Black reality. Chernobyl - a black reality: The tragedy that shocked the whole world, on the canvases of artists. History and Social Studies Teacher
Chernobyl... More than 30 years have passed since this word burst into our lives as a great tragedy; it announced to the world about the largest man-made disaster of the twentieth century. The inhabitants, terrified by the “peaceful atom,” were ready to believe in the most incredibly fantastic version of what happened: an earthquake, aliens, testing of new weapons. But the official leadership was in no hurry to announce the result of the investigation.
Deadly radiation, mutants, cancer and all that - this is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word Chernobyl. This place causes panic among millions of people around the world. In the history of mankind, never before has there been such a terrible tragedy, the culprit of which was the carelessness of people. The world still lives in captivity of replicated cliches, deeply rooted in the subconscious. Everyone fully realized that the atom can serve not only peaceful purposes.
More than 30 years have passed, and many scientists who tried to solve the mystery of that tragic April day in 1986 are still haunted by the main reason that led to the destruction of the 4th reactor. Eyewitnesses, liquidators who survived, said: "You can't even try to speculate about what happened at Chernobyl if you haven't seen the destroyed reactor with your own eyes."
One thing is certain: the experiment carried out that night at the fourth reactor got out of the control of the station workers.
An eyewitness to the first minutes of the man-made disaster, station shift supervisor B. Rogozhkin, described it this way: “On the night of April 26, 1986, I observed a luminous pillar from the reactor shaft, of regular cylindrical shape, the height and diameter of the pipe of the second stage (the diameter of the pipe is 20 meters, and its height is 100 meters). Inside this luminous column, various figures smoothly rose and fell shapes (similar to what happens in a Chinese lantern), and the colors were such as I have never seen in my life."
The result of the explosion was regarded as a global man-made disaster on a planetary scale: 190 tons of radioactive substances released into the atmosphere and eight tons of radioactive fuel, which was equivalent to the explosion of five hundred atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. More than 145 thousand square kilometers of the territory of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia were contaminated with radiation.
But the worst thing in this story is that the population was warned about the danger only two days later. As always, statesmen first put their reputations at stake, then only the lives of thousands of people. One hundred and fifteen thousand people began to evacuate from the exclusion zone with a great delay.
The Chernobyl exclusion zone is the largest territory in Europe with closed access; it is comparable in size to some countries. And in the center of this zone is the Chernobyl nuclear power plant - a monument to the largest man-made disaster in the world.
Artists, as creative people, have never remained aloof from all the pressing problems occurring on the globe. And the topic of Chernobyl did not pass them by.
Many artists from Belarus, Ukraine, Russia are among those who themselves come from areas affected by radiation, who saw with their own eyes the horror into which the catastrophe plunged the fertile land located in the very center of Europe. Their works are imbued with tragedy and pain, making you think about the main thing - about the price of human carelessness, and about the priceless life of the person himself.
And some creators go to those places years later in order to be imbued with that atmosphere and pour out their impressions and aching feelings of melancholy, fear, pain from what they saw - on canvas, in stone sculpture, poetry. And some leave graffiti drawings on the walls of a collapsing city that “sound” like a plea for help.
And here is the area of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant,
The village of Pripyat is a small miracle.
Here the roofs touch the sky
Multi-storey houses in amplitude.
A village of chemists, installers, doctors,
And power engineers, whose work is especially notable,
Who by his labor valor
The country benefits in kilowatts.
Now it is suddenly empty and extinct,
There is no reason for people to stay here,
After all, this was a previously inhabited area.
Now declared a contaminated area.
Twenty-three years later - the Chernobyl plant stopped generating electricity. “Currently, work is underway to decommission the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and transform the fourth power unit destroyed as a result of the accident into an environmentally friendly system.” A team of seven hundred people works at the nuclear power plant, and with their labor in inhuman conditions they perform a feat in the name of all living things. The atomic monster must be completely eliminated by 2065. But the true causes of the explosion are still unknown, and another apocalypse could happen again at any moment...
Our thinking is structured in such a way that as soon as some major tragedy occurs, people immediately begin to look for mystical signs that warned unreasonable humanity about the impending catastrophe. But it (humanity) was too blind to heed these Signs.
The set of primary sources has been approved. This, without fail, is the Bible and the centuries of Nostradamus. Everything else is added to taste and made up on the fly. I’ll try to tell you how this is done and give a dozen false predictions and one true one.
On the night of April 25-26, an accident occurs at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. It's not even an accident, it's a disaster. The total release of radioactive substances from the reactor is about 50 million curies. In terms of radioactive contamination, this is equivalent to the consequences of the explosions of 500 atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. In fact, the so-called “dirty bomb” exploded.
And the search for predictions immediately begins. In first place, of course, comes the Apocalypse:
8:10-11 The third angel sounded, and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a lamp, and fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. 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.
Further, it is meaningfully reported that the Chernobyl plant (Artemísia vulgáris) is common wormwood. In fact, Chernobyl is not a bitter plant at all. The Bible talks about a completely different variety of wormwood - Artemísia absinthium. It is considered the most bitter plant of the Russian flora. And it is from this that absinthe and vermouth are made.
Then Nostradamus comes in. The following century is usually presented:
The tail of a terrible comet will touch the Earth.
People losing hair, skin and eyes
They rush in mad fear from the depths of Borysthenes.
Many will wait for the coming of angels from heaven,
And not angels will come, but black clouds.
Then it is said that Borysthenes is the ancient Greek name of the Dnieper (this is true), and the last passage of Halley's comet through perihelion was just in February 1986 (and this is true).
But of course it's fake. Michel Nostradamus mentions Borysthenes only once. Third Century, Quatrain 95: The Law of More will gradually fade away / Then another, much more seductive one [will come], / Borysthenes will be the first to come to establish / [With his] talents (gifts) and tongue a more attractive law.
And in the picture, for example, I clearly see how the insidious West treats the Russian bear: “Maybe our bear should sit quietly, not chase piglets and gilts through the taiga, but eat honey berries. Maybe they'll leave him alone? They won't leave. Because they will always strive to put him on a chain. And as soon as we succeed, pull out both teeth and claws.”
Of course, it cannot do without Jews. Chernobyl was the center of Hasidism in Polesie. Chernobyl Hasidim survived a terrible pogrom in 1918: “Chernobyl now gives the impression of a city entirely populated by crazy people. People wander the streets hungry, tattered, with faces full of melancholy, with bulging eyes, and all the time listening to something...” According to eyewitnesses, the synagogue was destroyed by the Bolsheviks, and a public toilet was built in its place. According to legend, Rabbi Boruch of Tverskoy curses Chernobyl after the pogrom.
