tens of millions of decays …"
Deep after midnight on April 27, Major General Antoshkin called the first pair of helicopters over 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 4th block, torn apart by the explosion, with a crown of flame above the reactor was visible at a glance. To the right, behind the Yanov station and the overpass, is the road to Chernobyl, and on it is an endless column of empty multicolored buses melting in the distant morning haze: red, green, blue, yellow, frozen in anticipation of an order.
One thousand one hundred buses stretched along the entire road from Pripyat to Chernobyl for twenty kilometers. The picture of the transport frozen on the road was depressing. Highlighting in the rays of the morning dawn, sparkling with unusually empty eye sockets of windows, a column of buses stretching beyond the horizon sharply symbolized that here, on this ancient, primordially pure, and now radioactive earth, life had stopped …
At 1.30 pm, the column will tremble, move, crawl over the overpass and disintegrate into separate cars at the entrances of the snow-white houses. And then, leaving Pripyat, taking people away forever, it will carry away millions of radioactive decays on its wheels, polluting the roads of villages and cities …
It would be necessary to provide for the replacement of skates at the exit from the ten-kilometer zone. But no one thought of this. The activity of asphalt in Kiev for a long time will then be from ten to thirty milli-roentgens per hour, and roads will have to be washed for months …
Deep after midnight, everything was finally decided regarding the evacuation. But the assessment prevailed: the evacuation was not for long, for two or three days. Science, sitting in the city party committee, 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 nevertheless, the idea of the fragility of radiation prevailed. In this regard, a recommendation was given: to dress lightly, take food and money for three days, close clothes in closets, turn off the gas and electricity, and lock the doors. The safety of the apartments will be ensured by the police …
If the members of the Government Commission knew about the size of the radiation background, the decision would be different. Many residents could collect their basic personal items by packing them in plastic bags. After all, the natural influx of radioactive dust into apartments (through cracks in 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 …
V. I. Shishkin testifies:
Initially, it was planned to evacuate the city early in the morning. Shasharin, the USSR Ministry of Health - Vorobiev, Turovsky, representatives of the Civil Defense Headquarters insisted on this.
Science was silent about the evacuation. And in general, as it seemed to me, the danger was underestimated by science. Uncertainty on the part of scientists was striking, uncertainty about what to do with the reactor. Sand throwing was considered then as a preventive measure to fight a fire in the reactor …"
B. Ya. Prushinsky testifies
“On May 4, I flew by helicopter to the reactor together with Academician Velikhov. Having carefully examined the destroyed power unit from the air, Velikhov said with concern:
- It's hard to figure out how to tame the reactor …
And this has already been said after the nuclear vent was filled with five thousand tons of various materials …"
V. N. Shishkin testifies:
“At three in the morning on April 27, it became clear that in the morning it was not possible to evacuate the city either organizationally or technically. It was necessary to warn the population. We decided to convene in the morning representatives of all enterprises and organizations of the city and announce in detail about the evacuation.
All members of the commission were without respirators, no one gave out potassium iodide tablets. Nobody asked them. Science, apparently, also did not understand this matter. Bryukhanov and the local authorities were in prostration, while Shcherbina and many of the commission members present, including myself, were illiterate in terms of dosimetry and nuclear physics …
Then I found out that the activity in the room where we were, reached one hundred millirems per hour (that is, three X-rays per day, if you do not go outside), 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 the dosimetrists later explained to me, by the middle of April 27, the radiation from the thyroid gland reached 50 roentgens per hour for many. The proportion of exposure of the body from the thyroid gland is equal to the ratio of one to two. That is, from their own thyroid glands, people received another plus X-ray to what they had already grabbed from external radiation. The total dose received by each resident of Pripyat and a member of the Government Commission by 14 o'clock on April 27 was about forty to fifty glad on average.
At 3:30 am I was already knocked down by a wild, as it turned out later, nuclear fatigue, and I went to get some sleep.
On the morning of April 27, I woke up at about half past six, went out to the balcony to smoke. From the neighboring balcony of the Pripyat Hotel, Shcherbina was diligently examining the destroyed fourth power unit through a telescope …
Somewhere around ten in the morning, all representatives of enterprises and organizations of the city were gathered. Explained the situation, how to act. Details of the evacuation, which was scheduled for fourteen hours. The main task is to prevent people from leaving their homes, prevention with potassium iodide, wet cleaning of apartments and city streets.
No dosimeters were issued. There were simply not enough of them. Those that were on the block were contaminated …
All members of the Government Commission had lunch, dinner on April 26, breakfast and lunch on April 27 without precautions in the restaurant of the Pripyat Hotel. Together with food, radionuclides got inside the body. tomatoes, processed cheese, coffee, tea, water. Everybody had enough, except for Mayorets, Shcherbina and Maryin. They, as usual, were waiting for what they would bring. But no one brought them. And when they themselves rushed, everything was already snapped up. there were a lot of jokes and laughter on this occasion.
