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July 24 - August 11, 2024
was too late. At 1:24 a.m., there was a tremendous roar, probably caused as a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen that had formed inside the reactor space suddenly ignited. The entire building shuddered as Reactor Number Four was torn apart by a catastrophic explosion, equivalent to as much as sixty tonnes of TNT. The blast caromed off the walls of the reactor vessel, tore open the hundreds of pipes of the steam and water circuit, and tossed the upper biological shield into the air like a flipped coin; it swatted
In that moment, the core of the reactor was completely destroyed. Almost seven tonnes of uranium fuel, together with pieces of control rods, zirconium channels, and graphite blocks, were pulverized into tiny fragments and sucked high into the atmosphere, forming a mixture of gases and aerosols carrying radioisotopes, including iodine 131, neptunium 239, cesium 137, strontium 90, and plutonium 239—among the most dangerous substances known to man. A further 25 to 30 tonnes of uranium and highly radioactive graphite were launched out of the core and scattered around Unit Four, starting small
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As dawn broke over the Kremlin—and even as an increasing volume of high-frequency traffic flashed across the special telephone lines connecting Moscow, Kiev, and Chernobyl—Brukhanov’s reassuring assessment of what had happened began to percolate through the upper echelons of Soviet government. By 6:00 a.m., news of the accident had reached USSR energy minister Anatoly Mayorets, and he called the Soviet prime minister, Nikolai Ryzhkov, at home. He told Ryzhkov that there had been a fire at the Chernobyl station. One unit was out of commission, but the situation was under control: a team of
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“An explosion occurred in the upper part of the reactor chamber,” the cable read. “The roof and parts of the wall panels of the reactor compartment, several roof panels of the machine room . . . were demolished during the explosion and the roofing caught on fire. The fire was extinguished at 0330.” To a government that had developed a strong stomach for industrial accidents, this was familiar territory. Some sort of explosion, yes; a fire, which had already been put out. A serious incident, certainly, but nothing that couldn’t be contained. The main thing was that the reactor itself remained
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“Natalia,” she said, “your husband asked me to tell you that you shouldn’t go to work. He’s in the hospital. There’s been an accident at the station.” Around the
“There has been an accident,” Malomuzh said, but offered no further information. “The conditions are being evaluated right now. When we know more details, we’ll let you know.”
But at the plant, the nuclear engineers on the morning shift recognized all too clearly the danger the city was facing and tried to warn their families.
‘2,000 DIE’ IN NUKEMARE; Soviets Appeal for Help as N-Plant Burns out of Control,” screamed the front page of the New York Post
“Find the nitrogen,” the commission chairman said, “or you’ll be shot.”
“Don’t bring out the beast in me, you bastard!” Zborovsky roared. “Or I’ll have my troops tie you up and throw you out beside Unit Four. Fifteen minutes out there, and you won’t be able to utter another word.”
Lines outside liquor stores quadrupled in length as people sought protection from radioactivity with red wine and vodka, forcing the Ukrainian deputy minister of health to announce, “There is no truth to the rumor that alcohol is useful against radiation.”
At a press conference in Moscow the following day, Rosen told reporters that the graphite fire was out and that measurements taken during their helicopter flight revealed that “there is relatively little radioactivity now.” He felt confident there was no longer any risk of a meltdown. “The situation appears to be stabilizing,” he said.
The investigator spotted someone standing in the gloaming who was idly smoking a cigarette, watching the water cascading through the wreckage. “Hey! What happened here?” Yankovsky asked. “Oh, something blew up,” the man replied. Casually—as if it happened all the time. The locals could have handled this, thought Yankovsky.
“The accident was caused by a combination of highly improbable technical factors,”
“For thirty years, you told us that everything was perfectly safe. You assumed we would look up to you as gods. That’s the reason why all this happened, why it ended in disaster. There was nobody controlling the ministries and scientific centers,” he said. “And for the moment, I can see no signs that you have drawn the necessary conclusions. In fact, it seems that you are attempting to cover everything up.”
Eventually the Kurchatov scientists reached one of the rooms in the basement of the reactor hall, three floors beneath—and far to the east of—the reactor vessel itself. Carrying a device that could measure dose rates up to 3,000 roentgen an hour, the team found relatively tolerable levels of radiation along their route.
But then they pushed the sensor of the radiometer upstairs, into the space directly above where they stood. There, in compartment 217/2 on mark +6, it encountered a gamma field so hot that the instrument reached its maximum reading and then—its mechanism overwhelmed—burned out.
Eight days later, Tarakanov was climbing into his car outside the plant when he collapsed. After almost two weeks inside his command post watching his troops’ progress on closed-circuit TV, and in repeated visits to the rooftops, the general himself had collected a dose of 200 rem.
