It seems to me that they were overly modest and careful when writing about what happened at the station itself, why the accident occurred, whose fault it was, whether the reactor was defective or the actions of the staff were wrong. But there was only one such telegram. Here I need to pay tribute to comrade Schekalov, the expert from the Institute of Nuclear Energy, and also to the experts from the Ukrainian (Kiev) Institute of Nuclear Research, who made great efforts to find the appropriate paths, put in the necessary sensors, and stretch cables to them. The work of the Government Commission (GC) during the first days was as follows. People will start to pack for too long. FInally the third group of specialists, which in the most thorough way had researched all the maps from Government Hydro Metric service, integrated all the activity from land-based and air services, comparing that to data that was received from abroad. Decontamination of the interior, cleanup of the area, and of the roof, all this was done very actively and in difficult conditions, all while ensuring that not one of the soldiers or officers received [radiation] doses exceeding 25 rem . If the temperature is high, it melts and absorbs heat. That is why the Finnish station was constructed with a cover. So I just say what Im afraid of, and I already am afraid. As usual, he praised the atomic energy program and the progress that had been achieved. It was the sum of these actions that allowed us to seal reactor number 4 and to create a layer of filtering materials, preventing the melting of the fuel by blocking a proportion of the endothermic reactions. I was not with this group when they left. [7] Legasov was impressed by the operation of the KGB in the area but considered the Civil Defence group to be in shambles. More and more resources were spent on creating facilities that were not directly related to nuclear energy. A hotel was nearby, a very good one, where the local authorities met us. This blog is dedicated to translating the text that comes from the audio tapes recorded by academician V.Legasov. This was sort of central, very important task. And finally analyze the possibility of continuing the construction of 5th and 6th blocks. But what was my reasoning? I recall, perhaps, only one statement by Professor Ivanov from Moscow Engineering-Physics Institute. This, as it seems to me, should be recorded because it would be foolish to say that everything is already fully apparent to us, fully clear. They were taken away on Sunday. A decision was made to build the city of Slavutych because it was clear from the beginning that the shift work method could only be used temporarily at the nuclear power plant. [1], In August 1986, he presented the report of the Soviet delegation at the special meeting of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. And nuclear equipment has become just one in a range of manufactured items. Do you understand? He left without punishment, so to say. All the effort of decontaminators needed to be focussed on fully normalizing the conditions in the 3rd block and also on cleaning the construction base. They were all worried, and they didnt have enough information; however, they all agreed that the situation was very bad. But, in reality, there could be an accident. One thousand buses were called from Kiev, the routes were prepared, and locations where the evacuees would be taken were determined. By the time of his death, Legasov had been exposed to 150 rem (1.5 Sv) of radiation, which was far above safe levels. During this time the Operative group was constantly trying to provide maximum protection for the people and judging from possible degrees of contamination decide on a compensation amount that would be necessary for the evacuees. Some stayed in the villages they were evacuated to, others immediately got tickets and went to their relatives. This military centre was organized, and worked on selecting appropriate measuring equipment, the most appropriate conditions and routes, on developing technological methods for decontamination. But she still, Having collected all the necessary technical documents and f, KALUGIN having received some idea about the structure of the station, about, possible troubles that might be there, I jumped to my house. But RBMK, there was only the Leningrad station initially and, yes, Chernobyl and thats all. And he did a lot to bring about Gosatomenergonadzor, where he eventually went to work, to the organization that at least controlled the composition of the equipment that went there. The first two such consecutive works by experts were interesting. New approaches were not welcomed. Say they allowed it and some cars left, some of the residents left in their own cars, but the cars were, of course, contaminated. Although not a reactor specialist, he became a key member of the government commission formed to investigate the causes of the disaster and to plan the mitigation of its consequences. The reactor could explode. But at this time, my comrade postgraduate Viktor Konstantinovich Popov informed me that in Canada, Professor Bartlett had done excellent, staggering chemists work on obtaining a true xenon compound, one of the noble gases. His headmaster