Biography of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant

Destroyed 4 power unit at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Its reasons were the design features of the RBMC reactor and the human factor. The power of the explosion can be judged by the preserved memories of eyewitnesses. Medvedev, an energy engineer, a Russian writer and publicist, author of books on nuclear energy, in his book “Chernobyl notebook” gives eyewitnesses: “I will give a fragment of a record made by one of the firefighters in the 6th clinic of Moscow:“ During the explosion, I was near the dispatch, in the post of day.

Suddenly, a strong emission of the couple was heard. We did not attach any importance to this, because pair emissions occurred repeatedly during my work time we mean the operation of safety valves in the process of normal operation of the nuclear power plant. I was going to leave to rest, and at this time - an explosion. I rushed to the window, the following explosions followed the explosion.

I saw a black fire ball that soared above the roof of the engine room of the fourth power unit ... ”or another record:“ In the central hall, a mark plus 35.6 - gender, the most central hall did not exist. But there, in addition to the “pyatak” of the reactor, there is nothing to burn. Together they decided that this glow comes from the reactor ... ". The former head of the equipment department of the Uzhezhatenergomontazh installation department G.

Petrov said: “I drove up to Pripyat about two hours thirty minutes from the north-west, from Shipelichi. Already near the station, Yanov saw a fire over the fourth power unit. The ventilation pipe with transverse red stripes lit by the flame was clearly visible. I remember well that the flame was above the pipe. That is, it reached a height of one hundred and seventy meters above the ground.

I did not wrap home, but decided to drive closer to the fourth power unit in order to better consider. I drove up from the construction department and stopped a hundred meters from the end of the emergency power unit. I saw in the near light of the fire that the building was dilapidated, there is no central hall, separator rooms, and a devices drums shifted from their seats are reddishly.

It’s already painful to the heart from such a picture. Then he examined the blockage and the destroyed GECEAN PRODUCT. Fire engines stood near the block. I drove to the city an ambulance with a miga turned on. Standed for a minute. There was an oppressive feeling of incomprehensible anxiety, numbness, eyes absorbed everything and remembered forever. And the anxiety all went into the soul, and an involuntary fear appeared.

The feeling of an invisible close threat. It smelled like, after a strong category of lightning, still tart smoke, began to burn his eyes, to dry his throat. He choked the cough. And I also, in order to better consider, took the glass. It was a warm spring night. I clearly saw that the roof of Maszala and the deaerator that was burning, saw figures of firefighters, flashing in the clubs and smoke stretched up from fire engines, trembling hoses.

One firefighter climbed already onto the roof of the block B, on the mark plus 71, apparently watched the reactor and coordinated the actions of the comrades on the roof of Mashzal. They were thirty meters below him ... Now I understand that he then rose to an unattainable height - the first of all of humanity. Even in Hiroshima, people were not so close to the nuclear explosion, the bomb exploded there at an altitude of seven hundred meters.

And here - very close to the explosion ... After all, under it was a crater of a nuclear volcano and a radioactivity of 30 thousand x -rays per hour ... ". The power of the explosion of the reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was such that the explosion tossed and deployed in the air the plate of upper bio -protection weighing tons. In a detailed, slightly inclined position, she again collapsed onto the apparatus, leaving an ajar.

The active area on the right and left. One person died directly during the explosion - the operator of the main circulation pumps V. Shademchuk his body was never found. Early on the morning of April 26, an employee of the commissioning enterprise V., an extensive radioactive pollution and retraining of the personnel of the station, liquidators and civilians, died from the injuries.

Then G. Medvedev writes: “About fifty tons of nuclear fuel evaporated and was thrown out by an explosion into the atmosphere in the form of finely dispersed particles of uranium dioxide, highly radioactive radionuclides of iodine, plutonia, neptunia, cesium, strontium and many other radioactive substances. Part of the fuel turned out to be abandoned for equipment, substation transformers, tire pipelines, the roof of the central hall of the third power unit, a ventilation pipe of the nuclear power plant.