The wonderful book by the Strugatsky brothers, “Roadside Picnic,” is another source of predictions. There is the Zone, and death-lamp, and the horror of evacuation... And in Tarkovsky’s film “Stalker” the reason for the emergence of the “Zone” is mentioned - an accident in the fourth bunker.
There were many more “revelations” from charlatans. From Vanga, who allegedly predicted: “a “black pain” (Chernobyl) is coming to Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, to Pavel Globa, who invented the Russian prophet Vasily Nemchin and his “Marked Bear”
Local folklore could not help but arise. Here is a stained glass window in the Pripyat cafe on the embankment. Now in a woman you can see the sound of the third angel
Here is a sign on the Autodrome pavilion in the amusement park. If you wish, you can see a radiation sign in it
Here is the famous inscription “May you be a soldier, not a soldier” (view from the central square). According to legend, the letter “a” in the word “Hai” was the first to fall, changing the meaning of the slogan to the opposite - “Fuck will be a worker, not a soldier.”
And on the very central square on New Year's Day 1986, a huge Christmas tree fell twice - this was considered an extremely unfavorable Sign.
The central panel in the Energetik Palace of Culture. The nuclear scientist's face begins to deteriorate first.
The village of Kopachi was located four kilometers from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. After the accident, it was so heavily polluted that it was decided to liquidate it - bury it underground.
The village of Zalesye is completely overgrown with forest
A birch tree grew from the steps of the Beryozka store...
Such “signs” can be generated in industrial quantities. In a bookstore I found the book “International Terrorism and the CIA” - according to one of the paranoid versions, the accident was staged by the Americans...
Now let's get serious.
About a real one hundred percent prediction.
It was made on November 30, 1975 by workers of the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant.
There was the same RBMK reactor and there was an accident there too. In the same way, the accident occurred at night, just as before, one turbogenerator was in operation, and the reactor power was at 50% of the nominal one. In the same way, before the accident, the power (due to operator error) dropped to zero, and in the same way they began to raise it immediately after that...
The accident at the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant led to a powerful release (1.5 million Ci of radioactivity), but all materials on it were urgently classified, and nuclear scientists who were already preparing to start operating exactly the same reactors at the Kursk and Chernobyl nuclear power plants were not allowed to do so. that is to participate in the investigation, but even to become familiar with the materials of the investigation.
AP photographer about the death of colleagues after Chernobyl and modern life at the nuclear power plant
30 years ago, on April 26, 1986, the largest disaster in the history of the peaceful atom occurred - the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The first photographers to go to the scene received radiation sickness for life. Some of them admitted that if they had known about the dire consequences of their business trip, they would never have agreed to it. Photojournalist Efrem Lukatsky, who has been photographing for the Associated Press since the 1990s, recalls what happened three decades ago in Chernobyl and Pripyat, and shows what the destroyed nuclear power plant looks like now.
Aerial view of the consequences of an explosion and fire at a nuclear power plant. Only three were allowed to film: TASS photographers Vladimir Repik, Igor Kostin and Valery Zufarov. Repik and Zufarov died from the effects of radiation. Kostin also suffered from radiation sickness. Died in a car accident in 2015. 
The celebration of May 1st in Kyiv was not cancelled. A few days after the disaster, under clouds of destructive radiation, thousands of people walked through the streets of the city with songs, flowers and portraits of Soviet leaders. 
This photo was taken 10 years after the Chernobyl disaster. Efrem Lukatsky was photographed against the backdrop of the sarcophagus that covered the infamous fourth nuclear reactor. Lukatsky lived less than 100 kilometers from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, but only learned about the accident the next morning from his neighbor. Few photographers were allowed to photograph the destroyed reactor. Those who succeeded paid with their health, the photographer notes. Lukatsky arrived a few months later and returned there dozens of times. 
November 10, 2000. Control room of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. 
March 23, 2016. A specialist checks radiation levels before leaving the nuclear waste storage facility at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The half-life of cesium-137, which was released into the atmosphere as a result of the explosion at the station, is 30 years. 
A crucifix and a radiation warning sign at the entrance to Pripyat, a city near the Chernobyl plant. After the disaster, all 47.5 thousand residents of the city were evacuated, and it remains empty to this day. Pripyat is closed, strewn with radioactive dust and will be uninhabitable for a long time.
March 23, 2016. On the left is a ventilation pipe over the destroyed reactor, on the right are giant steel arches erected for a dome that will cover the remains of the exploded reactor. In the foreground are houses abandoned 30 years ago.
March 2016. For 30 years now there has not been a soul in Pripyat. Only curious tourists come to see the ghost town.
December 3, 1999. Ukrainian engineers carry out routine work inside the only operating third reactor. It was closed in 2000.
Five-year-old Alek Zhloba, suffering from leukemia, in the children's ward of the Gomel Regional Hospital in Belarus. There are marks on the boy's head from medical procedures. The Chernobyl station is located 11 kilometers from the border with Belarus, and most of the radioactive fallout fell on this republic.
March 2016. Portraits of Soviet leaders in a local club under a layer of radioactive dust. They were prepared for the May Day demonstration.
November 10, 2000. Radioactive Soviet equipment that participated in the liquidation of the consequences of the disaster. A total of 1,350 helicopters, buses, bulldozers, tankers, transporters, fire trucks and ambulances were involved in the operation.
November 2000. The photo shows what remains of the control system of the fourth reactor.
Part of the collapsed roof of the Chernobyl plant. October 13, 1991.
A plant worker measures radiation levels near the destroyed reactor. The photo was taken by TASS photographer Vladimir Repik, who later suffered from radiation sickness all his life. Subsequently, the photojournalist admitted that he would never have agreed to travel to Chernobyl if he had known how dangerous it was to health.
Branch of MBOU Secondary School with in-depth study
individual items p. Terbuny in the village. Uritskoe
A lesson in courage
“Chernobyl is a black reality, the black pain of our history”
History and Social Studies Teacher
Kalmykova Tatyana Alekseevna
2016
Goals: find out the causes and consequences of the Chernobyl accident; the formation of civic responsibility and patriotic education of students using the example of the heroism of firefighters and other liquidators of the Chernobyl accident; develop a positive active life position; cultivate a sense of compassion; show the danger of explosions at nuclear power plants for all humanity.