observed that Legasov "is a grown up man, a future statesman, a talented organizer. Anywhere from one millirntgen per hour up to a maximum of tens of millirntgen per hour - obviously, this was not a healthy environment, but it did allow for some discussion about what to do next. Also, we didnt know the exact temperatures at various points of the destroyed Chernobyl reactor. Chernobyl began, in my opinion, conditionally of course, in 1961; that is, in the very year when Gagarin flew into space or at the time of the last highest achievement of Soviet science and technology. The ministerial cadres grew up and acquired their own extensive engineering experience. There I reported the situation. Now the maximum temperature thereactivity still continues; not the reactor but its remnants are activeis somewhere around 60-70 degrees Celsius. Of course, there was frequent disagreement about the accuracy and correctness of the measurements and calculations, which resulted in basic measurement consistency not being guaranteed at any given measuring point. This internal contamination had happened because of the ventilation intake. Because a group of expertswho, you know, are like hurrah, go, go!they had so much influence that Sidorenko Viktor Alekseyevich, the director of the Department of Nuclear Reactors at our institute, the author of this doctoral dissertation and this book, was expelled from the institute. The temperature inside the destroyed block would be limited by the temperature of the burning graphite, which is round about 1,500C or slightly higher. I think that Vladimir Konstantinovich should develop these points. Because neither before nor after the high water in spring did the waters of the Dnieper basin contain dangerous levels of contamination that would pose a threat to human health. Instead, each time it was a response to some technical proposal, or to some accident, or to some pre-accident situation. However, while they were on the way, new messages arrived from the station stating that the reactor (and this was reactor number 4 reactor) was mostly under control. So Ivan Stepanovich Silayev had to tackle all these issues. All the crews always tried to do the assignments, no matter how difficult or complex the task was. He had arrived and then unexpectedly Eugeny Pavlovich Velikhov appeared in this group, I dont even know on which command. And teams had already been put in place beforehand. After Anatoly Petrovich Alexandrov was elected president of the USSR Academy of Sciences, he made me the first deputy director of the institute, entrusted me with several responsibilities regarding the management of the institute, but did not change my responsibilities in the scientific sphere. But, since the world understands that maximally does not mean 100 per cent and that there is always a chance of a technical component failing, even the most reliable one, or of a person doing something, by malice or ignorance or by accident, the third element is introduced. And then. [27] Resistance came from the old guard who resisted change and among younger reformers who regarded Legasov as a relic of the previous Era of Stagnation. The entire group of the first Government commission departed, but Scherbina asked me and comrade Sidorenko to stay back for a while to finish the work. The operators had tried to cool it down, but unfortunately, two people had already been killed. He is no better or worse than any manager of this rank, and he followed the accepted rules of the game, moving up the career and scientific ladder he took on too much, especially in recent years. I had to visit various chemical facilities. That the European part of the Soviet Union, where 80 per cent of the population and industry is concentrated, will not survive on shipped fuel; and Donetsk coal became too expensive and too little. Legasov: I heard them, and talked with Ryzhkov. But the Institute is huge. Two people had died, others were in hospital and the radiation conditions in the station were rather complex. Whatever radioactive particles would escape, they would be filtered out. To accomplish this, miners worked very hard led personally by the minister of coal industry comrade Schadrin and his specialists led by comrade Brezhnev from the Ministry of special heavy building who created the required tunnels under reactor number 4. And I told this story to Shcherbina on the plane. Legasov: In total in the reactor? The best technical devices were created by experts from NIKIMT. Starting from the entrance to the station, its external signage, personnel training. Then the second option, a sarcophagus but with a concrete dome; why we rejected thatbecause the structure wouldnt withstand it. There is a lot of confusion in the international press, for example, that Velikhov was measuring something on the roofs around the 26th, Evgeny Pavlovich [Velikhov]. And they did it. It, in my opinion, is wrong. Comrade SOROKA was Deputy to the General, Prosecutor of the USSR and Fyodor Shcherbak, the head of one of the i, divisions of the State Security Committee, was included in the composition of the, Governmental Commission, and the Deputy Chairman of the CM of. The following decisions were taken. Ofcourse, water contamination measurements were