The disaster at the Ukrainian nuclear power plant, which happened 30 years ago, ruined the lives of thousands of people. A reconstructed course of events through the eyes of several of them.
April 26, 1986. Time 01-23
A 200-meter column of radioactive fuel, steam and debris soars into the sky above the 4th power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The pillar is colored with all the colors of the rainbow. The explosion threw 140 tons of radioactive substances into the air above the nuclear power plant. The greatest technogenic catastrophe of the 20th century happened, almost without disturbing the sleep of the nearby nuclear city of Pripyat.
A fire starts in the premises of the power unit and on its dilapidated roof. The first one perishes under the rubble and the second employee of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is injured.
Time 01-24
Promotional video:
Workers of the NPP railway station are staring in amazement at the multi-colored pole. The crane operator froze in the cockpit at a height of 20 meters. She is the first of the staff to receive the maximum dose of radiation and will die in the hospital in a day.
Time 01-27
Pripyat, 2 kilometers from the nuclear power plant. The head of the KGB department in the city, Vladimir Klochko, received a call from the duty officer who reported the accident. Klochko prepares to leave for the station.
Time 01-28
Space, Earth's orbit. An American satellite passes over the European part of the USSR. His camera captures a bright scarlet glow in the administrative border area of Ukraine and Belarus. Gamma is characteristic for the explosion of a nuclear bomb.
Vasily Kucherenko, the head of the city police department, receives a message about the accident. He is hastily getting ready. Before leaving, she looks in to see her sleeping daughters. It's stuffy in the children's room, he opens the window.
Time 01-29
4th power unit. On an alarm signal, the first fire brigade of 14 people is sent to the reactor.
Time 01-30
A telephone call lifts the director of the nuclear power plant Viktor Bryukhanov from his bed. He receives a call from the head of the chemical department, who has not received a message about the disaster, but sees a glow over the station from the balcony of his apartment. It turns out to be impossible to get through to someone from the duty shift.
Time 01-32
Viktor Bryukhanov unsuccessfully dials the numbers of the attendants and the head of the shop. Finally, the telephone operator of the station calls up, orders to declare an emergency and an immediate gathering of all the management personnel at the headquarters of the nuclear power plant's civil defense.
Time 01-38
Firefighters begin to extinguish a burning power unit without protection from radiation. A total of 69 people and all ambulances of the city of Pripyat were sent to the scene of the accident.
The head of the city police Kucherenko and the head of the local KGB Klochko go to the nuclear power plant in the same official car.
Time 01-40
Director Bryukhanov goes to the station in a bus on duty.
Time 01-45
Firefighters extinguish the burning debris of the roof and the remains of graphite rods-moderators, thrown out by the explosion on the roof.
Time 01-51
The chiefs of the KGB and the police arrive at the fourth block, jumping out of a strip of dense radioactive fog. They see that part of the roof has been torn down, and molten bitumen is flowing down the walls.
Time 01-55
Director Bruchanov drives up to the nuclear power plant and immediately sees how the wounded worker is being carried out. Together with Klochko, Kucherenko and the shift leaders, he goes into the office. On the sensor of the generated energy of the fourth block, the arrow is at zero. “The irreparable happened,” says Bryukhanov. A screaming dosimetrist rushes into the office, demanding to immediately go to the basements of the civil defense headquarters (GO), where the radiation should be lower.
Time 01-57
Viktor Bryukhanov reports the accident by telephone to Moscow and Kiev and opens an emergency meeting.
Time 01-58
The deputy head of the electrical department, Alexander Lelechenko, understands that there are generators filled with hydrogen in the immediate vicinity of the fire. The electrolysis room is located next to the damaged reactor. Lelechenko stops the subordinates, personally enters the electrolysis room and in three stages pumps out hydrogen from the generators. Removing the threat of an explosion, Lelechenko loses consciousness. The ambulance takes him to the hospital.
Time 02-00
Despite the accident at the fourth unit, the rest of the nuclear power plant's reactors produce energy in the normal mode.
Firefighters continue to work on the roof. The staff of Nikolai Vashchuk's crew, who arrived at the site first, began to peel off the skin from their hands. Faces flushed from "nuclear sunburn", vomiting begins. Vashchuk himself falls unconscious, the commander of another crew, Vasily Ignatenko, carries him out.