The state of health of the members of the Government Commission by the middle of the day on April 27 was about the same: severe nuclear fatigue (it is felt much earlier and deeper than usual with the same amount of work), sore throat, dryness, cough, headache, itchy skin. Potassium iodide began to be issued to members of the Government Commission only on April 28 …
In the afternoon of April 27, hourly dosimetric reconnaissance was launched in the city of Pripyat. We took swabs from asphalt, air samples, dust from roadsides. Analysis showed that fifty percent of the radioactive debris came from iodine-131. The activity close to the asphalt surface reached 50 roentgens per hour. At a distance of two meters from the ground - about one roentgen per hour …"
M. S. Tsvirko testifies:
“On the evening of April 27, all the cooks fled. The water from the taps stopped flowing. There is nowhere to wash your hands. They brought us pieces of bread in cardboard boxes, cucumbers in another box, canned food in the third, and something else. I disgustedly took the bread, bit it off, and threw away the part that I held with my hand. Then I realized that I shouldn't have disdained. After all, the piece that I swallowed was as dirty as the one that I was holding with my hand. Everything was terribly dirty …"
Evidence from I. P. Tsechelskaya - operator of the Pripyat concrete mixing unit:
“I and the others were told that the evacuation was for three days and that there was no need to take anything. I left in one robe. I took with me only my passport and some money, which soon ran out. Three days later, they did not let me in, I got to Lviv. No money left. I would have known, I would have taken a passbook with me. But she left everything. The stamp of registration in Pripyat, which I showed as proof, had no effect on anyone. Complete indifference. I asked for an allowance, but I was not given it. I wrote a letter to the Minister of Energy Mayorts. I don't know, probably my robe, everything on me is very dirty. I was not measured …"
Minister's visa on a letter to Tsechelskaya:
“Let Comrade IP Tsechelskaya apply to any organization of the USSR Ministry of Energy. She will be given 250 rubles."
But this visa is dated July 10, 1986. And on April 27 …
G. N. Petrov testifies:
“On the morning of April 27, they announced on the radio not to leave their apartments. Sandruggers ran around the houses, carried pills of potassium iodide. A policeman without a respirator was placed at each entrance.
On the street, after all, 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 dry throat, a metallic taste in the mouth, a headache. Some ran to the medical unit to be measured. They measured RUP of the thyroid gland. I went off the scale at a range of five roentgens per hour. But there were no other instruments. And therefore the true activity was unclear. People were worried. But then they somehow quickly forgot, Were very excited …"
L. A. Kharitonova testifies:
“As early as April 26, in the afternoon, some, in particular children at school, were warned not to leave their homes. But the majority did not pay attention to it. Towards evening it became clear that the alarm was justified. People went to each other, shared their fears. I myself did not see, but they said that many, especially men, were deactivated by drinking. Drunk people can be seen in workers' settlements even without a nuclear accident. And here a new incentive has appeared. Apparently, apart from alcohol, there was simply nothing else for decontamination. Pripyat was very lively, seething with people, as if preparing for some kind of huge carnival. Of course, the May holidays were just around the corner. But the overexcitation of people was striking …"
L. N. Akimova testifies:
“On the morning of April 27, the radio said not to leave the house, not to come to the window. High school students brought iodine tablets. At 12 o'clock it was reported more definitely that there would be an evacuation, but not for long - for 2-3 days, so that they would not worry and would not take a lot of things. The children all rushed to the window, to see what was outside. I pulled them away. It was alarming. She herself looked out the window and realized that not everyone obeyed. A woman, our neighbor, was sitting on a bench near the house, knitting. Her two-year-old son was playing in the sand nearby. But there, as they learned later, all the air they breathed emitted gamma and beta rays. The air was saturated with long-lived radionuclides, and all this accumulated in the body. Especially radioactive iodine in the thyroid glands, the most dangerous for children. The head ached all the time and a dry cough choked …
In general, everyone lived as usual. Cooked breakfasts, lunches, dinners. All day and evening on April 26 we went to the shops. Yes, and 27 in the morning too. We went to visit each other …
But food, food was also contaminated with radiation … I was still very worried about my husband's condition: dark brown skin color, agitation, feverish glitter of eyes …"
G. N. Petrov testifies:
“At exactly fourteen o'clock, buses arrived at each entrance. They again warned on the radio: dressing is easy, taking a minimum of things, after three days of faith. dumbfounded. Even then, an involuntary thought flashed through my mind; if you take a lot of things, then five thousand buses will not be enough …
Most of the people obeyed and did not even take the supply of money. In general, our people are good: they joked, encouraged each other, calmed the children. They told them: "Let's go to grandma", "To the film festival", "To the circus" … The older guys were pale, sad and kept quiet. A feigned vigor and anxiety hung in the air along with the radiation. But everything was businesslike. Many went downstairs in advance and crowded with children outside. They were always asked to enter the entrance. When they announced boarding, they left the entrance and immediately into the bus. Those who hesitated, ran from bus to bus, only grabbed extra rem. And so on for a day of “peaceful”, ordinary life grabbed outside and inside enough.