Form of delivery: lesson of Courage
“Not a single event since the Second World War touched so many people in Europe as the explosion of the 4th reactor of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.”
The Times, April 1987
Teacher's opening remarks: April 26, 2013 - on the Day of Remembrance for Victims of Radiation Accidents and Disasters, the whole world remembers the worst man-made disaster in the history of mankind - the explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. And 27 years later, this day makes us think about the possible consequences of human activity, about our unpayable debt to those who, risking their own lives, saved the world from a radioactive disaster. Today we dedicate our event to the memory of the liquidators of the Chernobyl accident, who saved humanity from death at the cost of their own lives.
“The time is not far off when a person will get his hands on atomic energy..., a source of power that will give him the opportunity to build his life as he wants... Will a person be able to use this power, direct it to good, and not to self-destruction?”
IN AND. Vernadsky
By the beginning of the 90s, there were 417 nuclear reactors in the world and 120 were still under construction. Nuclear power plants provide the energy people need. The reactors are installed on icebreakers, satellites, and submarines. Nuclear energy is firmly entrenched in our lives with its pros and cons.
For the first time, humanity saw the atom in action on August 6 and 9, 1945. The United States dropped hydrogen bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A third of the population of these cities died, and radiation caused leukemia in many people. People have died and continue to die to this day.
A series of US nuclear weapons tests on Bikini Island in 1946-1958. led to the fact that as a result of the explosion, two neighboring islands disappeared from the face of the Earth, and the island itself became uninhabitable.
In 1966, two American military aircraft with missiles on board collided in Spain. One had to drop four atomic bombs. Fortunately, there was no explosion, but as a result of the emissions, 1.5 thousand tons of soil had to be removed for disposal.
What is Chernobyl?
CHERNOBYL - this is the name of a small regional center, which is located 130 km from Kyiv. A small, cute, provincial Ukrainian place, surrounded by greenery, all covered with cherries and apples... In the summer, many residents of other cities of the former Soviet Union liked to relax here. They picked mushrooms, which were found in abundance in the local forests, sunbathed on the delightfully clean shores of the Kyiv Sea, and fished.
Founded during the times of Kievan Rus, ancient Chernobyl gave its bitter name to a powerful nuclear power plant, the construction of which began in 1971 on the banks of the Pripyat River, which flows into the Dnieper.
In 1983, 4 of the planned six power units of this station were already operating. But Chernobyl will go down in history forever as the city that gave its name to one of the largest man-made disasters in human history. Chernobyl translated from Ukrainian means “black wormwood”. The Bible says that “bitter times will come on Earth when a star named Wormwood falls on it.”
1st reader:
That year the trees turned black,
And the forest was not covered with leaves.
Empty houses and villages frightened with their silence
And only the Chernobyl wind
Like a kite circling the earth,
Throwing destructive ashes,
To a meadow not covered with grass...
The city of Pripyat slept, Ukraine slept, the whole country slept, not yet knowing about the enormous misfortune that had come to our Earth. On the eve of the accident, about 110 thousand people lived in the 30-kilometer zone around the nuclear power plant... Who would have thought the day before the disaster that nuclear death was looming over the flourishing land?
On April 26, 1986, at 1:03 a.m., an experiment began at the fourth block of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The experimental design was poorly thought out. That night, the reactor was tested for safety.
A dispute broke out between operators about the power at which it is safe to conduct the test.
The experiment was supposed to be carried out at a power of 700-1000 MW, but by order of Anatoly Dyatlov, a power of 200 MW was chosen.
An erroneous decision led to the melting of the containment shell and the explosion of the reactor.
Nuclear power plant operators shut down the reactor too quickly, without having time to check whether there was enough energy or not. Then they decided to start the reactor again. It was their mistake. The reactor cannot be restarted immediately after shutdown. Therefore, their attempt did not yield results; the reactor did not start.
The rate of nuclear reactions is regulated by introducing special rods into the reactor - neutron absorbers. The operators decided to speed up the reaction by pulling out several rods that slow down the neutrons. The reactor still didn't work. Then they turned off the security system...
Chernobyl nuclear power plant. 1 hour 23 minutes 40 seconds. 187 control and protection rods entered the core to shut down the reactor. The chain reaction had to be broken. However, after 3 seconds, alarms appeared for exceeding the reactor power and increasing pressure.
And after another 4 seconds - dull explosion …
2nd reader:
Sudden explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant!
The reactor, and behind it - the power unit -
Destroyed! Powerful blast to the skies!
From the vent - radiation flow
It rose hundreds of meters into the air!
The graphite burned and the resin melted...
A simple human life
It absorbed the atomic haze.
There is a halo of light above the station.
The soot, steam and smoke were driving me crazy!
The exploded reactor produced
It's a real hell in the machine room!
The explosion of the fourth power unit caused the mechanical destruction of many fuel cassettes - nuclear fuel - and the release of more than 100 different nuclides. From the reactor, as if from the crater of a volcano, a column of fire, 12 to 72 meters high, rose up, a powerful stream of gaseous radioactivity. Of the 190 tons of nuclear fuel, 90% entered the Earth's atmosphere. The reactor released 50 tons of radiating fuel (10 Hiroshima bombs) and 700 tons of radioactive graphite into the atmosphere.
Chernobyl 600 times superior Hiroshima according to the degree of environmental pollution cesium-137 – the longest-lived radioactive element. The total release of radioactive substances amounted to 77 kg(during the bomb explosion in Hiroshima - 740 g). The black fireball soared to a height of almost two kilometers, forming a cloud that stretched horizontally into a black cloud and went to the side, spreading death, disease and misfortune in the form of small, small drops.
Stage 1 accident - two explosions: after the first - within 1 s, the radioactivity of the reactor increased 100 times; after the second - after 3 s, the radioactivity increased 440 times. The mechanical power of the explosion was such that the upper protective plate of a nuclear reactor weighing 2 thousand tons shattered, exposing the reactor. Immediately after the explosion, the reactor emitted from 3000 to 30,000 roentgens per hour (and the lethal dose is 500 roentgens per hour).
Stage 2 (26.04 - 2.05) - burning of graphite rods due to the release of enormous energy.
During the period of burning of the rods, the temperature inside the reactor did not fall below 1500 C o, and after May 2 it began to rise, approaching 3000 C o, which caused the melting of the remaining nuclear fuel. The burning of the reactor, although with less intensity, continued until May 10.