Moscow. The head of state, Mikhail Gorbachev, is woken up and informed of the Chernobyl accident. He gave the order in the morning to assemble a government commission headed by the deputy head of the government (Council of Ministers of the USSR) Boris Shcherbina.
Time 02-01
Firefighters on the roof of the fourth block, one after another, lose consciousness.
Time 02-04
NPP fire chief Leonid Telyatnikov climbs onto the roof of the turbine hall to adjust the work of firefighters. The spread of fire to the third power unit can be stopped.
Time 02-45
Director Bryukhanov receives reports of radiation levels, but most of the dosimeters are out of order. Bryukhanov calls the mayor (head of the city executive committee) of Pripyat and talks about the need to evacuate the city's population. In response, he hears: "In the afternoon, a commission will arrive from Moscow, let them decide."
Time 02-50
The commander of the fire department Vasily Ignatenko loses consciousness on the roof of the fourth block, he is taken to the hospital.
Bruchanov goes out into the courtyard, where pieces of graphite are scattered everywhere. Above the fourth block he sees a scarlet glow. There is still no understanding of the scale of the disaster. To find out the state of the reactor, reconnaissance is needed, but it is impossible to get close to it from the ground, the temperature around is too high.
The deputy head of the electrical department Lelechenko regains consciousness in the Pripyat hospital after a dropper. He tells the doctors that he wants to get some street air. Four dozen firefighters and NPP employees have already been delivered to the hospital. Going out into the street, Lelechenko finds a rotational bus stop, gets into it and again goes to save the station.
Time 04-30
The fires on the roof of the fourth block and around it are extinguished. The fuel inside the reactor continues to melt, throwing radioactive smoke into the air invisible to the eye. There is a cordon around the block. At the civil defense headquarters in the basement of the nuclear power plant, a meeting continues with the participation of the director, city leaders and law enforcement agencies. It was decided to introduce radiation reconnaissance in Pripyat by the forces of police patrols and the military.
Everyone is waiting for a commission from Moscow.
In the early morning after the explosion, which the world does not yet know about, fishermen gather in the vicinity of Chernobyl from all over the Kiev region and neighboring Belarus, as usual on Saturday.
Time 04-55
Pripyat police chief Vasily Kucherenko, returning from the crash site, gathers officers and gives the order to block the access roads to the station. During the meeting, the colonel loses his voice, feels severe pain behind the ears and in the throat.
Time 05-00
In the Pripyat hospital there are 150 injured, including 69 firefighters who worked at the nuclear power plant. The hospital is overcrowded, some patients are being redirected to the neighboring town of Ivankov.
Time 05-40
Some firefighters are becoming critical. Doctors decide to evacuate some of the patients to Moscow, to the radiological hospital No. 6.
The pregnant wife of a hospitalized firefighter Ignatenko, Lyudmila, arrives at the Pripyat hospital. She is seeking permission to fly to Moscow with her husband.
Time 08-00
The city is waking up and does not yet know about the trouble. Women gather at bus stops to Kiev to go shopping. The scarlet glow over the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is not visible in daylight.
The first deputy director of the Kurchatov Institute, Valery Legasov, wakes up in his Moscow apartment. It's a sunny morning outside the window. Legasov wants to go out of town with his wife, but he needs to go to a meeting (party asset) at the Ministry of Medium Machine Building, which oversees nuclear energy.
Time 09-30
In the city schools of Pripyat, regular Saturday lessons begin.
Legasov arrives at the ministry. His curator reports about "some unpleasant accident" in Chernobyl, which does not seem tragic yet. Legasov drinks coffee and goes to the meeting.
Time 09-45
Pripyat. The first patrols of police in respirators and dosimeters appear on the streets. Passers-by look at them with surprise and apprehension. The patrols say they are training.
Time 10-00
A radioactive cloud has formed over the nuclear power plant, the northwestern wind partially carries it towards Belarus.
Time 11-40
The first manifestation of panic in Pripyat. In the square in front of the River Station, from where the Meteor hydrofoil ships go to Kiev, seventy men with trunks gather. These are installers and builders involved in the construction of the fifth and sixth nuclear power units. They all want to leave the city immediately. The nearest "Meteor" departs at noon, there are no tickets, the builders, pushing other passengers, are packed onto the ship. Women and children are taken to the pier from the Meteor. The police officer on duty calls for help, but all forces are busy on patrol.