They drove to Ivankov (60 kilometers from Pripyat) and settled there in the villages. Not everyone accepted it willingly. One kurkul did not let my family into his huge brick house, but not because of the danger of radiation (he did not understand this and the explanations did not work on him), but out of greed. "Not in order, he says, was building to let strangers in …"
Many, having landed in Ivankov, went further, towards Kiev, on foot. Who is on the way. One familiar helicopter pilot, later, told me what he saw from the air: huge crowds of lightly dressed people, women with children, old people - walked along the road and along the side of the road in the direction of Kiev. I saw them already in the Irpen region, Brovarov. Cars got stuck in these crowds, as if in herds of driven cattle. You often see this in movies in Central Asia, and it immediately came to mind, albeit a bad one, but a comparison. And people walked, walked, walked …"
Tragic was the parting of those leaving with pets: cats, dogs. Cats, stretching out their tails with a pipe, inquisitively looking into the eyes of people, meowed plaintively, dogs of various breeds howled sadly, broke into buses, squealed heart-rendingly, snapped when they were dragged out of there. But it was impossible to take with you cats and dogs, to which the children were especially accustomed. Their wool was very radioactive, like human hair. After all, animals are on the street all day long, how many they have accumulated …
For a long time the dogs, abandoned by their owners, ran each after his own bus. But in vain. They fell behind and returned to the abandoned city. And they began to unite in flocks.
Once upon a time, archaeologists read an interesting inscription on ancient Babylonian clay tablets: "If dogs gather in flocks in a city, the city will fall and collapse."
The city of Pripyat has not collapsed. He remained abandoned, preserved by radiation for several decades. A radioactive ghost town …
The dogs united in packs first of all devoured most of the radioactive cats, began to run wild and snap at people. There were attempts to attack people, abandoned livestock …
A group of hunters with guns was urgently put together, and within three days - on April 27, 28 and 29 (that is, until the day of the evacuation of the Government Commission from Pripyat to Chernobyl), all radioactive dogs were shot, among which were mongrels, mastiffs, shepherds, terriers, spaniels, bulldogs, poodles, lapdogs. On April 29, the shooting was completed, and the streets of the abandoned Pripyat were littered with the corpses of variegated dogs …
Residents of villages and farms nearby to the nuclear power plant were also evacuated: Semikhodov, Kopachi, Shipelichi and others.
Anatoly Ivanovich Zayats (chief engineer of the Yuzhatomenergomontazh trust) with a group of assistants, including hunters with guns, walked around the courtyards of the villages and explained to people that they had to leave their own homes.
It was painful, bitter to see the suffering and tears of people who had to leave the land of their ancestors for years, maybe forever …
“Yes, sho tse voio take ?! Yes, yak, will I throw the hut, that cattle ?! Vegetable garden … Yes, yak, son?!.."
- It is necessary, grandmother, it is necessary, - Anatoly Ivanovich explained. - Everything is radioactive around: both the earth and the grass. Now you can't feed cattle with this grass, you can't drink milk. Nothing … Everything is radioactive. The state will fulfill you, will 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 green, the mustache is growing, blooming, gardens, bach, yaks?..
- That's just the point, grandma … Radiation is invisible and therefore dangerous. You cannot take livestock with you. Cows, sheep, goats are radioactive, especially wool …
Many residents, having heard that the livestock should not be fed with grass, drove the cows, sheep and goats along the sloping flooring to the roofs of the sheds and kept them there so that they would not go to pick the grass. We thought it would be short-lived. Two days, and then it will be possible again.
But everything had to be explained over and over again. The cattle were shot, people were taken to a safe place …
But back to the city of Pripyat, to the General of the Air Force N. T. Antoshkin.
On the morning of April 27, the first two Mi-6 helicopters, piloted by experienced pilots B. Nesterov and A. Serebryakov, arrived at his call. The thunder of 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 only took a nap at four in the morning.
General Antoshkin controlled the flight and landing of the helicopters from the roof of the Pripyat Hotel. He did not sleep a wink that night.