3rd reader:
A pillar of fire shot up into the sky,
And the explosion scattered the block block.
The Earth froze in horror,
Raised on the rack by misfortune.
Fire and darkness are an invisible enemy,
One step to death - then immortality!
No shootings, no attacks,
But to live only this way is at the cost of death.
Holy army of firefighters!
My cohort of comrades!
You knew: you have to die,
And they became extra-grade steel.
Our souls were emasculated by the explosion
The harsh Pripyat bridgehead -
There is a break in the line of fate,
But you didn’t die in vain!
The Chernobyl bell struck. He was heard by the inhabitants of Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and people all over the planet. The first victims of the accident at the nuclear power plant were the operators of the reactor workshop. Valery Khodemchuk was not found after the accident and remained forever in the fourth power unit. Vladimir Shashenok died from burns and spinal fractures a few hours later...
Accident liquidators
Portraits in mourning frames... Six beautiful young guys look at us It seems that their gaze is mournful, that bitterness, reproach, and a silent question are frozen in them: how could this happen? But it already seems... And on that April night, in the chaos and anxiety of the fire, there was neither sorrow nor reproach in their views. There was no time. They worked... They saved the nuclear power plant, saved Pripyat, Chernobyl, Kyiv, all of us... The firefighters accomplished a real feat - they averted trouble, saved thousands of human lives . C the rest of your life.
Who are they, these guys who went into immortality, gave us life, appealing to our prudence? These guys entered into a brutal and deadly duel with the raging atomic elements. They faced an enemy worse than plague, flood and earthquake. This enemy is invisible, but very cruel and deadly. The guys were suffocating from acrid smoke and did not have any protective clothing. They poured water into the fried belly of the atomic monster. The water disintegrated into oxygen and hydrogen, which carried even more radiation out. There were no instruments to measure radiation.
Without special clothing, sacrificing himself.
Throwing myself into the crazy heat.
Not a word to them - that the challenge is not easy,
They were called to a regular fire!
The first message about the accident at the fourth unit of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant was received at the fire alarm receiving point. On alarm, the guard of Lieutenant Vladimir Pravik went to the block...
4th reader
Where everything is on fire, there are no rules.
On the roof, in the bitumen, there are two pairs of legs.
You are dashing guys - Vladimir Pravik,
And your friend Vitka is Victor Kibenok.
You are the first fire crews.
They rushed to the cars that night.
They didn't give you time to make calculations,
You knew you had to help the station.
The fire on the block was raging, like a beast,
The reactor kept spitting out graphite,
And you extinguished it, sparing no effort.
Without thinking about your own life.
And only by morning you overcame the fire,
The X-ray rain mowed down people all night.
Everything went dark before your eyes - you sat down,
I didn't have the strength to get down from the roof.
Fire watch commanders 23-year-old internal service lieutenants Viktor Nikolaevich Kibenok and Vladimir Pavlovich Pravik, were the first to fight the atomic elements, taking on the heat of the flames and the deadly breath of the reactor.
The guard of Vladimir Pravik arrived at the scene of the disaster first, so they were sent to extinguish the roof of the turbine room. The reactor was already destroyed, and rubble formed around the building. The main danger after the explosion of the fourth block was fire. Pieces of radioactive graphite were scattered on the roof; radioactive and toxic substances were also contained in the combustion products. In such difficult conditions, at night, with the danger of collapse at any moment of the structures on which the roof was supported, fire brigades extinguished the reactor.
Viktor Kibenok was sent on guard to the reactor compartment. There the flames raged at different levels. There were fires in five places in the central hall. Kibenok, Vashchuk, Ignatenko, Titenok and Tishchura rushed to fight this fire. It was a fight with fire in a nuclear hell. But water is powerless against nuclear disaster... The fight against the elements took place at an altitude of 27 to 72 meters, and inside the premises of the fourth power unit the station personnel on duty were engaged in extinguishing.
Six minutes later, firefighters arrived at the station: 21 people led by Major Leonid Petrovich Telyatnikov... Seeing the fire, Telyatnikov immediately realized that there were few people and it was necessary to ask for help from everywhere. Ordered Lieutenant Pravik to transmit the alarm to the area. Pravik radioed call No. 3, according to which all fire trucks in the Kyiv region were to proceed to the nuclear power plant, wherever they were. After an hour of working in conditions of monstrous radiation, Telyatnikov and his subordinates were taken to the hospital in an unconscious state, and in the evening they were sent by plane to Moscow. Their work was continued by other teams. Those who reached the maximum permissible dose of radiation left, and others came to take their place. It was necessary, first of all, to put out the fire so that the fire did not spread to other power units. If this happened, the catastrophe would become planetary. On the territory of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, people stepped over the debris; later, due to the high level of radiation, robots could not pass there: they “went crazy.” And people worked.
In total, fifty fire engines arrived from Chernobyl and other areas of the Kyiv region to help the accident site. The fire was localized by 5 a.m., and by 6:40 a.m. it was extinguished.
And in the Moscow radiological hospital from acute radiation sickness, on Victory Day, the first Chernobyl firefighters were already dying: Vladimir Tishchura, Vladimir Pravik, Nikolai Titenok, Nikolai Vashchuk, Vasily Ignatenko, Viktor Kibenok... They felt death, calmly, without tears, said goodbye to each other and died quietly...
Lieutenants Viktor Kibenko and Vladimir Pravik awarded posthumously title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
For heroic feats, personal courage and self-sacrifice during the liquidation of the Chernobyl accident, the title of Hero of Ukraine and the Order of the Golden Star posthumously assigned to five liquidators: the commander of the 6th separate militarized fire department in Pripyat Nikolay Vashchuk and Vasily Ignatenko , firemen Nikolay Titenko and Vladimir Tishura , Deputy Head of the Chernobyl NPP Electrical Shop Alexandru Lelechenko .
All of them are buried in Moscow at the Mitinskoye cemetery.Leonid Petrovich Telyatnikov was also awarded the Gold Star of the Hero . After treatment, he continued his service and became a general. But the disease did not subside. The hero passed away in 2004.
The resulting fire continued for 10 days . A large volume of radioactive substances was released into the environment. High radiation and temperature did not allow the fourth power unit to be shut down from the ground. All hope lay in the helicopter pilots. To stop the release, the accident site was bombarded with bags of protective mixture using military helicopters. 20-30 helicopters took off every day, each making 20 passes. As a result, the reactor shaft was covered with a loose mass (boron-containing substances, lead and dolomite), and the release of hazardous substances stopped. After each flight, the pilots felt sick and vomited, but they loaded up again, flew, dropped... The first 27 crews and the leaders who helped them would soon receive a lethal dose of radiation and die from radiation sickness...