It should be emphasized that the activity of the discarded fuel reached 15-20 thousand x -rays per hour, and a powerful radiation field immediately formed around the emergency power unit. Approximately fifty tons of nuclear fuel and about eight hundred tons of reactor graphite is all loading of graphite - tons remained in the reactor mine, forming a funnel resembling a volcano crater.In order to fit the scale of the radioactive ejection, we recall that the atomic bomb, dropped into hiroshima, weighed four and a half tons, that is, the weight of the radioactive substances formed during the explosion, amounted to four and a half tons.

The reactor of the fourth power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant threw fifty tons of evaporating fuel into the atmosphere, ... that is, ten Hiroshimic bombs without primary factors of the plus of seventy tons of fuel and about seven hundred tons of radioactive reactor graphite, settled in the area of ​​the emergency power unit. ” The level of radioactive pollution over the Chernobyska NPP.

The elimination of the consequences of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant to the fire and destruction was added another serious problem: radiation. Radiation is an ionizing radiation that is formed during the decay of radioactive particles. High doses of radiation can lead to instant destruction of cells, tissues and organs. In addition to thermal burns, the victims of the accident received high doses of radiation, which caused acute radiation disease.

By the morning of April 26, Pripyat with such symptoms as powerful erythema nuclear tanning, swelling, burns, nausea, vomiting, weakness, some have shock conditions. Smagin: “Passed in the ward and put on a free bed. Immediately put a dropper in Vienna. It lasted a long time. About two and a half - three hours. Three bottles poured: two transparent liquid, in one - yellowish. We all called this saline.

Two hours later, vigor began to be felt in the body. Toptunov was a senior engineer of the reactor management and worked on a night shift on April 26. He was lying. All brown-brown. He had a strongly swollen mouth, lips. Swolled tongue. It was difficult for him to speak. After the dropper, many became better.

I met in the corridor V. They both held their hands pressed to the chest. As they closed from the radiation radiation in the central hall, the hands remained in a bent position, they could not bend, terrible pain. Their faces and hands were very swollen, dark brown-brown. Both complained of painful pain in the skin of hands and faces. They could not speak for a long time, and I did not disturb them anymore.

Doctors, of course, did a lot for the victims, but their capabilities were limited. They themselves irradiated. The atmosphere, the air in the medical units were radioactive. Severe patients were also radiated. After all, they absorbed radionuclides inside and absorbed into the skin. Indeed, anywhere in the world there was no such thing. We were the first after Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

By evening, a team of doctors from the 6th clinic of Moscow arrived. We walked around the wards. They examined us. The bearded doctor, it seems Georgy Dmitrievich Selidovkin, took away the first batch - twenty -eight people - for urgent sending to Moscow. " At the initiative of Avetika Burnazyan in the year, on the basis of the Moscow Neurosurgical Hospital for disabled people of the Patriotic War, a clinical hospital of a closed type was organized for beds for the treatment of personnel of enterprises of the nuclear industry, including radiation illness and other radiation lesions.

In the year, departments of the clinical department of radiation medicine were transferred from the building of the Institute of Biophysics to the hospital. Here, the year was treated by victims of the Chernobyl NPP with the most severe radiation lesions. In the atomic industry system, the 3rd Main Directorate of the USSR Ministry of Health was responsible for medical care in emergency situations, and the clinical department of the radiation medicine of the Institute of Biophysics on the Secret Line was listed as the radiological center of the USSR, where the victims were sent in the event of a radiation incident anywhere in the country.

When the scale of the victims became clear, all patients were moved to other medical institutions to free up a place for Chernobyls. The clinic completely went into the operating mode of the front -line hospital. It was here that our countrywoman A. Guskova worked - - an outstanding radiologist, Honored Scientist of the RSFSR, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninsky Prize winner, Laureate of the Zyverta Prize for Protection from Radiation.

Doctor of Medical Sciences A. Guskov in the office. Photo x