Nesterov and Serebryakov carried out a thorough air reconnaissance of the entire territory of the nuclear power plant and its environs, drew a diagram of approaches to the reactor to dump sand.
Approaches to the reactor from the air were dangerous, the ventilation pipe of the fourth block, the height of which was one hundred and fifty meters, interfered. Nesterov and Serebryakov measured the activity above the reactor at different altitudes. They did not go below one hundred and ten meters, because the activity sharply increased. At a height of one hundred and ten meters - 500 X-rays per hour. But after the "bombing" it will surely rise even higher. To dump the sand, you need to hover over the reactor for three to four minutes. The dose that the pilots will receive during this time will be from 20 to 80 roentgens, depending on the degree of background radiation. How many flights will there be? This was not yet clear. Today will show. The combat situation of a nuclear war …
Every now and then helicopters landed and took off on the site in front of the city committee of the CPSU. The deafening roar of engines interfered with the work of the Government Commission. But everyone suffered. I had to speak very loudly, just shout. Shcherbina was nervous: "Why didn't they start throwing sandbags into the reactor ?!"
During the landing and takeoff of helicopters, a highly radioactive howling with fission fragments was blown off from the surface of the earth by operating propellers. In the air near the city party committee and in rooms located nearby, radioactivity has increased sharply. People were suffocating.
And the destroyed reactor kept belching and spewing out new millions of curies of radioactivity …
General Antoshkin left Colonel Nesterov on the roof of the Pripyat hotel in his place to control the flights, and he himself took to the skies and personally inspected the reactor from the air. For a long time I could not understand where the reactor was. It is difficult for someone unfamiliar with the construction of the block to navigate. I realized that I needed to take experts from installers or operation for "bombing" …
More helicopters were arriving. There was a continuous deafening roar.
The reconnaissance has been carried out, approaches to the reactor have been determined.
We need bags, shovels, sand, people who will load the bags and load them into helicopters …
General Antoshkin laid out all these questions to Shcherbina. Everyone in the city party committee was coughing, their throats were dry, and it was difficult to speak.
- Do you have few people in your troops? - asked Shcherbina. - Are you asking me these questions?
- Pilots shouldn't load sand! - retorted the general. - They need to drive cars, hold the steering wheels; the exit to the reactor must be accurate and guaranteed. Hands should not be shaking. They cannot be turned over with sacks and shovels!
- Here, General, take two deputy ministers - Shasharin and Meshkov, let them load you, get the bags, shovels, sand … There is a lot of sand around here. Sandy soil. Find a site nearby, free of asphalt - and forward … Shasharin, widely involve installers and builders. Where is Kizima?
Testimony of G. A. Shasharin:
“General of the Air Force Antoshkin did a very good job. An energetic and business-like general. Didn't give any rest to anyone, Stir up everyone.
They found a mountain of excellent sand about five hundred meters from the city party committee, near the Pripyat cafe near the river station. They dredged it with dredgers for the construction of new microdistricts of the city. A pack of bags was brought from the ORS warehouse, and we, at first, three of us: me, the first deputy minister of medium mechanical engineering A G. Meshkov and General Antoshkin began to load the bags. They quickly evaporated. Someone was working in what, me and Meshkov in our Moscow suits and boots, the general in his ceremonial uniform. All without respirators and dosimeters.
Soon I connected the manager of the Yuzhatomenergomontazh trust NK Antonshchuk, its chief engineer A. I.
Antonschuk 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 filling the sandbags, tying them up, and loading them into helicopters. Such lists were usually approved in the past for people who performed installation or construction work at operating nuclear power plants, in a dirty area. But here … Antonshchuk and those who were to work acted according to the old scheme, not realizing that the dirty zone is now everywhere in Pripyat and that benefits must be paid to all residents of the city. But I didn't bother to distract people with explanations. It was necessary to do business …
But there were not enough people who arrived. I asked the chief engineer of Yuzhatomenergomontazh A. I. Zaits to go to the nearest collective farms and ask for help …"
The chief engineer of the Yuzhatomenergomontazh trust Anatoly Ivanovich Zayats testifies:
“On the morning of April 27, it was necessary to organize assistance to the helicopter pilots in loading sand into bags. There were not enough people. Antonschuk and I drove through the farms of the Druzhba collective farm. We walked around the courtyards. People worked on their plots. But many were in the field. Spring, it was sowing. They began to explain that the land was already unusable, that it was necessary to plug the throat of the reactor and that help was needed. It was very hot in the morning. People have a Sunday, pre-holiday mood. They did not trust us. We continued to work. Then we found the chairman of the collective farm and the secretary of the Party organization. We went into the field together. We explained to the people again and again. In the end, the people reacted with understanding. about one hundred and fifty volunteers - men and women. Then they worked tirelessly to load bags and helicopters. And all this without respirators and other protective equipment. April 27 provided 110 helicopter sorties, April 28 - 300 helicopter sorties …"
G. A. Shasharin testifies:
“And Shcherbin was in a hurry. Under the roar of helicopters, he screamed loudly that we were not able to work, we were turning around badly. He chased everyone like the Sidorov goats - ministers, deputy ministers, academicians, marshals, generals, not to mention the rest …
- They know how to blow up a reactor, but there is no one to load bags with sand!