For work in the area of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, armored vehicles with increased protection from radiation were used, but this practically did not help. After a week of use, they had to be buried in burial grounds, since the metal began to literally “glow” from radiation.
The largest such cemetery is located in the village of Rassokha – 25 km from the nuclear power plant.
But the fire was only part of the disaster, which continued to develop according to its logic. At the moment of the explosion, the reactor ceased to exist as a controlled system, but continued to work, heating up to 2000 degrees and emitting radioactivity. It was not entirely clear how and what could be done to stop the uncontrollable chain reaction and whether it could be done at all...
But that was only the beginning of the Chernobyl epic . The accident caused large-scale radioactive contamination of the area not only in Ukraine, but also far beyond its borders. Radioactive contamination detected in more than 30 countries around the world.
Evacuation of the population in Pripyat
“I just returned from Chernobyl... It made such an impression on me that it’s difficult for me to speak. I saw a whole city - fifty thousand people - and not a single person... Everything was empty. I wish everyone could come here to see what I saw. Then no one would talk about nuclear weapons. Then everyone would know that this is the suicide of the whole world, and everyone would understand that we must destroy nuclear weapons." (Armand Hammer)
Pripyat – city of station builders. The name of the city of Pripyat, as you know, comes from the name of the river, on the banks of which the first nuclear city in Ukraine was built. Former city . People came here in 1970 and left in 1986. All 50 thousand. In a few hours. After his sudden death, Pripyat was fenced off with barbed wire and given the epithet “ghost town.”
The houses here are almost intact, you can find children's toys in the grass and some furniture in the wide open apartments. You can't just find people here.
There would have been fewer victims of the Chernobyl tragedy if people in those days had been told the bitter but truth. The USSR government hid information about the accident for a long time. It was impossible to be in the contaminated area, in the open air, much less sunbathe, swim, or fish. People didn't know this. Those responsible for the tragedy tried to hide its truly monstrous scale. And only 36 hours later the residents began to be evacuated. Cities and villages remained empty. On the first day after the accident, life in Pripyat, a city built for nuclear workers and their families two kilometers from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, continued as if nothing had happened. Most people spent Saturday outdoors - it was the first warm and sunny day of the cold spring. 16 weddings were celebrated in the city.
The first message about the Chernobyl accident appeared in the Soviet media on April 27, 36 hours after the explosion at the fourth reactor. The announcer of the Pripyat radio station announced the gathering and temporary evacuation of city residents. On April 28, 1986 at 21.00 TASS broadcasts a brief information message: “An accident occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. One of the reactors was damaged. Measures are being taken to eliminate the consequences of the incident. The victims were provided with the necessary assistance. A government commission has been created to investigate what happened.”
The evacuation of Pripyat was carried out on April 27 - in 3 hours the entire population of Pripyat was evacuated - 47 thousand people. It was forbidden to take things with you; many were evacuated in home clothes. To avoid fanning panic, it was reported that the evacuees would return home in 3 days. Pets were not allowed. And in the first days of May, all the people living in a 30 km zone around the station were evacuated - 116 thousand people, dozens of settlements.
5th reader:
Nobody lives in this city anymore.
There are no birds or animals in this city.
Only the wind sings through the broken windows
Under the creaking and knocking of slightly open doors.
He is abandoned by the residents to certain death.
But he won’t understand why he was punished.
He managed to survive in the smoke and fires.
But why? Nobody lives in it anyway.
The rain swings on broken swings,
And the skeleton of the Wheel soared over the park.
The “Marked” leader paid for the mistakes.
Well, the city dreams of children's voices...
Construction of the sarcophagus
Specialists sent to carry out work in and around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, as well as military units, both regular and made up of urgently called up reservists, began to arrive in the thirty-kilometer zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant:
You silently put on your overcoat,
and forgetting about fear
They put it on the black reactor
Concrete and steel sarcophagus
One of the most important tasks in eliminating the consequences of the accident was isolating the destroyed reactor and preventing the release of radioactive substances into the environment. The first stage of her solution was the construction of a shelter, which was called sarcophagus.
Turning away from the red forest,
Radiating anxiety and fear,
In the center of the zone above the Chernobyl nuclear power plant wound
Frozen gray like an elephant sarcophagus.
The height of the “sarcophagus” was 61 meters, the greatest thickness of the walls was 18 meters, and the weight was 147 tons. For the construction of the “Shelter” sarcophagus, cranes with a maximum lifting capacity of 600 tons at that time were used. According to the safety characteristics of the sarcophagus designed to last only 20-30 years and gradually deteriorates. Upon completion of the construction of the Shelter facility, the release of radionuclides into the environment decreased significantly. The creation of a containment shell ensured the protection of the territories that border the Chernobyl nuclear power plant from the entry of radioactive substances from the destroyed reactor.
Work is currently underway to build a new shelter over the facility. "Arch" . It is designed for 100 years of safe operation. Its construction is planned to begin this year.
6th reader:
Less than six months have passed -
They closed it with a sarcophagus,
That fourth reactor
At the damn nuclear power plant.
But during these six months.
How many lives have been lost?
And fields and lakes,
And the river and the forest.
The area has become scorched
Everything around is empty
Only the black one rises
Steel sarcophagus,
The "red" forest is buried,
Only the pine tree survived
And it stands as an obelisk.
After these attacks.
On the night of May 22-23, 1986, a strong fire broke out again at the 4th power unit of the nuclear power plant. Its consequences could be horrifyingly dire. The radiation was 250 roentgens per hour. The crew members, under the leadership of Lieutenant Colonel of the Internal Service Vladimir Maksimchuk, worked in the fireplace for only a few minutes, replacing each other. But Vladimir Maksimchuk went into the heat with each group, personally controlling the situation. He received a high dose of radiation and was hospitalized. On May 22, 1994, Vladimir Mikhailovich passed away.
For courage and heroism, Vladimir Mikhailovich Maksimchuk was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation, and the “Golden Star” was awarded to the hero’s widow. General Maksimchuk is the only Hero of Russia among firefighters awarded this award in peacetime.
What are the consequences of the accident?
