All those who were called upon to eliminate the consequences of the Chernobyl accident call it a mission to the war - a war against invisible radiation that can poison the whole world with its deadly breath. She was stopped, but at a high price - tens of thousands of liquidators of the accident consequences have passed away in 26 years, and many of those who are alive are disabled.
At the headquarters
On that memorable July 1986, on our way to Pripyat, we, the journalists of Volgogradskaya Pravda, made plans: we would examine the station and the exploded reactor, and talk with fellow countrymen working here. But it was not there. From the first steps in the Zone, they made it clear to us that we are superfluous here and are only getting under our feet.
- Where are you going to live, or what, tired? - the new NPP director E. N. Pozdyshev. These accusations were not only a manifestation of concern for our health. Everything related to the causes and consequences of the accident was classified.
We nevertheless got to the station itself, although not immediately, but after spending a long time in Chernobyl - at the headquarters of the Government Commission, to which we were politely and forcibly attached to help deal with the incoming reports.
I had a chance to communicate at the headquarters with members of the commission: with academician V. A. Legasov, who was here from the first days of the accident, with other scientists from the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy, the institutes of physics of the Earth, biophysics and genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences …
Nobody paid any attention to us, except for the comrades from the KGB: some civilians were sitting, digging through papers. I shook everything that they argued about, turned on, coughing, the tape recorder hidden in my pocket. Academician Legasov was in the lead in these disputes.
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The system did not work …
“During the experiment, which began on April 25, it was planned to test the ability of the turbine generator to generate electricity in the event of an emergency,” said Academician Legasov. - Operators gradually reduced the power of the reactor and by the middle of the day reached half power. In the evening, the decline was suspended in order to provide the staff with electricity. And after 23 o'clock they began to decrease the power again. When it dropped to 700 megawatts, the reactor emergency shutdown system should have been triggered. But it didn’t work … Am I making it clear, young man? He stared at me over his glasses.
I nodded my head in confusion. Valery Alekseevich continued to pace the cabinet. In protective uniform, he looked little like an academician.
- So, colleagues, - continued Legasov, - it is not clear why the measuring system began to fail, why there was an instantaneous drop in power to zero. Operators began to increase it to 200 megawatts, but it did not rise. Then they pressed the emergency protection button, as a result of which 178 absorber rods had to descend into the core and shut down the reactor. But the rods dropped only halfway, the reactor began to accelerate, an uncontrolled jump in power, and on April 26, a powerful explosion occurred, which knocked out, like a chip, a multi-ton reactor lid. The “fool-proof” did not work, since the operators at the beginning of the experiment turned off the emergency cooling system of the reactor. The second explosion destroyed the building of the reactor compartment. The light went out, but a strange glow appeared …
Ball lightning?
- There is nothing strange in this, - interrupted the academician E. V. Barkovsky. - It was a fireball that flew into the machine room.
- Where did it come from? - the academician soared.
Those present smiled: again the scientists grappled! Meanwhile, Barkovsky continued:
- The reactor became the epicenter of a powerful anticyclone and an earthquake. This was recorded by many seismic stations. The thing is that the nuclear power plant was built on the tectonic fault of the Pripyat ridge - contrary to the warnings of geologists. An earthquake, an anticyclone, and then a ball lightning and disabled the equipment …
“The warning of the Apostle John has come true,” my neighbor broke the silence. - It is not for nothing that his “Revelation” says: “The Third Angel sounded his trumpet, and a large star fell from heaven, burning like a lamp, and fell on a third of the rivers and on the sources of water.
There are 440 nuclear reactors in the world. 104 of them are in the USA. France has 59 reactors, Japan - 53, The name of this star is "Wormwood", and a third of the waters became wormwood, and many of the people died from the waters, because they became bitter."
- You have not discovered anything new, colleague, although much converges, - the academician smiled. - Wormwood in Ukrainian is "Chernobyl", the water in Pripyat was indeed radioactively contaminated. It is not clear only: where did the big star come from?
- Valery Alekseevich, - the KGB colonel took the floor. - Residents of Pripyat, awakened by the explosion, saw an unidentified flying object in the form of a fireball above the station. A local photojournalist managed to capture it.