Time 11-57
The overcrowded Meteor departs from the landing stage.
Time 12-00
Moscow. A break was announced at the meeting of the assets of the Ministry of Medium Machine Building. Legasov, deputy director of Kurchatovka, is drinking tea with the scientific secretary. Deputy Minister Alexander Meshkov bursts into the office, quickly informs about a serious accident in Chernobyl, Legasov's inclusion in the government commission and the need to arrive at Vnukovo airport by four in the afternoon to be sent to Pripyat.
Time 13-40
Pripyat. The evacuation of the first 150 radiation victims to Moscow and Kiev has been completed. New ones come to the hospital. The main symptoms are nausea, headache, burns and "nuclear sunburn". The deputy chief physician orders to collect all the clothes of the night patients in plastic bags and put them in the basement. “In order not to be exposed to radiation,” the doctor explains. The clothes are taken to the basement, but the dosimetrist who arrives soon detects the excess of the permissible radiation level by one and a half times. The staff hurriedly leave the basement, throwing plastic bags. They are still there.
Time 14-00
Moscow. Academician Legasov says goodbye to his wife, promises to call, gets into the service "Volga" and with a small briefcase in his hands goes to Vnukovo.
Time 15-30
Members of the government commission are waiting in Vnukovo for Deputy Prime Minister Boris Shcherbina, who did not manage to return to Moscow from a business trip. Everyone is tense and laconic. “Perhaps we have witnessed a huge catastrophe, something like the death of Pompeii,” reflects Legasov.
Time 16-00
Pripyat. The whole city has already heard about the fire at the nuclear power plant, but does not know the reasons. People are busy with the Sabbath. Children returned from school. The adults are walking, drinking beer, discussing the upcoming opening of the amusement park and tomorrow's football match between Dynamo Kiev and Spartak. Black-gray smoke is visible in the sky above the fourth block.
Time 16-30
NPP Director Viktor Bryukhanov again appeals to the head of the local administration (city executive committee) with a request to start evacuating the population. He is repeatedly told that the decision will be made by a commission from Moscow, which is allegedly already on its way to the city.
Time 16-50
Vnukovo. Boris Shcherbina finally arrived at the airport. The members of the commission fly to Kiev. During the flight, Legasov explains to the Deputy Prime Minister the device of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and its reactors.
Time 18-15
The plane with the commission landed at the Kiev airport Borispol. The entire leadership of Ukraine meets the arrivals at the gangway. Crumpled suits, worried faces. A cavalcade of black "Volgas" and "Seagulls", accompanied by the police, leaves in the direction of Pripyat. It starts to get dark.
Time 18-50
Pripyat. Employees of the station, firefighters and ordinary citizens continue to turn to the hospital for help. Doctors consult with Moscow Hospital No. 6. Doctors in the capital advise to give patients a mixture of iodine and water.
Time 19-30
About 80 kilometers from Pripyat Legasov, Shcherbina and other members of the government commission see for the first time a crimson glow over half the sky over the city in front. It is produced by the fourth power unit reactor.
Time 20-00
At the sight of the glow in the coming darkness, the inhabitants of Pripyat grow fear. There is still no exact information about what happened. Reinforced patrols with dosimeters roam the unusually deserted streets.
Time 20-20
A cavalcade of cars of the government commission stops in the main square of the city.
Time 20-30
The meeting room of the local administration (city executive committee) is packed with leaders. The meeting begins with a report by the NPP director.
Washington DC. US President Ronald Reagan, having received the expert opinion on the accident at the nuclear power plant based on satellite images, sends a request to Moscow and does not receive information. The Soviet leadership is silent.
Time 21-30
Shcherbina gives the order to transfer chemical defense troops and helicopter formations of the Kiev military district to Pripyat.
Time 22-40
Helicopters from General Antoshkin's squadron based near Chernigov arrive in Pripyat. The crews make the first overflights of the station and the fourth power unit. Valery Legasov on board.
Almost a day after the accident, it finally becomes clear that the reactor was blown up.