As a result of the accident, about 5 million hectares of land were taken out of agricultural use, a 30-kilometer exclusion zone was created around the nuclear power plant, hundreds of small settlements were destroyed and buried (buried with heavy equipment). The following were released into the environment: radioactive iodine-131, cesium-137, strontium-90, plutonium isotopes; More than 200 thousand km² were polluted, approximately 70% in the territory of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. Radioactive substances spread in the form of aerosols, which gradually settled on the surface of the earth. The noble gases dissipated in the atmosphere and did not contribute to the pollution of the regions adjacent to the station. Pollution was very uneven and depended on wind direction in the first days after the accident. Areas that received rain at the time were hit the hardest. Most of the strontium and plutonium fell within 100 km of the plant, as they were contained mainly in larger particles. Iodine and cesium spread over a wider area.
From the point of view of the impact on the population in the first weeks after the accident, the greatest danger was posed by radioactive iodine, which has a relatively short half-life (8 days) and tellurium. Currently (and in the coming decades), the greatest danger is posed by isotopes of strontium and cesium with a half-life of about 30 years. The highest concentrations of cesium-137 are found in the surface layer of soil, from where it enters plants and fungi. Insects and the animals that feed on them are also exposed to pollution. Radioactive isotopes of plutonium and americium will persist in the soil for hundreds, and possibly thousands of years.
Forests have been significantly polluted. Because cesium is constantly recycled into the forest ecosystem rather than removed from it, contamination levels in forest products such as mushrooms, berries and game remain hazardous. Pollution levels in rivers and most lakes are currently low. However, in some “closed” lakes, from which there is no drainage, the concentration of cesium in water and fish may pose a danger for decades to come.
Pollution was not limited to the 30-kilometer zone. Increased levels of cesium-137 were noted in lichen and deer meat in the Arctic regions of Russia, Norway, Finland and Sweden.
On July 18, 1988, a radiation-ecological reserve was created on the territory of Belarus, which was subject to contamination. Observations have shown that the number of mutations in plants and animals, although it has increased, is insignificant, and nature is successfully coping with their consequences. New “Chernobyl” plants appeared here, populations of extinct animals were revived - bears and lynxes were added to wolves, deer, beavers and Przewalski’s horses. Without the presence of people, the Chernobyl zone has become almost a natural reserve!
A person does not feel radiation. In an infected area, your mouth gets dry, your throat gets sore, your tongue becomes stiff, your teeth become foreign, and radiation affects all your insides. Entire families are dying, and there is nowhere to escape this grief!
Greenpeace and the international organization Doctors Against Nuclear War claim that as a result of the accident, tens of thousands of people died among the liquidators alone; 10 thousand cases of deformities in newborns, 10 thousand cases of thyroid cancer were recorded in Europe, and another 50 thousand are expected.
The Chernobyl zone is characterized by such a concept as looting.
The perimeter of the zone is 377 kilometers (73 in Ukraine, 204 in Belarus), the main roads are blocked by checkpoints, the zone itself is patrolled by five companies of police officers, all precautions are not able to stop the looters who intend to steal something from abandoned apartments in Pripyat or radioactive septic tanks technology, so that Chernobyl itself is little by little spreading around the world - if not in the form of radioactive particles flying in the wind, then at least in the form of contaminated metal removed from the zone, Christmas trees, and fish caught in Pripyat.
“Metal thieves” who crashed in other areas of Ukraine while trying to cut wires from electrical poles have reached Chernobyl.
Even from one of the helicopters from which firefighters extinguished the burning reactor in the first days, and which no one in their right mind would approach, someone managed to cut off the blades. A complete evacuation of residents was carried out from a zone with a radius of 30 km from the exploded reactor. But people still live there - self-settlers. The future of self-settlers is quite short - no more than 10-15 years - due to the age of its members. Now there are a third of their original number in the zone. The settlements where they live are conventionally divided into three categories:
“Periphery” - 8 villages with a population of up to 10 people each.
“Golden Triangle” - 3 villages with a population of about 40 people each.
The city of Chernobyl - population 100 people.
Probably, the periphery will be empty at the beginning, and the golden triangle and Chernobyl will last longer.
7th reader:
The doom bell rings over the world,
Disturbing the memory, remembering the grief,
The face of the gray war is cruel and terrible,
Like a raging sea in a storm.
Japan has been mourning for many years now
Known to people are Hiroshima, Nagasaki,
But there is no ban on tragedy,
There are nuclear chopping blocks everywhere.
Humanity doesn't want to understand
That life is the most sacred thing in the world,
It can be cut off instantly
In the crucible of an explosion or in the thick of battle.
We cannot count all the sacrifices and trials,
But the arsenals and training grounds are intact,
Chernobyl devastating news
A warning to new generations.
The millennium has begun to count down,
The twenty-first century walks across the earth,
May his children have better luck.
And a ray of sun greets them every day.
During the disaster, 31 people died, and 600,000 non-professional responders who took part in firefighting and cleanup received high doses of radiation. All work was carried out manually. Liquidators in gas masks and lead suits shoveled and picked out pieces of radioactive material with their hands, dumping them into the burnt reactor.
Many long-lived radioactive elements released from an exploded reactor 25 years ago are still in the environment, carried by air and water currents and pose a health hazard to the inhabitants of the Earth. Therefore, people must remember Chernobyl for the sake of the future, be aware of the dangers of radiation and do everything to ensure that such disasters never happen again. This must not be forgotten!
At that terrible time, in the Chernobyl hell,
Life brings us back - it hurts a hundred times!
I implore people: we must not forget!
Don’t you dare repeat such mistakes!
On April 26, 1986, during a completely planned procedure at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, everything began to develop completely differently from how the regulations describe it and as common sense suggests...
Matvey Vologzhanin
Any event in the world consists of so many factors that we can safely say: the entire universe takes part in it in one way or another. The human ability to perceive and comprehend reality... well, what can we say about it? It is possible that we have already almost surpassed some plants in terms of success in this area. While we are simply living, we can not pay much attention to what is actually happening around us. Sounds of varying volumes are heard on the street, cars seem to be driving more or less in different directions, either a mosquito or the remnants of yesterday’s hallucination flew past your nose, and an elephant is being hurriedly brought around the corner, which you didn’t even notice.
Workers of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. 1984
But we are calm. We know there are Rules. The multiplication table, hygiene standards, the Military Regulations, the Criminal Code and Euclidean geometry - everything that helps us believe in the regularity, orderliness and, most importantly, predictability of what is happening. How did Lewis Carroll say: “If you hold a red-hot poker in your hands for too long, you will eventually get slightly burned”?