Finally, the first batch of six sandbags was loaded onto the Mi-6. NK Antonshchuk, VD Deygraf, VP Tokarenko took turns with helicopters for the "bombing."
First class military pilot Colonel B. Nesterov was the first to fly the helicopter. They walked in a straight line at a speed of 140 kilometers per hour to the fourth block. Landmark - on the left, two hundred and fifty-meter ventilation pipes of the NPP.
We went over the crater of a nuclear reactor.
Height one hundred and fifty, no, high. One hundred and ten meters. The radiometer reads 500 roentgens per hour. They hovered over the gap formed by the semi-deployed washer of the upper biological shield and the shaft. The gap is five meters wide. We must get there. Biosecurity is red-hot to the color of the sun's disc. They opened the door. Heat smelled from below. A powerful ascending stream of radioactive gas ionized by neutrons and gamma rays. All without respirators. The helicopter is not protected from below by lead … This was thought of later, when hundreds of tons of cargo had already been dropped. And now … They poked their heads out the open door and, looking into the nuclear muzzle, aiming at it with their eyes, dropped bag after bag. And so all the time. There was no other way …
The first twenty-seven crews and Antonshchuk, Deygraf, Tokarenko, who were helping them, were soon out of action and they 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 felt bad in the air …
When sacks were thrown from such a height, there was a significant impact on the red-hot core. At the same time, especially on the first day, the emissions of fission fragments and radioactive ash from burnt graphite increased sharply. People breathed it all. Within a month, then they washed the salts of uranium and plutonium from the blood of the heroes, repeatedly replacing the blood.
In the following days, the pilots themselves had already guessed to put lead sheets under the seat and put on respirators. This measure somewhat reduced the exposure of the flight personnel …
Colonel V. Filatov reports;
“At 19.00 on April 27, Major General NT Antoshkin reported to the Chairman of the Government Commission Shcherbina that 150 tons of sand had been dumped into the reactor mouth. He said this not without pride. These one hundred and fifty tons were hard.
“Bad, General,” said Shcherbina. - One hundred and fifty tons of sand to such a reactor - like grain to an elephant. We need to sharply increase the pace …"
Shcherbina also smashed the deputy ministers Shasharin and Meshkov to smithereens, accusing them of sluggishness. Appointed head of Soyuzatomenergostroy MS Tsvirko as the head of sand loading.
M. S. Tsvirko testifies:
“On the evening of April 27, when Shasharin and Antoshkin reported on the dropped bags, Shcherbina shouted for a long time that they were not working well. And instead of Shasharin he appointed me to supervise the loading of sand. I gave up the place where they took the sand before. The sand there, according to the dosimetrists' measurements, was very radioactive, and people in vain grabbed extra doses. We found a sand pit ten kilometers from Pripyat. The bags were first taken in the ORS, stores, shaking out cereals, flour, sugar from there. Then the bags were brought from Kiev. On April 28 we were given optical dosimeters, but they need to be charged, and it seems they were not charged. My dosimeter showed one and a half X-rays all the time. The arrow did not move. Then I took another dosimeter. It showed two X-rays, And no gu-gu more. He spat and stopped looking anymore. They caught somewhere about seventy, one hundred roentgens. I think not less …"
General Antoshkin collapsed from fatigue and insomnia, and Shcherbina's assessment discouraged him. But only for a moment. He rushed into battle again. From 19 to 21 o'clock he adjusted relations with all the leaders, on whom the provision of the helicopter pilots with bags, sand, people for loading depended … They guessed to use parachutes to increase productivity. Fifteen bags were loaded into the canopies of the parachutes turned upside down with slings. It turned out to be a bag. The slings were attached to the helicopter and to the reactor …
On April 28, 300 tons were already dropped.
April 29 - 750 tons.
April 30 - 1500 tons. May 1 - 1900 tons.