Time 23-00
In the hole in the roof of Unit 4, fragments of radioactive fuel and rods glowing in crimson are visible. The reactor lid lies on its side, almost vertically. White smoke or steam rises above the block. The risk of a second explosion has not yet been assessed.
Time 23-15
Boris Shcherbina decides to evacuate the entire population of the city during the next day. Bus fleets and motor vehicle convoys of the Kiev region are ordered to drive vehicles in the vicinity of Pripyat. It was decided to take the residents out to villages and small towns in Kiev, Bryansk (Russia) and Gomel (Belarus) regions.
Time 23-50
Moscow. The radiology department of hospital No. 6 ran out of places. All vacant rooms are filled with bunks with firefighters and station staff brought from Pripyat. Dosimeters are off scale. Patients are given pain medications.
Last night, experts who flew in from Moscow finally found out that the fire and radiation emissions at the nuclear power plant were caused by the explosion of the reactor of the fourth power unit. Residents of the city of Pripyat do not yet understand the scale of the disaster and do not know that in the next few hours they will all be evacuated.
April 27, Sunday. Time 07-00
Pripyat. The government commission accepts the plan of the deputy director of the Kurchatov Institute Valery Legasov to fill the destroyed reactor from helicopters with a mixture of boron carbide, lead and iron shot. This will help reduce radioactivity.
At the approaches to the city, 1,250 buses and 360 trucks from all over the Kiev region are ready to evacuate residents. Two diesel trains for 1,500 passengers have been driven to the railway station.
Time 07-30
It turns out that it is impossible to use iron shot from the NPP warehouses: radioactive radiation has passed through it, the dose for loaders and helicopter pilots will be fatal.
Time 08-10
Legasov asks the head of the government commission Boris Shcherbina to deliver 2,000 tons of lead from Ukrainian enterprises. Shcherbina calls Moscow and demands 6,000 tons within two days. Hangs up the phone. “Better to be safe. But don't worry about the volumes, Valery Alekseevich, we have a strong industry."
Time 08-30
Chemical protection troops, internal troops and new helicopter units arrive in Pripyat and the surrounding area.
Time 09-00
Temperature measurements above the reactor show that it is virtually damped and the risk of another explosion is minimal.
Time 09-50
The first shipments of boron carbide, lead and iron shot are delivered to the field airfields of helicopter pilots. Helicopters at an altitude of 200 meters are heading for the fourth power unit.
Time 10-00
The hum of helicopters, continuously dropping something on the station, makes the inhabitants of Pripyat agitated. The accident now looks worse than it seemed yesterday.
Time 10-40
The pilots who worked on the fourth block, while the soldiers are reloading their cars, experience bouts of severe vomiting. Their faces are "tanned".
Time 11-00
In several neighboring regions, the troops go out on radiation reconnaissance of the terrain.
Time 12-00
Pripyat is blocked by internal troops. From now on you can leave the city only through checkpoints. The task is to prevent the export of contaminated items.
Time 13-00
Through street loudspeakers and radio outlets in Pripyat they announce: “Dear comrades! In connection with the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, an unfavorable radiation situation is developing in the city. Today, starting at 14:00, there is a need to temporarily evacuate the residents of the city …”Residents were ordered to gather at the entrances and wait for transport. They are advised to take things to a minimum, promising a return in a few days.
Time 13-10
Pripyat police chief Vasily Kucherenko gives an order to seal the entrances. One or two policemen or soldiers are posted at each house to protect them from looters.
Time 14-00
The first buses are filled with citizens and leave Pripyat. Everything is light: documents, money, some water.
Time 15-00
An unusually large amount of dust settles in the city. Residents do not yet understand that it is radioactive, and they blame nonresident buses.
Time 17-00
The main stage of the evacuation has been completed. The station staff, the government commission, security forces and liquidators remained in the city.
Time 17-30
Police chief Kucherenko is informed that "some child is calling him." This is his oldest daughter. Wife Maria left a few days ago to visit her parents in Ivano-Frankivsk. Two girls have been left alone in the apartment since the accident. Kucherenko sends the children to the relatives of a colleague.
Time 18-00
Washington DC. American analysts are still unable to assess the scale of the Chernobyl accident.