Trouble begins when disasters occur. Whatever their order, they almost always remain inexplicable and incomprehensible. Why did the sole of this still brand new left sandal fall off, while the right one is full of strength and health? Why, out of a thousand cars that drove across a frozen puddle that day, only one flew into a ditch? Why on April 26, 1986, during a completely planned procedure at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, did everything begin to develop completely differently than usual, not as described by the regulations and as common sense dictates? However, we will give the floor to a direct participant in the events.
What's happened?
Anatoly Dyatlov
“On April 26, 1986, at one hour, twenty-three minutes, forty seconds, the shift supervisor of Unit No. 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, Alexander Akimov, ordered the reactor to be shut down upon completion of the work carried out before shutting down the power unit for planned repairs. Reactor operator Leonid Toptunov removed the cap from the AZ button, which protects against accidental mistaken pressing, and pressed the button. At this signal, 187 reactor control rods began moving down into the core. The backlight lights on the mnemonic board lit up, and the arrows of the rod position indicators began to move. Alexander Akimov, standing half-turned to the reactor control panel, observed this, also saw that the “bunnies” of the AR imbalance indicators darted to the left, as it should be, which meant a decrease in the reactor power, and turned to the safety panel, which he was observing during the experiment.
But then something happened that even the wildest imagination could not predict. After a slight decrease, the reactor power suddenly began to increase at an ever-increasing speed, and alarm signals appeared. L. Toptunov shouted about an emergency increase in power. But he was unable to do anything. All he could do was hold down the AZ button, the control rods went into the active zone. He has no other means at his disposal. And everyone else too. A. Akimov sharply shouted: “Shut down the reactor!” He jumped to the control panel and de-energized the electromagnetic clutches of the control rod drives. The action is correct, but useless. After all, the CPS logic, that is, all its elements of logical circuits, worked correctly, the rods went into the zone. Now it is clear: after pressing the AZ button there was no correct action, there were no means of salvation... Two powerful explosions followed with a short interval. The AZ rods stopped moving without going even half way. They had nowhere else to go. At one hour, twenty-three minutes, forty-seven seconds, the reactor was destroyed by a power run-up using prompt neutrons. This is a collapse, the ultimate disaster that can happen at a power reactor. They didn’t think about it, they didn’t prepare for it.”
This is an excerpt from Anatoly Dyatlov’s book “Chernobyl. How it was". The author is the deputy chief engineer of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant for operation, who was present that day at the fourth unit, who became one of the liquidators, recognized as one of the perpetrators of the tragedy and sentenced to ten years in prison, from where he was released two years later to die from radiation, where he managed to write his memoirs before he died in 1995.
If someone studied physics at school very poorly and has a vague idea of what is happening inside the reactor, he probably did not understand what was described above. In principle, this can be conditionally explained in this way.
Let's imagine that we have tea in a glass that is trying to boil non-stop on its own. Well, this is tea. To prevent it from smashing the glass to smithereens and filling the kitchen with hot steam, we regularly lower metal spoons into the glass to cool it down. The colder we need the tea, the more spoons we shove. And vice versa: to make the tea hotter, we take out the spoons. Of course, boron carbide and graphite rods that are placed in the reactor work on a slightly different principle, but the essence does not change much.
Now let's remember what the main problem faces all power plants in the world. The biggest problem for energy workers is not with fuel prices, not with drinking electricians, and not with the crowds of “greenies” picketing their entrances. The biggest nuisance in the life of any power engineer is uneven power consumption by station clients. The unpleasant habit of mankind to work during the day, sleep at night, and also wash, shave and watch TV series in unison leads to the fact that the energy generated and consumed, instead of flowing in a smooth, even flow, is forced to gallop like a mad goat, which is why blackouts and other troubles occur. After all, instability in the operation of any system leads to failures, and getting rid of excess energy is more difficult than producing it. This is especially difficult at nuclear power plants, since it is quite difficult to explain to a chain reaction when it should be more active and when it can be slowed down.
Engineers at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. 1980
In the USSR, in the early eighties, they began to slowly explore the possibilities of quickly increasing and decreasing the power of reactors. This method of monitoring energy loads was, in theory, much simpler and more profitable than all others.
This program, of course, was not discussed openly; plant personnel could only speculate why these “planned repairs” became so frequent and the regulations for working with reactors changed. But, on the other hand, they didn’t do anything so extraordinarily vile with the reactors. And if this world were regulated only by the laws of physics and logic, then the fourth power unit would still behave like an angel and regularly stand in the service of the peaceful atom.
Because until now no one has been able to really answer the main question of the Chernobyl disaster: why did the reactor power that time after the introduction of the rods not fall, but, on the contrary, inexplicably increase sharply?
The two most authoritative bodies - the Gosatomnadzor Commission of the USSR and the special committee of the IAEA, after several years of work, produced documents, each of which is stuffed with facts about how the accident occurred, but not a single page in these detailed studies can find an answer to the question “why?” There you can find wishes, regrets, fears, indications of shortcomings and forecasts for the future, but there is no clear explanation for what happened. By and large, both of these reports could be reduced to the phrase “Someone boomed there”*.
* Note Phacochoerus "a Funtik: « No, well, this is already slander! The IAEA staff still spoke more civilly. In fact, they wrote: “It is not known for certain what started the power surge that led to the destruction of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant reactor »
Less official researchers, on the contrary, put forward their versions with all their might - one more beautiful and convincing than the other. And if there weren’t so many of them, one of them would probably be worth believing.
Various institutes, organizations and simply world-famous scientists took turns declaring the culprits of what happened:
incorrect design of rods; incorrect design of the reactor itself;
a personnel error that reduced the reactor power for too long; a local undetected earthquake that occurred right under the Chernobyl nuclear power plant; ball lightning; a particle still unknown to science, which sometimes occurs in a chain reaction.
The alphabet is not enough to list all the authoritative versions (non-authoritative versions, of course, as always, look more beautiful and contain such wonderful things as evil Martians, cunning Tsereushniks and an angry Jehovah. It’s a pity that such a respected scientific publication as MAXIM cannot go to about the base tastes of the crowd and describe it all in more detail with gusto.
These strange methods of dealing with radiation
The list of items that are usually required to be distributed to the public when a radiation hazard occurs seems incomplete to the uninitiated. Where is the button accordion, boa and net? But in reality, the things on this list are not so useless.