At 19:00 on May 1, Shcherbina announced the need to cut the discharge by half. There was a fear that the concrete structures on which the reactor rested would not be able to withstand, and everything would collapse into a bubbling pool. This threatened with a thermal explosion and a huge radioactive release …
In total, from April 27 to May 2, about five thousand tons of bulk materials were discharged into the reactor …
Y. N. Filimontsev, Deputy Head of the Main Scientific and Technical Directorate of the USSR Ministry of Energy, testifies:
I arrived in Pripyat on the evening of April 27th. I was very tired from the road. He pushed around in the city committee, where the Government Commission worked, and went to the hotel to sleep. I had a pocket radiometer with me, which was presented to me at the Kursk NPP before my departure to work in Moscow. The device is good, with a summing device. In ten hours of sleep, I received one X-ray. Therefore, the activity in the room was one hundred milliroentgens per hour. On the street in different places - from five hundred milliroentgens to one X-ray per hour …"
The continuation of Yu. N. Filimontsev's testimony will be given somewhat later.
April 28, 1986
At eight in the morning on April 28, I arrived at work and entered the office of the head of the Main Production Department for Construction of the USSR Ministry of Energy, Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Reshetnikov, to report on the results of a trip to the Crimean NPP.
It is necessary to inform the reader that this main directorate, in abbreviated form - Glavstroy, was engaged in the construction and installation of thermal, hydraulic and nuclear power plants. As deputy chief of the main board, I was in charge of the atomic direction.
And although I myself am a technologist, and worked for many years in 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 in the construction and installation organization Soyuzatomenergostroy, where I coordinated the installation and construction work at nuclear power plants. That is, it was work at the intersection of technology and construction. While working at Soyuzatomenergostroy, where MS Tsvirko was the chief, I received an invitation from Reshetnikov to move to the new main office.
In other words, the decisive factor for me in my new job was the lack of contact with radiation, since in the integral I already had one hundred and eighty roentgens.
Reshetnikov is an experienced and energetic organizer of the construction industry, passionate about the success of the business. True, poor health, heart disease, prevented him from developing. For a long time he worked in the provinces in the construction of factories, mines, thermal and nuclear power plants. However, he did not know the technological part of the nuclear power plant, especially nuclear physics.
Entering 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 nuclear power plant …
- What happened, the reason? I asked.
“The connection is very bad,” he replied. - Phones at the station are disconnected. Only "HF" works, and that is bad. The apparatus was installed in the office of Deputy Minister Sadovsky. But the information is not clear. As if a rattlesnake had exploded in the emergency tank of the control system, in the central hall. The explosion demolished the central hall tent and the roof of the drum-separator rooms, destroyed the MCP room …
- Is the reactor intact? I asked.
- Unknown … It seems to be intact … I will now run to Sadovsky, maybe, what new news, but I beg you very much - look at the drawings and prepare a certificate for the report to the Secretary of the Central Committee V. I. Dolgikh. Make the help quite popular. Sadovsky will go to report, but he, you know, is a hydraulic engineer, does not understand nuclear intricacies. I will inform you as soon as information becomes available. If you find out anything yourself, report to me …
“We ought to fly there, see everything on the spot,” I said.
- While you wait. A lot of superfluous people flew there and so. There is no one in the Ministry of Energy to prepare materials for the report. You will fly after the return of the minister 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 water storage tank for cooling the CPS drives is required in case the standard cooling system fails. Mounted at a height 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 by a breathing tube to the atmosphere. If radiolytic hydrogen was collected there, then it had to leave the tank through the air vent. Somehow it was hard to believe that the tank had exploded. Most likely, an explosion of oxyhydrogen gas could have occurred below, in the drain header, where the return water from the CPS channels is collected and which is not filled with a full section. The thought worked further. If the explosion is below, then a shock wave could throw out all absorbing rods from the reactor, and then … Then acceleration on prompt neutrons and the explosion of the reactor … Besides, if you believe Reshetnikov, the destruction is enormous. Well, well … The control and protection system tank exploded, which is unlikely, demolished the tent of the central hall and the roof of the separator rooms. But it seems that the premises of the MCP were also destroyed … They could have been destroyed only by an explosion from the inside, for example, in a solid-tight box …
Cold inside from such thoughts. But there is very little information … I tried to call Chernobyl. In vain. There is no connection. I contacted VPO Soyuzatomenergo on a troika basis. The head of the association, Veretennikov, either obscures, or does not really know anything himself. He says the reactor is intact, cooled with water. But the radiation situation is bad. Doesn't know the details. Except for him, no one could say anything intelligible. Everyone is guessing on the coffee grounds. In the construction and installation association Soyuzatomenergostroy, the person on duty said that on the morning of April 26 there was a conversation with the chief engineer of the construction site Zemskov, who said that they had a minor accident and asked not to be distracted.