Time 19-00
Kiev, Republican stadium. Referee Kuznetsov blows the starting whistle of a football match between the two strongest clubs in the country: the reigning USSR champion Dynamo (Kiev) takes Moscow Spartak. In the stands, 82 thousand people tell each other about the columns of buses going “somewhere in Pripyat, there seems to be some kind of accident”.
Pripyat. The police go around house after house in search of citizens who have evaded evacuation. They find and take out by force three dozen remaining. For a week here they would have received a lethal dose of radiation.
Time 19-17
Kiev. The crowd at the Republican Stadium is jubilant when Dynamo midfielder Pavel Yakovenko opens the scoring against Spartak.
Time 19-22
Forward Igor Belanov (at the end of the year will be recognized as the best player in the world) scores the second goal against Spartak player Rinat Dasaev. Full advantage of the people of Kiev, triumph in the stands.
Time 19-30
Pripyat. It gets dark, and it becomes more difficult to drop bags from helicopters to Unit 4. Helicopter pilots hover over the reactor for three to four minutes instead of two on each sortie, increasing the damage to their own health.
Time 20-47
Kiev. The match between Dynamo and Spartak ends with a score of 2: 1. The next match of Kiev, one of the most important in the history of the club - the final of the European Cup Winners' Cup in a week in French Lyon. Satisfied spectators slowly leave the stadium.
Time 23-00
Moscow, hospital No. 6. The condition of the firefighters from Pripyat is worsening, doctors are fighting for their lives. Vasily Ignatenko's pregnant wife is in the ward next to her husband.
April 28, Monday. Time 05-00
Pinery. A radiation hazard warning system is activated at the Leningrad NPP. Shocked employees are looking for a leak. Only after half an hour it becomes clear that the radiation background four times higher than the norm was brought by the wind from the side of Chernobyl.
Time 06-00
Oskarshamn, Sweden. A radiation hazard warning is also triggered at the local nuclear power plant, where the radioactive cloud has reached. Employees' cars exposed to rain were irradiated. The station director informs the country's leadership. Swedish experts soon find out that the cloud came from the USSR.
Time 11-00
Pripyat. The reconnaissance data showed that the background in different parts of the region exceeds the norm by 5 to 20 times. For the first time, the issue of evacuating residents within a radius of 30 kilometers from the nuclear power plant is being discussed.
Time 12-00
New helicopter units are dropping bags of clay and sand into the smoldering reactor. They raise a cloud of dust, the level of radiation over the reactor increases, and this affects the health of the crews. By mid-afternoon, dozens of helicopter pilots were hospitalized.
London. For the first time, the BBC Broadcasting Company reports on a possible accident at a nuclear power plant in the Soviet Union.
Time 16-00
Moscow. The TASS news agency publishes a message only for foreign media: “An accident occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant located on the territory of the Ukrainian SSR near the border of the Byelorussian SSR. Two people were killed. The consequences of the accident are being liquidated, a government commission has been set up to establish the causes of the incident.
Time 21-00
Moscow. In the Vremya program, the message about the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was kept in an official tone and took 17 seconds. Until May 2, the Soviet media did not provide any other information about the disaster.
Time 23-59
Six firefighters from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant die in Moscow hospital No. 6. The condition of 40 people remains critical, another 87 is extremely serious. New patients are sent to hospitals in Ukraine and Belarus instead of the capital.
April 29, Tuesday
Kiev. At the city station, the excitement was created by crowds of people wishing to leave the city. Tickets disappear from the box office, and the price of dealers grows 20 times to 250 rubles (with an average salary in the country of 120). At the Borispol airport, after the suspension of flights, the crowd breaks through the police cordon and runs along the runway towards the planes. Departures are resumed.
April 30, Wednesday
Kiev. The streets of the city are watered with a special composition every five hours, preparing the city for the May Day parade and the start of the international Peace Bicycle Race. Moscow insists on holding all planned celebrations so as not to sow panic.
May 1, Thursday. Time 09-00
The Peace Bike Race starts on Khreshchatyk, followed by a parade with the participation of 200 thousand residents, led by the leader of Ukraine Vladimir Shcherbytsky. Dosimeters show a slight excess of the background.