carried out constantly. [1] One senior scientist wrote "Legasov was a clear representative of that scientific mafia whose political leanings instead of scientific leadership led to the Chernobyl accident. All this left an impression of a sort of eclectic imagenot coherent, not complex. They left me. I was struck by the time this station put into carrying out a refueling. What is the fault of Anatoly Pavlovich Alexandrov? And if the operator is killed, falls ill or dies, then all these 211 rods will remain in place. But this was for a few days, and after a few days, everything, of course, recovered. And now, the situation is indeed like in the Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoys storyThere are no guilty in the world. When one looks at the chain of events, why someone acted in this way and another in that way and so on, it is impossible to point to a single culprit, an initiator of all the unpleasant events that led to the crime. The European industry will not survive without it. It came down to this that the research group from the Institute of Nuclear Energy together with experts (this group was successively led by experts such as Yury Vasilievich Svincev, Anatoly Mihailovich Polevoi, Tutnov as I have already said; next this group was led by comrade Kuharkin Nikolai Evgenievich. I will not talk about safe reactors because the requirements formulated by Novikov are very accurate. Because there was hydrogen in the generators in the engine room; there was engine oil. These divisions of the Ministry of Energy had taken part in the construction of the village at Green Cape, and also in the construction of many stations for the decontamination of vehicles, quite a lot of which had gathered on the site by then. They made many decisions specifically to help people who were affected by this accident. All this is what I say [will happen] unless the necessary measures are taken. There they would burst and cover a significant area; the solution would then polymerise and solidify. [2] While he was a shy student, he excelled in both academic work and social activities being elected secretary of his school's Komsomol committee. Ivan Stepanovich would tell him his point of view and then, when more detailed, specific, technical information was needed, he would ask, To whom should I give the phone, Velikhov or Legasov? And in the first call, he said, Give the phone to Legasov.. That is why I provided some sort of patronage for these areas, well, whatever I could provide within the bounds of the Institutes authority. He was interested in the current status of work, and the measures required from the government to resolve the situation faster. As far as I can imagine, but this is within my ability, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, I spoke with him three times. There were very large gaps that could not hold the concrete, preventing it from hardening, and making it impossible to set up the base for the subsequent construction elements. First of all, we had to introduce as many boron-containing substances as was possible, so that under whatever conditions of fuel-mass movement, they would provide enough in the way of effective neutron absorbers. Yes? But there are only four of them, the American ones. But Legasov's daughter claimed to Moskovskij Komsomolets. They see the director, who is a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences, and their [own] salary is lousy. This is how I mainly knew the KGB. Some supports were not strong enough and reinforcement was necessary. It seemed that it would be impossible to decontaminate this city because everywhere one went, there were very high levels of radiation, say, 700-800 milliroentgens per hour. The RBMK reactor was not equipped with such a second protection system that was operator-independent and not part of the control system. And this caused appropriate alarm among professionals, in technical and engineering sense. Any expert from any level (from the laboratory supervisor to the director of the institute) could request information, interfere in the work of a station, write reports, propose something. This kind of scientific management of aviation seems right to me. On the roofs of the engine room and on station territory graphite blocks were scattered, some intact and some in pieces. Grave mistakes. Risks could be taken in this work, and I did risk a lot. We arrived at Kiev. And this value is already quite controllable and allows, with proper fast protection devices, to manage any processes. It was used for such cases when, say, key decisions were taken like whether to make the RBMK 1500, or whether to introduce a heat exchange intensifier to this reactor. mannered habits, I called the car and went to the party-economic asset. Should the uranium dioxide cells start to melt, large amounts of clay and sand would serve as a shield or filter that could contain at least part of the radioactive components. As soon as we started selling stations to the Finns. In the first few days, on separate spots of the river basin, it must be said, activity of up to 10-8 curie per litre was detected in some water samples. But everything will remain inside the containment. 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