The data for the report was clearly not enough. The reference was built based on the explosion of the control system tank, a possible explosion in the lower drain header with the subsequent acceleration and explosion of the reactor. But before the explosion, there must have been a discharge of steam through the safety valves into the bubbler pool. Then the explosion in the tightly packed box and the destruction of the MCP premises are explainable …
As it turned out later, I was not so far from the truth. Anyway, I guessed the explosion of the reactor, At eleven in the morning, Reshetnikov reported, very worried that he had barely been able to talk to Pripyat over HF. Activity over the reactor - 1000 roentgens per second …
I said that this is an obvious lie, a mistake by two orders of magnitude. Maybe ten roentgens a second. In an operating reactor, the 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 answered mysteriously.
- Destroyed, - already firmly, and rather to myself, I said. - That means an explosion. All communications were cut off … I imagined all the horror of the disaster.
"They throw sand," Reshetnikov said mysteriously again.
- We had a run-off on prompt neutrons twenty years ago with an open apparatus. We then threw bags with boric acid into the reactor vessel from the mark of the central hall. Silenced … Here, I think, you need to throw boron carbide, cadmium, lithium - excellent absorbing materials …
- I will report to Shcherbina immediately.
On the morning of April 29, Reshetnikov informed me that Deputy Minister Sadovsky, on our information, had reported on what happened in Chernobyl to the secretaries of the CPSU Central Committee V. I. Dolgikh and E. K. Ligachev.
Then it became known about a fire on the roof of the turbine hall, about a partial collapse of the roof.
In recent days in Moscow, in the ministry, it became finally clear that a nuclear catastrophe occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which was unmatched in nuclear power.
Immediately, the USSR Ministry of Energy organized an urgent and massive transfer of special construction equipment and materials to Chernobyl through Vyshgorod. Filmed from everywhere and transported to the disaster area: mixers, concrete pavers, cranes, concrete pumps, equipment for concrete plants, trailers, vehicles, bulldozers, as well as dry concrete mix and other building materials …
I shared my fears with Reshetnikov: if the core melted underneath the concrete and combined with the water in the bubble pool, there would be a terrible thermal explosion and a radioactive release. To prevent this from happening, it is necessary to urgently drain the water from the pool.
- And how to approach? - asked Reshetnikov, - If it is impossible to approach, you have to shoot cumulative shells. They burn through tank armor, and even more so they burn through concrete …
The thought was transferred to Shcherbina …
On April 29, 1986, the Government Commission left Pripyat and moved to Chernobyl.
G. A. Shasharin testifies;
“On April 26, I made a decision to stop the first and second blocks. Approximately at 21.00 they started to stop and at about two in the morning on April 27 they stopped. I ordered to add 20 additional absorbers to the empty channels evenly throughout the core for each reactor. If there are no empty channels, remove the fuel assemblies and insert the DP in their place. Thus, the operational reactivity margin was artificially increased, On the night of April 27, I, Sidorenko, Meshkov and Legasov sat and wondered 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 to me. It was also assumed that sabotage. That in the central hall, explosives were hung on the CPS drives and … they were fired from the reactor. This led to the idea of prompt neutron acceleration. Then, on the night of April 27, V. I. Dolgikh reported on the situation. He asked: could there still be an explosion? I said no. By that time, we had already measured the intensity of the neutron flux around the reactor. There were no more than 20 neutrons per square centimer per second. Over time, there were 17-18 neutrons. This indicated that there seemed to be no reaction. True, they measured from a distance and through concrete. What was the actual density of neutrons is unknown. We didn't measure from a helicopter …
On the same night, he determined the minimum operating personnel required to service the first, second and third blocks. He compiled the lists and handed them over to Bryukhanov for execution.
On April 29, already at a meeting in Chernobyl, I spoke and said that it was necessary to stop all the other 14 units with the RBMK reactor. Shcherbina listened in silence, then, after the meeting, when they were leaving, he said to me:
- You, Gennady, don't make a fuss. Do you understand what it means to leave the country without fourteen million kilowatts of installed capacity?.."
In the USSR Ministry of Energy and in our Glavstroy, continuous duty is organized, control of cargo flows to Chernobyl, satisfaction of priority needs.
It turned out that there are no mechanisms with manipulators for collecting radioactive parts (pieces of fuel and graphite). The explosion scattered reactor graphite and fuel debris all over the site around the damaged unit and much further.
There were no such robots in the army either. We agreed with one of the FRG firms to purchase three manipulators for collecting fuel and graphite on the territory of the nuclear power plant for a million gold rubles.
A group of our engineers, headed by the chief mechanic of Soyuzatomenergostroy NN Konstantinov, urgently flew to Germany to teach how to work on robots and receive products.