UFO over the Chernobyl nuclear power plant
Here is what the senior dosimetrist of the ChNPP dosimetric control department Varitskia and his colleague Samoilenko, who were alerted immediately after the explosion, testify: “We saw a bright brass colored fireball in the sky. It was about 6-8 meters in diameter. The object was about 300 meters above the reactor and suddenly sent two beams to the station. Remarkably, we made two measurements of radiation with a dosimetry device. The first time we were in the line of sight of the damaged reactor. The device went off scale at around 3000 microroentgens per hour. The measurements were carried out for the second time when the beams of the flying saucer's searchlight went out. This time the dosimeter showed 800. According to experts, in the epicenter of the explosion, where the radiation exceeded thousands of roentgens per hour, the UFO brought down the radiation level by almost four times.
Enemy attack
“We also do not exclude the use of a beam (laser) weapon directed from a military satellite by a potential enemy,” the colonel continued. - After the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, we stopped attempts to take samples of land on the territory of the 30-kilometer zone. It has also been suggested that the reason for the failure of the reactor equipment was an accidental high-frequency "attack" of the radar of a secret radar station located not far from here.
“After what happened, I’m ready to believe in everything: in UFOs, in the attack of the radar and in the revelations of the Apostle John,” Legasov said thoughtfully. “But allow me, Colonel, to judge for ourselves what happened. I am inclined to believe that the reactors and the graphite rods installed in them have a number of design flaws …
This phrase will become known to Academician A. P. Aleksandrov, the creator of the reactor, who publicly swore before the accident that it was 100 percent safe. This will lead to a breakdown in their relationship and a conflict in which many scientists have become involved. When Legasov, having received a dangerous dose of radiation, returned to Moscow, he was persecuted in scientific circles. She drove him to suicide - he hanged himself on April 27, 1988, on the second anniversary of the Chernobyl accident.
Expulsion from "Eden"
Near the sarcophagus under construction, we did not see anyone, except for crane operators who worked in huge cars lined with lead sheets. Every now and then concrete trucks drove up. On the roof of the reactor, young soldiers were throwing pieces of radioactive fuel with shovels …
They were not wearing any protective suits, only leaded aprons worn on their uniforms, and incomprehensible masks on their faces. They were ordered literally seconds to be on the roof, where the radiation exceeded thousands of roentgens per hour.
We experienced the effects of radiation on ourselves: nausea, voice sat down, sore throat, watery eyes. Gauze bandages - "petals" saved only from dust. Due to the noise of the cars, we did not hear an APC approaching and someone shouting. Startled with surprise, we handed the KGB officer, whom we saw at the PC headquarters, plastic-filled passes with a red diagonal stripe and the inscription: "Passage everywhere."
- Leave the facility immediately! the captain roared. - Are you tired of living? You will receive the crusts upon departure. I'll see to it.
A couple of days later, we nevertheless repeated the sortie to the station, having learned that imported robots "go crazy" from radiation on the roof of the reactor and fall down. But not only this, but the desire to find Volgograd residents, of whom there were many at the NPP, motivated us. We went to the face, where we saw drifters coming out to catch their breath. It turned out that the temperature in the mine was about 50 degrees due to the proximity of the reactor bottom. We managed to look into the face with a diameter of about 1.6 meters. The penetrators moved along it, bent over.
In a second I became wet as a mouse, it was very hot there. The only desire is to get out of here as soon as possible. But how to leave without knowing why all this is being done? To my question, one of the tunnellers twisted his finger at his temple: he found, they say, the time and place. But then he took pity, called the senior dosimetrist. Fortunately for us, our fellow countryman Yu. I. Kosarev (current chairman of the Volgograd regional organization of the Chernobyl Disabled People's Union).
It turned out that a wall is being concreted in the mine under the foundation of the reactor, pipes are being laid through which liquid nitrogen will circulate to cool it. God forbid, if the molten fuel breaks through the reactor wall … In addition to cooling pipes, power cables and control devices are laid along the walls of the mine.
Soon we were sent home, fortunately the term of our two-week trip was coming to an end. They left with a sense of accomplishment, although they did not fully reveal the secret of the explosion at the fourth power unit. Most likely, this will forever remain a mystery of the 20th century.
Magazine: Secrets of the 20th century №17. Author: Ivan Barykin