Time 10-00
Light rain begins over Kiev. Participants in the cycling race jump off their bicycles and hide under awnings and arches. Everyone is afraid that the rain is radioactive.
Time 12-00
Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Almost a thousand helicopters have already been involved in extinguishing the reactor. Due to the lack of crews, pilots are recalled from the 40th Army, which is fighting in Afghanistan.
May 2, Friday. Time 12-00
Kiev and Bryansk regions. The head of the government (Council of Ministers of the USSR) Nikolai Ryzhkov and an influential member of the Politburo Yegor Ligachev arrive in the disaster zone. The latter demands that the fourth block be returned to service by the November anniversary of the October Revolution. The director of the station, Viktor Bryukhanov, silently watches as the high specialists on the atom nod in unison to the boss, already knowing that the fourth unit cannot be restored.
Time 20-00
A decision was made to evacuate the population of the 30-kilometer zone. More than two hundred villages, settlements and farmsteads will be covered with fresh soil. 115 thousand people will be resettled.
May 6, Tuesday
The first reports from the disaster zone in Soviet newspapers. "Pravda": "The state farm" Maidanovka ", the collective farm" Peremoga "and other farms of the Kiev region were happy to welcome the Chernobyl victims." The general tone of the publications is that a disaster has happened, but the Soviet people will cope. Only two casualties are reported.
The ambulance sends the head of the police of the city of Pripyat Vasily Kucherenko to the hospital of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, where he will receive II group of disability. His daughters, despite the radiation doses received, will remain healthy.
May 7, Wednesday
Kiev. Aleksandr Lelechenko, deputy chief of the electrical department of the nuclear power plant, dies in a military hospital. In the first hours after the accident, he heroically prevented the explosion of hydrogen-filled generators in the electrolysis plant and received a dose of radiation twice the lethal dose.
May 14, Wednesday
Moscow. Firefighter Nikolai Vashchuk and Vasily Ignatenko, who carried him from the roof of the fourth power unit, die in hospital No. 6. The latter's wife, Lyudmila, after spending a week in the ward next to her husband, receives a dose of radiation that will lead to a miscarriage in a month.
May 15, Thursday
Village of Chernobyl. New people were sent to replace the first composition of the government commission. The chairman of the commission, Shcherbina, is replaced by Deputy Prime Minister Ivan Silaev. He convinces the deputy director of Kurchatovka Legasov to stay on the second shift to develop a project for the sarcophagus of the exploded reactor.
May 16, Friday
Pripyat. Director of the Chernobyl NPP Viktor Bryukhanov was removed from his post and remains at the NPP in the team of liquidators.
August 19, Tuesday
Kiev, the building of the General Prosecutor's Office of Ukraine. Viktor Bryukhanov enters the investigator's office. The interrogation continues until 1 pm. Then the investigator leaves for lunch. Bryukhanov is waiting for him in his office. Returning, the investigator says: "It has been decided to take you into custody." Bryukhanov does not oppose, he was expecting this. He is transferred to the KGB pre-trial detention center.
August 25, Monday
Vienna, Austria. Valery Legasov is the keynote speaker on the Chernobyl accident at the IAEA session. He names four reasons for the disaster. Three of them are the "human factor", the fourth is the lack of a well-thought-out and modern reactor safety system.
November 30, Sunday
Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Completed work on the construction of the sarcophagus over the fourth block. The other three continue to work. In total, 300 thousand people took part in the elimination of the accident by the end of November.
December 1986
Academician Legasov, originally nominated for the title of Hero of Labor, is the only leader of the liquidation not to receive a single state award. Official explanation: the employees of the Kurchatov Institute are indirectly guilty of the accident.
April 26, 1987
Moscow, Kurchatov Institute. Legasov loses elections to the scientific and technical council. 100 votes were cast for his candidacy, 129 against.
April 27, Monday
The son of Academician Legasov returns home and finds his father hanged.
July 29, Wednesday
Village of Chernobyl. The Collegium of the Supreme Court sentenced the former director of the Bryukhanov station to 10 years in prison in a general regime colony. Four more employees of the NPP are sentenced to different terms.
September 1991
Slavyansk, Ukraine. Viktor Bryukhanov was released ahead of schedule after serving half of his sentence in a colony. He returns to Kiev, where he lives to this day.