Unfortunately, it was not possible to use the robots for their intended purpose. They were designed to work on a flat area, and in Chernobyl there are solid rubble. Then they threw them on the roof to collect fuel and graphite on the roof of the deaerator stack, but the robots got entangled there in the hoses left by the firefighters. As a result, I had to collect fuel and graphite by hand. But then I got a little ahead of myself …
On May 1, 2 and 3, he was on duty at Glavstroy - control of cargo flows to Chernobyl. There was practically no connection with Chernobyl.
May 4, 1986 Testified by G. A. Shasharin;
“On the 4th of May, they found a valve that had to be opened to drain the water from the bottom of the bubbler pool. There was little water there. They looked into the upper pool through the hole in the reserve penetration. There was no water there. I took out two wetsuits and handed them over to the military. The military went to open the valves. We also used mobile pumping stations and hose passages. The new chairman of the Government Commission, IS Silaev, persuaded: who will open, in case of death - a car, a summer residence, an apartment, providing for the family until the end of days. Participants: Ignatenko, Saakov, Bronnikov, Grishchenko, Captain Zborovsky, Lieutenant Zlobin, junior sergeants Oleinik and Navava …"
On Saturday, May 4, Shcherbina, Mayorets, Maryin, Semenov, Tsvirko, Drach and other members of the Government Commission flew in from Chernobyl. At the Vnukovo airport they were met by a special bus and all were taken to the 6th clinic, except for M. Tsvirko, who called a company car and was able to leave separately …
M. S. Tsvirko testifies:
“We arrived in Moscow, and my pressure was terribly flooded. There was a hemorrhage in both eyes. While at the Vnukovo airport they were collecting arrivals to be sent by bus to the 6th clinic, I called my official car and drove to my usual 4th Main Directorate under the USSR Ministry of Health. The doctor asked why my eyes were red. I said that I shot (hemorrhage) in both eyes, apparently, very high pressure. The doctor measured, it turned out: two hundred twenty to one hundred and ten. Later I learned that the radiation is making up great pressure. I tell the doctor that I am from Chernobyl, that, apparently, I was irradiated. The doctor told me that they did not know how to treat radiation here, and that I had to go to Clinic 6. Then I asked the doctor to check my data anyway. He gave a referral, I donated blood and urine and went home. I had a good wash at home. Before leaving, I had a good wash in Chernobyl and Kiev. And I began to lie down. But they were already looking for me. They called and told me to urgently go to the 6th clinic. They say that they are waiting for me there. With great reluctance when. went there. I say:
- I am from Chernobyl, from Pripyat.
I was sent to the emergency room. The dosimetrist sniffed me with a sensor. It seems clean. I washed myself well before that, but I have no hair.
In the 6th clinic, I saw the deputy. Minister A. N. Semenov. He had already been shaved under a typewriter like a typhoid patient. He complained that after lying on the bed, his head became dirtier than before. They, it turns out, were put on the bunks on which the injured firefighters and operators, who were brought here on April 26, were lying. It turns out that the linen on the bunks was not changed and the arrivals were contaminated with radiation from each other through the linens. I categorically insisted that they let me go, and soon I went home. I lay there …"
Anzhelika Valentinovna Barabanova, Doctor of Medicine, says the head of the department of clinic No. 6 in Moscow, where the irradiated firefighters and operators from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant were treated:
“When the first victims from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant were brought, we had neither radiometers nor dosimeters in the clinic of the Institute of Biophysics. We asked physicists, it seems, from our institute or from the Kurchatov Institute to come up to us and measure the radioactivity of the patients who arrived. Soon the dosimetrists came with instruments and measured …"
The rest of the arrivals at the 6th clinic were "sniffed" with a sensor, stripped, washed, and their hair shaved. Everything was very radioactive. Shcherbina alone did not allow himself to be shaved. After washing, I changed into clean clothes and went home with radioactive hair (Shcherbina, Mayorets and Maryin were treated separately from the others in the medical unit adjacent to the 6th clinic).
All, except for Shcherbina, Tsvirko, who left the clinic and Mayorets, who was quickly washed away, were left for examination and treatment in the 6th clinic, where they stayed from a week to a month. To replace Shcherbina, a new composition of the Government Commission headed by the Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR IS Silaev flew to Chernobyl.
May 3, 1986
Chernobyl was evacuated. A group of hunters shot all the Chernobyl dogs. The drama of the farewell of the four-legged to their masters …
A 30-kilometer zone has been announced. Population and livestock were evacuated.
The headquarters of the Government Commission retreated to Ivan-kov. Ejection. The air activity has sharply increased.
Marshal S. Kh. Aganov trained with assistants on the fifth block on the explosion of shaped charges. Officers and fitters helped. On May 6, we will have to shoot in real conditions at the emergency unit. The hole is needed to pull the liquid nitrogen supply pipeline under the foundation slab for cooling.