Mask Does anyone seriously believe that gamma rays that instantly penetrate steel will save you from five layers of gauze? Gamma rays are not. But radioactive dust, on which the heaviest, but no less dangerous substances have already settled, will enter the respiratory tract less intensively.
Iodine The isotope of iodine - one of the shortest-lived elements of radioactive release - has the unpleasant property of settling in the thyroid gland for a long time and rendering it completely unusable. It is recommended to take tablets with iodine so that your thyroid gland has an abundance of this iodine and no longer snatches it from the air. True, an overdose of iodine is a dangerous thing in itself, so it is not recommended to swallow it in bubbles.
Canned food Milk and vegetables would be the healthiest foods when exposed to radiation, but, alas, they are the first to become infected. And next comes meat, which ate vegetables and gave milk. So it is better not to collect pasture in an infected region. Especially mushrooms: they contain the highest concentration of radioactive chemical elements.
Liquidation
Recording of conversations between rescue service dispatchers immediately after the disaster:
The explosion itself claimed the lives of two people: one died immediately, the second was taken to the hospital. Firefighters were the first to arrive at the scene of the disaster and set to work - putting out the fire. They extinguished it in canvas overalls and helmets. They had no other means of protection, and they did not know about the radiation threat - only a couple of hours later information began to spread that this fire was somewhat different from the usual one.
By morning, the firefighters put out the flames and began to faint - radiation damage began to take its toll. 136 employees and rescuers who found themselves at the station that day received a huge dose of radiation, and one in four died in the first months after the accident.
Over the next three years, a total of about half a million people were involved in eliminating the consequences of the explosion (almost half of them were conscripts, many of whom were actually sent to Chernobyl by force). The disaster site itself was covered with a mixture of lead, boron and dolomite, after which a concrete sarcophagus was erected over the reactor. Nevertheless, the amount of radioactive substances released into the air immediately after the accident and in the first weeks after it was enormous. Neither before nor after have such numbers found themselves in densely populated areas.
The deaf silence of the USSR authorities about the accident did not seem as strange then as it does now. It was such a common practice at the time to hide bad or exciting news from the population that even information about a sexual maniac operating in the area might not reach the ears of the serene public for years; and only when the next “Fisher” or “Mosgaz” began counting its victims into dozens, or even hundreds, the district police were given the task of quietly bringing to the attention of parents and teachers the fact that it was probably better for children not to run alone down the street just yet.
Therefore, the city of Pripyat was evacuated hastily, but quietly, the day after the accident. People were told that they were being taken out for a day, maximum two, and were asked not to take any things with them, so as not to overload the transport. The authorities did not say a word about radiation.
Rumors, of course, began to spread, but the vast majority of residents of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia had never heard of any Chernobyl. Some members of the CPSU Central Committee had the conscience to raise the issue of canceling May Day demonstrations, at least in cities located directly in the path of the polluted clouds, but it was felt that such a violation of the eternal order would cause unhealthy unrest in society. So residents of Kyiv, Minsk and other cities had time to run around with balloons and carnations in the radioactive rain.
But it was impossible to hide a radioactive release of such a scale. The Poles and Scandinavians were the first to raise a cry, to whom those same magical clouds flew from the east and brought with them a lot of interesting things.
Victims
Of course, the government could continue to pretend that nothing was happening, but here we can justify the Soviet officials a little: they still weren’t such complete ghouls who sleep and see how to turn two hundred and a half million of their subjects into those covered with ulcers mutants. From the very beginning, they consulted with scientists, primarily with nuclear experts, trying to find out the degree of threat to the health of citizens in the regions neighboring Chernobyl. The content of these negotiations is either not recorded or is still secret, but, apparently, it was the scientists who radiated exceptional optimism at that time.
Indirect evidence confirming that scientists gave the government the go-ahead to remain silent about Chernobyl may be the fact that scientist Valery Legasov, a member of the government commission to investigate the accident, who organized the liquidation for four months and voiced the official (very smooth) version of what was happening to the foreign press, in 1988 year, he hanged himself, leaving a dictaphone recording in his office telling about the details of the accident, and that part of the recording, which chronologically should have contained a story about the authorities’ reaction to the events in the first days, turned out to be erased by unidentified persons.
Another indirect evidence of this is that scientists still radiate optimism. And now officials of the Federal Atomic Energy Agency are of the opinion that only those several hundred people who took part in the liquidation in the first days of the explosion, and even then with banknotes, can be considered really affected by the explosion. For example, the article “Who helped create the Chernobyl myth”, written by specialists from the FAAE and IBRAE RAS in 2005, analyzes statistics on the health of residents of contaminated areas and, recognizing that in general the population there gets sick a little more often, sees the reason only in the fact that succumbing to alarmist sentiments, people, firstly, run to doctors with every pimple, and secondly, for many years they have been living in unhealthy stress caused by hysteria in the yellow press. They explain the huge number of disabled people among the first wave of liquidators by the fact that “being disabled is beneficial,” and hint that the main cause of catastrophic mortality among liquidators is not the consequences of radiation, but alcoholism, caused by the same irrational fear of radiation. Our peaceful nuclear scientists even write the phrase “radiation danger” exclusively in quotation marks.
But this is one side of the coin. For every nuclear worker who is convinced that there is no cleaner and safer energy in the world than nuclear energy, there is a member of an environmental or human rights organization ready to sow that same panic with generous handfuls.
Greenpeace, for example, estimates the number of victims of the Chernobyl accident at 10 million, adding to them, however, representatives of subsequent generations who will get sick or be born sick over the next 50 years.
Between these two poles there are dozens and hundreds of international organizations, whose statistical studies contradict each other so much that in 2003 the IAEA was forced to create the Chernobyl Forum organization, whose task would be to analyze these statistics in order to create at least some reliable picture what's happening.
And there is still nothing clear about the assessment of the consequences of the disaster. The increase in mortality among the population from areas close to Chernobyl can be explained by the mass migration of young people from there. A slight “rejuvenation” of oncological diseases is due to the fact that local residents are checked for oncology much more intensively than in other places, so many cases of cancer are caught at very early stages. Even the condition of burdocks and ladybugs in the closed zone around Chernobyl is the subject of fierce debate. It seems like the burdocks grow amazingly juicy, and the cows are well-fed, and the number of mutations in the local flora and fauna is within the natural norm. But what is the harmlessness of radiation here, and what is the beneficial effect of the absence of people for many kilometers around, it is difficult to answer.
